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Then when the dragon, put to second rout,
Came furious down to be revenged on men,
"Woe to the inhabitants on earth!' that now,
While time was, our first parents had been warn'd
The coming of their secret foe, and 'scaped,
Haply so 'scaped his mortal snare; for now
Satan, now first inflamed with rage, came down,
The tempter ere the accuser of mankind,
To wreak on innocent frail man his loss
Of that first battel, and his flight to hell:
Yet not rejoicing in his speed b, though bold
Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast,
Begins his dire attempt; which nigh the birth,
Now rolling, boils in his tumultuous breast,
And like a devilish engine back recoils
Upon himself: horrour and doubt distract
His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir
The hell within him; for within him hell

He brings, and round about him, nor from hell
One step, no more than from himself, can fly

By change of place: now conscience wakes despair
That slumber'd; wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be,
Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.
Sometimes towards Eden, which now in his view
Lay pleasant, his grieved look he fixes sad;
Sometimes towards heaven and the full blazing sun,

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Which now sat high in his meridian tower :

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Then, much revolving, thus in sighs began:-

d

O thou, that, with surpassing glory crown'd,

introduces his relation of Satan's adventures upon earth, by wishing that the same warning voice had been uttered now at Satan's first coming, which St. John, who in a vision saw the Apocalypse, or revelation of the most remarkable events which were to befal the Christian church to the end of the world, heard when the dragon was put to second rout, Rev. xii. 12. "Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! for

the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath."--NEWTON.

b Yet not rejoicing in his speed.

Satan was bold far off and fearless; and, as he drew nearer, was pleased with hoped success; but now he is come to earth to begin his dire attempt, he does not rejoice in it; his heart misgives him; horror and doubt distract him. This is all very natural.-NEWTON.

c Sometimes towards heaven.

All this passage is highly poetical and pathetic.

do thou, that, with surpassing.

One of those magnificent speeches to which no other name can be given, than that it is supereminently Miltonic. This is mainly argumentative sublimity; in which I think that he is even still greater than in his splendid and majestic imagery. The alternations of this dreadful speech strike and move the mind like the changes of the tempest in a dark night, when the thunder and lightning roar and flash, and then intermit, and then redouble again.

Compare the opening speech in the Phoenissæ of Euripides; where Porson has remarked, that Milton had once intended to have written a tragedy, not an epic, and to have commenced it with this address to the Sun. It is only necessary to give the

Look'st from thy sole dominion like the God
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminish'd heads; to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice; and add thy name,
O sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once-above thy sphere;
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down,
Warring in heaven against heaven's matchless King.
Ah, wherefore? he deserved no such return
From me, whom he created what I was
In that bright eminence, and with his good
Upbraided none; nor was his service hard.
What could be less than to afford him praise,
The easiest recompense, and pay him thanks?
How due! yet all his good proved ill in me,
And wrought but malice; lifted up so high,
I'sdain'd subjection, and thought one step higher
Would set me highest, and in a moment quit
The debt immense of endless gratitude,
So burdensome; still paying, still to owe;
Forgetful what from him I still received;
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharged: what burden then?
O, had his powerful destiny ordain'd
Me some inferiour angel, I had stood
Then happy; no unbounded hope had raised
Ambition! Yet why not? some other power

As great might have aspired, and me, though mean,
Drawn to his part; but other powers as great

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Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within

Or from without, to all temptations arm'd.

Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand?

Thou hadst whom hast thou then or what to accuse,
But Heaven's free love dealt equally to all?

Be then his love accursed; since love or hate,

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Professor's authority :-"These verses, several years before the poem was begun, were shown to me, and some others, as designed for the very beginning of a tragedy upon this subject."-EDWARD PHILIPS.

O, then at last relent: is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the spirits beneath; whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit; boasting I could subdue
The Omnipotent. Ay me! they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain ;
Under what torments inwardly I groan;
While they adore me on the throne of hell:
With diadem and sceptre high advanced,
The lower still I fall; only supreme
In misery: such joy ambition finds.
But say I could repent, and could obtain
By act of grace my former state; how soon

Would highth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay

What feign'd submission swore! Ease would recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void.
For never can true reconcilement grow

Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep;
Which would but lead me to a worse relapse
And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear
Short intermission bought with double smart.
This knows my Punisher; therefore as far
From granting he, as I from begging peace :
All hope excluded thus; behold, instead
Of us outcast, exiled, his new delight,
Mankind, created, and for him this world.
So farewell hope, and with hope, farewell, fear;
Farewell, remorse: all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good; by thee at least
Divided empire with heaven's king I hold,

By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign;

As man ere long and this new world shall know.
Thus while he spake, each passion dimm'd his face f
Thrice changed with pale, ire, envy, and despair;

e This new world.

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Satan being now within prospect of Eden, and looking round upon the glories of the creation, is filled with sentiments different from those which he discovered whilst he was in hell. The place inspires him with thoughts more adapted to it. He reflects upon the happy condition from whence he fell, and breaks forth into a speech that is softened with several transient touches of remorse and self-accusation; but at length he confirms himself in impenitence, and in his design of drawing man into his own state of guilt and misery. This conflict of passions is roused with a great deal of art, as the opening of his speech to the Sun is very bold and noble.

This speech is, I think, the finest that is ascribed to Satan in the whole poem.ADDISON.

Each passion dimm'd his face.

Each passion, ire, envy, and despair, dimm'd his countenance, which was thrice

Which marr'd his borrow'd visage, and betray'd
Him counterfeit, if any eye beheld :

For heavenly minds from such distempers foul
Are ever clear. Whereof he soon aware

Each perturbation smoothed with outward calm,
Artificer of fraud; and was the first

That practised falsehood under saintly show,
Deep malice to conceal, couch'd with revenge :
Yet not enough had practised to deceive
Uriel once warn'd; whose eye pursued him down
The way
he went, and on the Assyrian mount
Saw him disfigured more than could befall
Spirit of happy sort: his gestures fierce
He mark'd and mad demeanour, then alone,

As he supposed, all unobserved, unseen.
So on he fares, and to the border comes
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,

Now nearer crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champain head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied; and overhead up grew
Insuperable highth of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A sylvan scene; and, as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody theatre

Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verdurous wall of Paradise up sprung;
Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into his nether empire neighbouring round.
And higher than that wall a circling row
Of goodliest trees loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,
Appear'd, with gay enamel'd colours mix'd:

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On which the sun more glad impress'd his beams,

Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,

When God hath shower'd the earth; so lovely seem'd

That landskip and of pure now purer air

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Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires

Vernal delight and joy 8, able to drive
All sadness but despair: now gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense

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changed with pale through the successive agitations of these three passions: for, that paleness is the proper hue of envy and despair, everybody knows; and we always reckon that sort of anger the most deadly and diabolical which is accompanied with a pale, livid countenance.-NEWTON.

Vernal delight and joy.

So in Milton's Tractate of Education: "In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature not to go out, and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.”—TODD.

Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole h
Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are pass'd
Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabæan odours i from the spicy shore

Of Araby the bless'd; with such delay

Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league
Cheer'd with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles :

So entertain'd those odorous sweets the fiend

Who came their bane; though with them better pleased
Than Asmodeus with the fishy fume,

That drove him, though enamour'd, from the spouse

Of Tobit's son, and with a vengeance sent

From Media post to Egypt, there fast bound.
Now to the ascent of that steep savage hill
Satan had journey'd on, pensive and slow;
But farther way found none; so thick entwined,
As one continued brake, the undergrowth
Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplex'd
All path of man or beast that pass'd that way.
One gate there only was, and that look'd east

On the other side: which when the arch-felon saw,
Due entrance he disdain'd; and in contempt,
At one slight bound high overleap'd all bound
Of hill or highest wall, and sheer within
Lights on his feet. As when a prowling wolf,
Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey,
Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve
In hurdled cotes amid the field secure,
Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold:
Or as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash
Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors,
Cross'd-barr'd and bolted fast, fear no assault,
In at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles :
So clomb this first grand thief into God's fold;
So since into his church lewd hirelings climb.
Thence up he flew; and on the Tree of Life,

h Whisper whence they stole.

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This expression of the air's stealing and dispersing the sweets of flowers, is very common in the best Italian poets.-NEWTON.

i Sabaan odours.

Wakefield says that Milton delineated this beautiful description from Diodorus Siculus, lib. iii. 46, where the aromatic plants in Sabea, or Arabia Felix, are described as yielding "inexpressible fragrance to the senses, not unenjoyed even by the navigator, though he sails by at a great distance from the shore: for, in the spring, when the wind blows off land, the odour from the aromatic trees and plants diffuses itself over all the neighbouring sea." Notes on Gray, p. 10.-TODD.

j Asmodeus.

This history of Asmodeus has by no means a good effect.-DUNSTER.

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