Thy sin and place of doom obscure and foul.
But come; for thou, be sure, shalt give account
To him who sent us, whose charge is to keep
This place inviolable, and these from harm.

So spake the cherub; and his grave rebuke,
Severe in youthful beauty, added grace
Invincible: abash'd the devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her shape how lovely'; saw, and pined
His loss but chiefly to find here observed
His lustre visibly impair'd; yet seem'd
Undaunted. If I must contend, said he,
Best with the best, the sender not the sent,
Or all at once; more glory will be won,

Or less be lost. Thy fear, said Zephon bold,
Will save us trial what the least can do
Single against thee, wicked and thence weak.

The fiend replied not, overcome with rage;
But, like a proud steed rein'd, went haughty on,
Champing his iron curb: to strive or fly
He held it vain; awe from above had quell'd
His heart, not else dismay'd. Now drew they nigh
The western point, where those half-rounding guards
Just met, and closing stood in squadron join'd,
Awaiting next command. To whom their chief,
Gabriel, from the front thus call'd aloud:-

:

O friends! I hear the tread of nimble feet
Hasting this way, and now by glimpse discern
Ithuriel and Zephon through the shade;
And with them comes a third of regal port,
But faded splendour wan; who by his gait
And fierce demeanour seems the prince of hell,
Nor likely to part hence without contest:
Stand firm; for in his look defiance lours.

He scarce had ended, when those two approach'd,
And brief related whom they brought, where found,
How busied, in what form and posture couch'd.

To whom with stern regard thus Gabriel spake :
Why hast thou, Satan, broke the bounds prescribed
To thy transgressions? and disturb'd the charge
Of others, who approve not to transgress
By thy example? but have power and right

Virtue in her shape how lovely.

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What is said here of seeing "virtue in her shape how lovely," is manifestly borrowed from Plato and Cicero:-"Formam quidem ipsam et quasi faciem honesti vides, que si oculis cerneretur, mirabiles amores (ut ait Plato) excitaret sapientiæ." Cic. de Off.-NEWTON.

The bounds prescribed.

Milton means, as I suppose, that the bounds of hell were by God prescribed to Satan's transgressions, so that it was intended he should transgress nowhere else, but within those bounds; whereas he was now attempting to transgress without them.-NEWTON.

To question thy bold entrance on this place;
Employ'd, it seems, to violate sleep, and those
Whose dwelling God hath planted here in bliss.

To whom thus Satan, with contemptuous brow:
Gabriel, thou hadst in heaven the esteem of wise,
And such I held thee; but this question ask'd
Puts me in doubt. Lives there who loves his pain?
Who would not, finding way, break loose from hell,
Though thither doom'd? thou wouldst thyself no doubt,
And boldly venture to whatever place

Farthest from pain, where thou mightst hope to change
Torment with ease, and soonest recompense

Dole with delight; which in this place I sought.
To thee no reason, who know'st only good,
But evil hast not tried: and wilt object

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His will who bounds us? Let him surer bar
His iron gates, if he intends our stay

In that dark durance: thus much what was ask'd.
The rest is true, they found me where they say;
But that implies not violence or harm.

Thus he in scorn. The warlike angel moved,
Disdainfully half smiling, thus replied:-
O loss of one in heaven to judge of wise!
Since Satan fell, whom folly overthrew ;
And now returns him from his prison 'scaped,
Gravely in doubt whether to hold them wise
Or not, who ask what boldness brought him hither
Unlicensed from his bounds in hell prescribed:
So wise he judges it to fly from pain
However, and to 'scape his punishment.

So judge thou still, presumptuous; till the wrath,
Which thou incurr'st by flying, meet thy flight
Sevenfold, and scourge that wisdom back to hell,
Which taught thee yet no better, that no pain
Can equal anger infinite provoked.

But wherefore thou alone? wherefore with thee
Came not all hell broke loose? is pain to them
Less pain, less to be fled; or thou than they
Less hardy to endure? Courageous chief!

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The first in flight from pain! hadst thou alleged
To thy deserted host this cause of flight,
Thou surely hadst not come sole fugitive.

To which the fiend thus answer'd, frowning stern:-
Not that I less endure, or shrink from pain,
Insulting angel! well thou know'st I stood
Thy fiercest; when in battel to thy aid
The blasting vollied thunder made all speed,
And seconded thy else not dreaded spear.
But still thy words at random, as before,

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Argue thy inexperience what behoves
From hard assays and ill successes past
A faithful leader: not to hazard all
Through ways of danger by himself untried:
I therefore, I alone first undertook
To wing the desolate abyss, and spy
This new created world, whereof in hell
Fame is not silent; here in hope to find
Better abode, and my afflicted powers
To settle here on earth, or in mid air;

Though for possession put to try once more

What thou and thy gay legions dare against;
Whose easier business were to serve their Lord

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High up in heaven, with songs to hymn his throne,

And practised distances to cringe, not fight.

To whom the warrior angel soon replied:

To say and straight unsay, pretending first

Wise to fly pain, professing next the spy,
Argues no leader, but a liar traced,

Satan, and couldst thou faithful add? O name,

O sacred name of faithfulness profaned!

Faithful to whom? to thy rebellious crew?
Army of fiends, fit body to fit head.

Was this your discipline and faith engaged,
Your military obedience, to dissolve
Allegiance to the acknowledged Power supreme?
And thou, sly hypocrite, who now wouldst seem
Patron of liberty! who more than thou
Once fawn'd, and cringed, and servilely adored
Heaven's awful Monarch? wherefore but in hope
To dispossess him, and thyself to reign?
But mark what I arreed thee now; Avaunt;
Fly thither whence thou fledst: if from this hour
Within these hallow'd limits thou appear,
Back to the infernal pit I drag thee chain'd,
And seal thee so, as henceforth not to scorn
The facile gates of hell too slightly barr'd.

So threaten'd he: but Satan to no threats
Gave heed, but waxing more in rage replied:-
Then, when I am thy captive, talk of chains,
Proud limitary cherub; but ere then
Far heavier load thyself expect to feel
From my prevailing arm; though heaven's King
Ride on thy wings ", and thou with thy compeers,

"Ride on thy wings.

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This seems to allude to Ezekiel's vision, where four cherubims are appointed to the four wheels: "And the cherubims did lift up their wings, and the wheels beside them; and the glory of the Lord God of Israel was over them above." See Chap. i.

and x. and xi. 22.-NEWTON.

Used to the yoke, draw'st his triumphant wheels
In progress through the road of heaven star-paved.
While thus he spake, the angelic squadron bright
Turn'd fiery red, sharpening in mooned horns
Their phalanx, and began to hem him round.
With ported spears, as thick as when a field
Of Ceres, ripe for harvest, waving bends

Her bearded grove of ears, which way the wind
Sways them; the careful plowman doubting stands,
Lest on the threshing floor his hopeful sheaves
Prove chaff. On the other side, Satan, alarm'd,
Collecting all his might, dilated stood",
Like Teneriff or Atlas, unremoved:

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His stature reach'd the sky, and on his crest

Sat horrour plumed; nor wanted in his grasp

What seem'd both spear and shield. Now dreadful deeds

Might have ensued; nor only Paradise

In this commotion, but the starry cope

Of heaven perhaps, or all the elements

At least had gone to wrack, disturb'd and torn
With violence of this conflict; had not soon
The Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray,

Hung forth in heaven his golden scales, yet seen
Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign,
Wherein all things created first he weigh'd,
The pendulous round earth with balanced air
In counterpoise; now ponders all events,

W

Battels, and realms: in these he put two weights,
The sequel each of parting and of fight*:

Dilated stood.

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One of the interesting features of the great adversary of God and man, as drawn by the poet, is resolution in danger: it therefore well admits the poetical decorations that follow.-DUNSTER.

"His golden scales, yet seen.

The breaking off the combat between Gabriel and Satan, by the hanging out of the golden scales in heaven, is a refinement upon Homer's thought, who tells us, that before the battle between Hector and Achilles, Jupiter weighed the event of it in a pair of scales. The reader may see the whole passage in the 22nd Iliad.

Virgil, before the last decisive combat, describes Jupiter in the same manner, as weighing the fates of Turnus and Eneas. Milton, though he fetched this beautiful circumstance from the Iliad and Æncid, does not only insert it as a poetical embellishment, like the authors above mentioned, but makes an artful use of it for the proper carrying on of his fable, and for the breaking off the combat between the two warriors, who were upon the point of engaging. To this we may farther add, that Milton is the more justified in this passage, as we find the same noble allegory in Holy Writ, where a wicked prince, some few hours before he was assaulted and slain, is said to have been "weighed in the scales and to have been found wanting."-ADDISON.

The allusion, as Dr. Newton observes, to the heavenly sign, Libra, or the Scales, is a beauty that is not in Homer or Virgil, and gives a manifest advantage over both their descriptions.-TODD.

* The sequel each of parting and of fight.

In Homer and Virgil the combatants are weighed one against another; but here only Satan is weighed; in one scale, the consequence of his retreating; in the other, of his

The latter quick upflew and kick'd the beam;
Which Gabriel spying, thus bespake the fiend :

Satan, I know thy strength, and thou know'st mine;
Neither our own, but given: what folly then

To boast what arms can do! since thine no more

Than Heaven permits, nor mine, though doubled now
To trample thee as mire: for proof look up,

And read thy lot in yon celestial sign;

Where thou art weigh'd, and shown how light, how weak,
If thou resist. The fiend look'd up, and knew
His mounted scale aloft: nor more; but fled
Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night.

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fighting. And there is this farther improvement; that, as in Homer and Virgil the fates are weighed to satisfy Jupiter himself, it is here done to satisfy only the contending parties; for Satan to read his own destiny! So that when Milton imitates a fine passage, he does not imitate it servilely, but makes it, as I may say, an original of his own, by his manner of varying and improving it.-Newton,

Where thou art weigh'd.

See Dan. v. 27. "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting." So true it is, that Milton oftener imitates Scripture than Homer and Virgil, even where he is thought to imitate them most.-NEWTON.

I shall add to the particular notes an extract from Addison's observations on this

book of the poem:

We may consider the beauties of the fourth book under three heads. In the first are those pictures of still-life, which we meet with in the description of Eden, Paradise, Adam's bower, &c.: in the next are the machines, which comprehend the speeches and behaviour of the good and bad angels: in the last is the conduct of Adam and Eve, who are the principal actors in the poem.

In the description of Paradise, the poet has observed Aristotle's rule of lavishing all the ornaments of diction on the weak inactive parts of the fable which are not supported by the beauty of sentiments and characters. Accordingly, the reader may observe, that the expressions are more florid and elaborate in these descriptions, than in most other parts of the poem. I must farther add, that, though the drawings of gardens, rivers, rainbows, and the like dead pieces of nature, are justly censured in an heroic poem, when they run out into an unnecessary length, the description of Paradise would have been faulty, had not the poet been very particular in it; not only as it is the scene of the principal action, but as it is requisite to give us an idea of that happiness from which our first parents fell. The plan of it is wonderfully beautiful, and formed upon the short sketch which we have of it in Holy Writ. Milton's exuberance of imagination has poured forth such a redundancy of ornaments on this seat of happiness and innocence, that it would be endless to point out each particular.

I must not quit this head without farther observing, that there is scarce a speech of Adam or Eve in the whole poem, wherein the sentiments and allusions are not taken from this their delightful habitation. The reader, during their whole course of action, always finds himself in the walks of Paradise. In short, as the critics have remarked, that, in those poems wherein shepherds are the actors, the thoughts ought always to take a tincture from the woods, fields, and rivers; so may we observe, that our first parents seldom lose sight of their happy station in anything they speak or do; and, if the reader will give me leave to use the expression, that their thoughts are always paradisiacal.

We are in the next place to consider the machines of the fourth book. 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.

I