and Son, still retains his supremacy; and, to whatever sublimity the rebel angel is lifted, soars in unapproached dominion above him. All this is displayed with marvellous splendour of genius in the close of the Sixth Book. The effects of Satan's defeat are conceived and described with a superhuman strength of imagination. I have already expressed an opinion very unpopular, that the argumentative parts of this composition are as noble in poetical merit as the descriptive. They spring from that visionary power which makes the poet, as the fresh and fragrant exhalations arise from the fruits and flowers of the productive earth. If they strike less at first, they longer retain their charm. But I would not forego the imagery: it is the union of both which makes the unrivalled and inimitable excellence of this work, so far surpassing all other mere human compositions. Nay, it must not be called merely human: it has all the marks of inspiration; and when such large parts of it are the words of Holy Writ, can this be wondered at? ARGUMENT. RAPHAEL continues to relate how Michael and Gabriel were sent forth to battel against Satan and his angels. The first fight described; Satan and his powers retire under night: he calls a council; invents devilish engines, which, in the second day's fight, put Michael and his angels to some disorder; but they at length, pulling up mountains, overwhelmed both the force and machines of Satan: yet the tumult not so ending, God on the third day sends Messiah his Son, for whom he had reserved the glory of that victory. He, in the power of his Father, coming to the place, and causing all his legions to stand still on either side, with his chariot and thunder driving into the midst of his enemies, pursues them, unable to resist, towards the wall of heaven; which opening, they leap down with horrour and confusion into the place of punishment prepared for them in the deep. Messiah returns with triumph to his Father. ALL night the dreadless angel, unpursued, Through heaven's wide champain held his way; till Morn, Unbarr'd the gates of light. There is a cave Within the mount of God, fast by his throne, 5 Where light and darkness in perpetual round Lodge and dislodge by turns, which makes through heaven Light issues forth, and at the other door Obsequious darkness enters, till her hour 10 To veil the heaven, though darkness there might well Seem twilight here: and now went forth the Morn, Empyreal: from before her vanish'd Night, Shot through with orient beams; when all the plain, Lo, where the rosy-bosom'd hours. Lodge and dislodge by turns. 15 The thought of light and darkness lodging and dislodging by turns, the one issuing forth, and the other entering, is plainly borrowed from a fine passage in Hesiod, Theog. 748.-NEWTON. Shot through. Thyer objects to this as a quaint conceit below the dignity of Milton: on the contrary, it is correctly and beautifully poetical. Cover'd with thick embattel'd squadrons bright, Servant of God, well done; well hast thou fought Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms; To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds d Blaze on blaze. 20 25 30 35 40 See 1 Maccabees, vi. 39. "Now when the sun shone upon the shields of gold and brass, the mountains glistered therewith, and shined like lamps of fire.”—TODD. • Universal reproach. This sentiment is very just, and not unlike what Florus says, in his character of Tarquin the Proud: "In omnes superbia, quæ crudelitate gravior est bonis, grassatus," lib. i. c. 7. So also Spenser, F. Q. iv. iv. 4. For evil deeds may better than bad ones be bore.-THYER. Beaumont and Fletcher express the same sentiment very well, "Beggar's Bush," a. ii. s. 3. A good man bears contumely worse Go, Michael. As this battle of the angels is founded principally on Rev. xii. 7, 8,"There was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the Dragon: and the Dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven,"-Michael is rightly made by Milton the leader of the heavenly armies: and the name in Hebrew signifies the power of God. But it may be censured, perhaps, as a piece of wrong conduct in the poem, that the commission here given is not executed: they are ordered to drive the rebel angels "out from God and bliss;" but this is effected at last by the Messiah alone. Some reasons for it are assigned in the speech of God, v. 680; and in that of the Messiah, v. 801, of this book.-NEWTON. This circumstance is, I believe, the most indefensible part of the whole poem. The commission is not only given, but the execution of it is in a certain degree foreshown. See v. 51, &c.-ĎUNSTER. And thou, in military prowess next, By thousands and by millions, ranged for fight, Rebellious: them with fire and hostile arms g So spake the sovran voice, and clouds began In silence their bright legions, to the sound Heroic ardour to adventurous deeds Under their godlike leaders, in the cause i Nor straitening vale, nor wood, nor stream, divides And clouds began. In this description the author manifestly alludes to that of God descending upon Mount Sinai. Exod. xix. 16, &c.-NEWTON. b Reluctant flames. Dunster says this word reluctant is misunderstood by Newton: luctari is to be interpreted "prorumpendi impetus," and that reluctari is the highest degree of that "impetus." Here it is the most violent exertion of the fire to resist and break through the smoke. i For high above the ground. Our author attributes the same kind of motion to the angels as the ancients did to their gods; which was gliding through the air without ever touching the ground with their feet, or, as Milton elsewhere elegantly expresses it (b. viii. 302), "smooth-sliding, without step," and Homer, II. v. 778, compares the motions of two goddesses to the flight of doves, as Milton here compares the march of the angels to the birds coming on the wing to Adam to receive their names.—) .-NEWTON. As when the total kind. Homer has used the simile of a flight of fowls twice in his Iliad, to express the number and the motions, the order and the clamour, of an army. See Il. ii. 459, iii. 2, as Virgil has done the same number of times in his Eneid, vii. 699, x. 264. But this simile exceeds any of those: first, as it rises so naturally out of the subject, and was a comparison so familiar to Adam: secondly, the angels were marching through the air, and not on the ground, which gives it another propriety; and here I believe the poet intended the chief likeness: thirdly, the total kind of birds much more properly expresses a prodigious number than any particular species, or a collection in any Of birds, in orderly array on wing, Their names of thee; so over many a tract Of heaven they march'd, and many a province wide, Of rigid spears, and helmets throng'd, and shields With flaming cherubim and golden shields; Then lighted from his gorgeous throne, for now Presented stood in terrible array Of hideous length. Before the cloudy van, On the rough edge of battel ere it join'd, Satan, with vast and haughty strides advanced, 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 particular place. Thus Milton has raised the image in proportion to his subject. See an "Essay upon Milton's Imitations of the Ancients," p. 9.-NEWTON. * And nearer view. To the north appeared a fiery region, and nearer to the view appeared the banded powers of Satan. It appeared a fiery region indistinctly at first, but upon nearer view it proved to be Satan's rebel army.-NEWTON. This image is amazingly picturesque and magnificent. |