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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,
Waked by the circling hours", with rosy hand

Unbarr'd the gates of light. There is a cave

Within the mount of God, fast by his throne,

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Where light and darkness in perpetual round

Lodge and dislodge by turns, which makes through heaven
Grateful vicissitude, like day and night:

Light issues forth, and at the other door

Obsequious darkness enters, till her hour

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To veil the heaven, though darkness there might well

Seem twilight here: and now went forth the Morn,
Such as in highest heaven, array'd in gold

Empyreal: from before her vanish'd Night,

Shot through with orient beams; when all the plain,

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Lo, where the rosy-bosom'd hours.

Lodge and dislodge by turns.

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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,
Chariots, and flaming arms, and fiery steeds,
Reflecting blaze on blaze, first met his view :
War he perceived, war in procinct; and found
Already known what he for news had thought
To have reported: gladly then he mix'd.
Among those friendly powers, who him received
With joy and acclamations loud, that one,
That of so many myriads fallen, yet one
Return'd not lost. On to the sacred hill
They led him high applauded, and present
Before the seat supreme; from whence a voice,
From midst a golden cloud, thus mild was heard:

Servant of God, well done; well hast thou fought
The better fight, who single hast maintain'd
Against revolted multitudes the cause

Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms;
And for the testimony of truth hast borne
Universal reproach, far worse to bear
Than violence; for this was all thy care,

To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds
Judged thee perverse: the easier conquest now
Remains thee, aided by this host of friends,
Back on thy foes more glorious to return,
Than scorn'd thou didst depart; and to subdue
By force, who reason for their law refuse,
Right reason for their law, and for their King
Messiah, who by right of merit reigns.
Go, Michael', of celestial armies prince;

d Blaze on blaze.

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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
Than he would do an injury.-NEWTON.

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,
Gabriel, lead forth to battel these my sons
Invincible; lead forth my armed saints,

By thousands and by millions, ranged for fight,
Equal in number to that godless crew

Rebellious: them with fire and hostile arms
Fearless assault; and, to the brow of heaven
Pursuing, drive them out from God and bliss,
Into their place of punishment, the gulf
Of Tartarus, which ready opens wide
His fiery chaos to receive their fall.

g

So spake the sovran voice, and clouds began
To darken all the hill, and smoke to roll
In dusky wreaths, reluctant flames", the sign
Of wrath awaked; nor with less dread the loud
Ethereal trumpet from on high 'gan blow:
At which command the powers militant,
That stood for heaven, in mighty quadrate join'd
Of union irrresistible, moved on

In silence their bright legions, to the sound
Of instrumental harmony, that breathed

Heroic ardour to adventurous deeds

Under their godlike leaders, in the cause
Of God and his Messiah. On they move
Indissolubly firm; nor obvious hill,

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Nor straitening vale, nor wood, nor stream, divides
Their perfect ranks; for high above the ground
Their march was, and the passive air upbore
Their nimble tread: as when the total kind

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

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Of birds, in orderly array on wing,
Came summon'd over Eden to receive

Their names of thee; so over many a tract

Of heaven they march'd, and many a province wide,
Tenfold the length of this terrene. At last,
Far in the horizon to the north appear'd
From skirt to skirt a fiery region, stretch'd
In battailous aspect, and nearer view *
Bristled with upright beams innumerable

Of rigid spears, and helmets throng'd, and shields
Various, with boastful argument portray'd,
The banded powers of Satan hasting on
With furious expedition; for they ween'd
That self-same day, by fight or by surprise,
To win the mount of God, and on his throne
To set the envier of his state, the proud
Aspirer but their thoughts proved fond and vain
In the mid way. Though strange to us it seem'd
At first, that angel should with angel war,
And in fierce hosting' meet, who wont to meet
So oft in festivals of joy and love
Unanimous, as sons of one great Sire,
Hymning the Eternal Father: but the shout
Of battel now began, and rushing sound
Of onset ended soon each milder thought.
High in the midst, exalted as a god,
The apostate in his sun-bright chariot sat,
Idol of majesty divine, enclosed

With flaming cherubim and golden shields;

Then lighted from his gorgeous throne, for now
"Twixt host and host but narrow space was left,
A dreadful interval"; and front to front

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,
Came towering, arm'd in adamant and gold.

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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.

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