625

Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds,
Perverse, all monftrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse

Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd,
Gorgons, and Hydra's, and Chimera's dire.
Mean while the Adverfary' of God and Man,
Satan with thoughts inflam'd of hig'heft defign, 630
Puts on fwift wings, and towards the gates of Hell
Explores his folitary flight; fometimes

He fcours the right hand coaft, fometimes the left,
Now fhaves with level wing the deep, then foars
Up to the fiery concave towring high.
As when far off at fea a fleet defcry'd

There were Celano's foul and

loathfome rout, There Sphinges, Centaurs, there

were Gorgons fell, There howling Scylla's, yawling round about, There ferpents hifs, there fev'n

mouth'd Hydra's yell, Chimera there fpues fire and brimstone out. Fairfax.

But how much better has Milton comprehended them in one line?

634. Now fhaves with level wing the deep.] Virg. Æn. V. 217. Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas.

635

Hangs

636. As when far off at fea &c.] Satan touring high is here compar'd to a fleet of Indiamen difcover'd at a distance, as it were, hanging in the clouds, as a fleet at a diftance feems to do. This is the whole of the comparison; but (as Dr. Pearce obferves) Milton in his fimilitudes (as is the practice of Homer and Virgil too) after he has fhow'd the common refemblance, often takes the liberty of wand'ring into fome unrefembling circumftances; which have no other relation to the comparison, than that it gave him the hint, and as it were fet fire to the train of his imagination.

$ 2

Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds
Clofe failing from Bengala, or the iles

Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring
Their fpicy drugs: they on the trading flood

Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape
Ply ftemming nightly tow'ard the pole. So feem'd

appear

Far off the flying Fiend: at laft

Hell bounds high reaching to the horrid roof,

And thrice threefold the gates; three folds were brass, Three iron, three of adamantin rock,

Impenetrable, impal'd with circling fire,

Yet unconfum'd. Before the gates there fat

And round about, her work fhe
did impale
With a fair border wrought of
fundry flowers.

It is commonly applied to that kind
of execution, when a pale or flake
is drove through a malefactor's
body. And perhaps Milton (as
Mr. Thyer adds) might take the
hint of this circumftance from his
favorite romances, where one fre-
quently meets with the gates of
inchanted caftles thus impal'd with
circling fire. Spenfer alfo in his
defcription of the house of Bufy-
rane. Fairy Queen, B. 3. Cant. 11.
St. 21.

646

On

of the allegory fays only, that Satan's intended voyage was dangerous to his being, and that he refolved however to venture.

Richardfon.

The flight of Satan to the gates of Hell is finely imaged. I have already declared my opinion of the allegory concerning Sin and Death, which is however a very finish'd piece in its kind, when it is not confidered as a part of an epic poem. The genealogy of the feveral perfons is contrived with great delicacy; Sin is the daughter of Satan, and Death the ofspring of Sin. The incestuous mixture between Sin and Death produces thofe monsters and Hell-hounds, which from time to time enter into their mother, and tear the bowels of her who gave them birth. These are the terrors of an evil confcience, and the proper fruits of Sin, which naturally rife from the apprehenfions of Death. This laft beautiful moral is, I think, clearly intimated in the fpeech of Sin, where complaining of this her dreadful iffue, fhe adds,

On either fide a formidable shape,

The one feem'd woman to the wafte, and fair, 650
But ended foul in many a fcaly fold

Voluminous and vast, a ferpent arm'd
With mortal sting: about her middle round

Before mine eyes in oppofition fits
Grim Death my fon and foe, who

fets them on,

And me his parent would full foon
devour

For want of other prey, but that

he knows

His end with mine involv'd.

A

revolt of Satan, that Death appear'd foon after he was caft into Hell, and that the terrors of confcience were conceived at the gate of this place of torments. The defcription of the gates is very poetical, as the opening of them is full of Milton's fpirit. Addifon But tho' Mr. Addison cenfures this famous allegory, as improper for an epic poem; yet Bishop Atterbury, whofe tafte in polite litterature was never queftion'd, feems to be much more affected with this than any part of the poem, as I think we may collect from one of his letters to Mr. Pope. " I re"turn you your Milton, fays He, " and I proteft to you, this "laft perufal of him has given

I need not mention to the reader the beautiful circumftance in the laft part of this quotation. He will likewife obferve how naturally the three perfons concerned in this allegory are tempted by one common intereft to enter into a confederacy together, and how properly Sin is made the portrefs of Hell, and the only being that can open the gates to that world of tortures. The defcriptive part of this allegory is likewife very ftrong, and full of fublime ideas. The figure of Death, the regal crown upon his head, his menace of Satan, his advancing to the combat, the outcry at his birth, are circumftances" too noble to be paft over in filence, and extremely fuitable to this king of terrors. I need not mention the juftnefs of thought which is obferved in the generation of thefe" feveral fymbolical perfons; that Sin was produced upon the first

me fuch new degrees, I will "not fay of pleafure, but of ad"miration and aftonishment, that "I look upon the fublimity of "Homer and the majesty of Virgil with fomewhat lefs reverence than I us'd to do. I challenge "you, with all your partiality, "to fhow me in the first of these

any thing equal to the allegory "of Sin and Death, either as to the greatness and justness of the "invention, or the highth and beauty of the coloring. What I

66

"looked

cry of Hell hounds never ceafing bark'd

I With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung 655
A hideous peal; yet, when they lift, would creep,
If ought disturb'd their noise, into her womb,
And kennel there, yet there ftill bark'd and howl'd,
Within

ceafing bark'd] Dr. Bentley reads A crue of Hell-bounds, &c. but Milton's cry of Hell-hounds is of much the fame poetical stamp as Virgil's ruunt equites et odora canum vis, Æn. IV. 132. where what is proper to the canes is faid of the vis; as here what is proper to the Hell-bounds is faid of the cry. We have the fame way of fpeaking in And alfo the image of Echidna, VI. 212. VII. 66. and elsewhere.