Have eafily as Spi'rits evaded fwift By quick contraction or remove; but now What should they do? if on they rush'd, repulse Doubled, would render them yet more defpis'd, 601 In posture to difplode their fecond tire 605 Of thunder: back defeated to return They worse abhorr'd. Satan beheld their plight, And to his mates thus in derifion call'd. ceafing bark'd, we have a cry of Hell bounds for the Hell hounds themfelves, fo here we have the roar of the cannon for the cannon themfelves; and the roar of cannon may as properly be faid to imbowel the air with outrageous noije, as a cry of Hell hounds to bark. that it is as much as to fay that A cry of Hell hounds never the roar fill'd the air with roar. Neither do I fee how the matter is much mended by faying that the roar of the cannon imbowel'd with roar tore the air &c. The cannon I think cannot themfelves be properly faid to be imbowel'd with noife, tho' they might imbowel with noife the air. I would therefore endevor to justify this by other fimilar paffages. It is ufual with the poets to put the property of a thing for the thing itself and as in that verfe, Il. 654. (where fce the note) VOL. I. 599.ferried files.] The Italian word ferrato, clofe, compact. I i Thyer. 620. To O Friends, why come not on thefe victors proud? Ere while they fierce were coming; and when we, To entertain them fair with open front 611 And breaft (what could we more?) propounded terms Of compofition, ftrait they chang'd their minds, As they would dance; yet for a dance they feem'd For joy of offer'd peace: but I fuppofe, We fhould compel them to a quick refult. 616 To whom thus Belial in like gamefome mood. 620 Leader, the terms we fent were terms of weight, Of hard contents, and full of force urg'd home, Such as we might perceive amus'd them all, And ftumbled many; who receives them right, Had need from head to foot well underftand; Not understood, this gift they have befides, 620. To whom thus Belial] Whoever remembers the character of Belial in the first and fecond books, and Mr. Addifon's remarks upon it, will easily fee the propriety 625 They show us when our foes walk not upright. To match with their inventions they prefum'd So eafy', and of his thunder made a scorn 630 A while in trouble: but they stood not long; arms Against fuch hellish mischief fit to' oppose. Of pleasure fituate in hill and dale) 635 640 Light as the lightning glimpfe they ran, they flew; Rocks, waters, woods, and by the fhaggy tops 645 When two armies of Angels. The fecond day's engagement is apt to ftartle an imagination which has not been rais'd and qualify'd for fuch a defcription, by the reading of the ancient poets, and of Homer in particular. I was certainly a very bold thought in our author, to afcribe the firft ufe of artillery to the rebel Angels. But as fuch a pernicious invention may be well fuppos'd to have procceded from fuch authors, fo it enter'd very properly into the thoughts of that being, who is all along defcrib'd as afpiring to the majefty of his Maker. Such engins were the only inftruments he could have made use of to imitate thofe thunders, that in all poetry, both facred and profane, are reprefented as the arms of the Almighty. The tearing up the hills was not altogether fo daring a thought as the former. We are in fome menfure prepared for fuch an incident by the defcription of the giants war, which we meet with among the ancient poets. What fill made this circumflance the more proper for the poet's ufe is the opinion of many learned men, that the fable of the giants war, which makes to great a nole in antiquity, and gave birth to the fub limeft defcription in Hefiod's works was an allegory founded upon this very tradition of a fight betwee the good and the bad Angels, it may perhaps be worth while confider with what judgment Mi ton in this narration has avoided every thing that is mean and tvial in the defcriptions of the Latin and Greek poets; and at the fame time improved every gre hint which he met with in their works upon this fubject. Honer in that paffage, which Longings has celebrated for its fublimeneis, and which Virgil and Ovid have copy'd after him, tells us that the giants threw Offa upon Olympus and Pelion upon Offa. He adds an epithet to Pelion (c) which very much wells the idea, by bringing up to the reader's im gination all the woods that grew upon it. There is further a great beauty in fingling out by thefe three remarkable mountains fo well known to the Greeks This laft is fuch a beauty, fcene of Milton's war could pot poffibly furnish him with. Cla dian, in his fragment upon giants war, has given full fope to that wildnets of imagination which was natural to him. He tells us that the giants ture ep whole ilands by the roots, name as the the When coming towards them fo dread they faw The bottom of the mountains upward turn'd; Till on thofe curfed engins triple-row 650 They it. threw them at the Gods. He deteribes one of them in particular taking up Lemnos in his arms, and whirling it to the fkies, with all Vulcan's hop in the midit of Another tears up mount Ida, with the river Enipeus, which ran down the fides of it; but the poet, not content to defcribe him with this mountain upon his fhoulders, tells us that the river flow'd down his back, as he held it up in that pofture. It is visible to every judicious reader, that fuch ideas favor more of Luilefque, than of the fublime. They procecd from a wantonnefs of ima. gination, and rather divert the mind than aftonish it. Milton has taken every thing that is fublime in thefe feveral pallages, and compofes out of them the following great image; From their foundations loofning to and fro They pluck'd the feated hills with all their load, Rocks, waters, woods, and by the fhaggy tops Up-lifting bore them in their hands: We have the full majefty of Homer in this short delcription, improved by the imagination of Clau dian, without its puerilities. I need not point out the description of the fallen Angels feeing the promontories hanging over their heads in fuch a dreadful manner with the other numberlefs beauties in this book, which are fo confpicuous, that they canuot efcape the notice of the mott ordimary reader. There are indeed fo many wonderful trokes of poetry in this book, and fuch a variety of fublime ideas, that it would have been impoffible to have given them a place within the bounds of this paper. Befides that I find it in a great meafure done to my hand at the end of my Lord Kofcommon's lay on tranflated poetry. I fhall refer my reader thither for fome of the matterftrokes in the fixth book of Paradife Loft, tho' at the fame time there are many others, which that noble author has not taken notice Aadijon, of. |