Religious titled them the Sons of God, Shall yield up all their virtue, all their fame, Ignobly, to the trains and to the smiles Of these fair atheists. The next vision is of a quite contrary nature, and filled 5. with the horrors of war. Adam at the sight of it melts into tears, and breaks out in that passionate speech: 1 Oh, what are these? Death's ministers, not men! who thus deal death Inhumanly to men, and multiply Ten thousandfold the sin of him who slew His brother; for of whom such massacre Make they but of their brethren, men of men? Milton, to keep up an agreeable variety in his visions, after having raised in the mind of his reader the several ideas of terror which are conformable to the description of war, passes on to those softer images of triumphs and festivals, in that vision of lewdness and luxury which ushers in the Flood. ΤΟ 15 20 As it is visible that the poet had his eye upon Ovid's account of the universal deluge, the reader may observe with how much judgment he has avoided everything that is redundant or puerile in the Latin poet. We do not here see the wolf swimming among the sheep, nor any of those wanton imaginations which Seneca found fault with, 25 as unbecoming the great catastrophe of nature. If our 2 poet has imitated that verse in which Ovid tells us that there was nothing but sea, and that this sea had no shore to it, he has not set the thought in such a light as to incur the censure which critics have passed upon it. The latter part of that verse in Ovid is idle and superfluous, but just and beautiful in Milton: 1 11. 675-680. 2 First edition, 'this.' 30 5 ΤΟ Jamque mare et tellus nullum discrimen habebant; Sea without shore. In Milton the former part of the description does not forestall the latter. How much more great and solemn on this occasion is that which follows in our English poet than that in Ovid, where we are told that the sea-calves * lay in those places where the goats were used to browse ! The reader may find several other parallel passages in the Latin and English description of the Deluge, wherein our 15 poet has visibly the advantage. The sky's being overcharged with clouds, the descending of the rains, the rising of the seas, and the appearance of the rainbow, are such descriptions as every one must take notice of. The circumstance relating to Paradise is so finely 20 imagined, and suitable to the opinions of many learned authors, that I cannot forbear giving it a place in this 5 Then shall this Mount Of Paradise, by might of waves be moved And there take root, an island salt and bare, The haunt of seals, and orcs, and sea-mews' clang. The transition which the poet makes from the vision of the Deluge to the concern it occasioned in Adam is 1 The editions add 'Ovid.' 2 11. 749-750; the original editions have 'Milton' following the quotations. 4 Originals, calfs.' 8 11. 750-752. exquisitely graceful, and copied after Virgil, though the first thought it introduces is rather in the spirit of Ovid : — 1 How didst thou grieve then, Adam, to behold Of tears and sorrow a flood thee also drowned, 5 ΙΟ 15 I have been the more particular in my quotations out of the Eleventh Book of Paradise Lost, because it is not generally reckoned among the most shining books of this poem; for which reason the reader might be apt to overlook those many passages in it which deserve our admiration. The Eleventh and Twelfth are indeed built upon that single circumstance of the removal of our first parents from Paradise; but though this is not in itself so great a subject as that in most of the foregoing books, it is extended and diversified with so many surprising incidents 20 and pleasing episodes, that these two last books can by means be looked upon as unequal parts of this divine poem. I must further add that, had not Milton represented our first parents as driven out of Paradise, his Fall of Man would not have been complete, and consequently 25 his action would have been imperfect. 1 11. 754-761. 18.1 BOOK XII. Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures, - HOR. Ars Poet. 180-181. -What we hear moves less than what we see. ROSCOMMON. MILTON, after having represented in vision the his tory of mankind to the first great period of Nature, despatches the remaining part of it in narration. He has devised a very handsome reason for the angel's proceed5 ing with Adam after this manner; though, doubtless, the true reason was the difficulty which the poet would have found to have shadowed out so mixed and complicated a story in visible objects. I could wish, however, that the author had done it, whatever pains it might have 10 cost him. To give my opinion freely, I think that the exhibiting part of the history of mankind in vision, and part in narrative, is as if an history-painter should put in colors one half of his subject, and write down the remaining part of it. If Milton's poem flags anywhere, it is in this narration, where in some places the author has been so attentive to his divinity that he has neglected his poetry. The narration, however, rises very happily on several occasions where the subject is capable of poetical ornaments, as particularly in the confusion which he de20 scribes among the builders of Babel, and in his short 15 1 Spectator, No. 369, May 3, 1712. sketch of the plagues of Egypt. The storm of hail and fire, with the darkness that overspread the land for three days, are described with great strength. The beautiful passage which follows is raised upon noble hints in Scripture: 1 Thus with ten wounds The river-dragon tamed at length submits Divided. ΙΟ 15 The river-dragon is an allusion to the crocodile, which inhabits the Nile, from whence Egypt derives her plenty. This allusion is taken from that sublime passage in Ezekiel: Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth 20 in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself.' Milton has given us another very noble and poetical image in the same description, which is copied almost word for word out of the history of Moses: 2 All night he will pursue, but his approach Over the sea; the sea his rod obeys; On their embattled ranks the waves return, 1 12. 190-199. 2 12. 206-214. 25 30 5 |