Of maffy ir'on or folid rock with ease
Unfastens on a fudden open fly
With impetuous recoil and jarring found

Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook
Of Erebus. She open'd, but to shut

Excell'd her pow'r; the gates wide
wide open stood,
That with extended wings a banner'd host

880

885 Under spread enfigns marching might pass through With horfe and chariots rank'd in loose array; So wide they stood, and like a furnace mouth Caft forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame. Before their eyes in fudden view appear

890 The

of Macbeth remarks that this ex-
preffion is copied from the History
of Don Bellianis, where, when
one of the knights approaches the
cattle of Brandezar, the gates are
faid to open grating harsh thunder
upon their brazen hinges. And it is
not improbable that Milton might
take it from thence, as he was a
reader of all kinds of romances.

882-the lowest bottom shook
Of Erebus.] The most profound

-horrifono ftridentes cardine depth of Hell. facræ Panduntur portæ ?

The ingenious author of the Mif celliniecus Obfervations on the Tragedy

Erebi de fedibus imis.

Virg. Georg. IV. 471.

Hume.

894.-bere

The fecrets of the hoary deep, a dark

Illimitable ocean, without bound,

Withoutdimenfion, where length, breadth,and highth,

And time, and place are loft; where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of nature, hold

Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise

Of endless wars, and by confufion ftand.

895

For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce Strive here for maft'ry, and to battel bring

Their embryon atoms; they around the flag

900

Of

894 where eldest Night

And Chaos, &c] All the ancient naturalifts, philofophers, and poets, hold that Chaos was the first principle of all things; and the poets particularly make Night a Goddess, and reprefent Night or darkness and Chats or confufion as exercifing uncontroll'd dominion from the beginning. Thus Orpheus in the beginning of his hymn to Night addretes her as the mother of the Gods and Men, and origin of all things.

O thou most ancient Grandmother

of all,

More old than Jove, &c.

And our author's fyftem of the univerfe is in fhort, that the empyrean Heaven, and Chaos and darkness were before the creation, Heaven above and Chaos beneath; and then upon the rebellion of the Angels firft Hell was formed out of Chaos ftretching far and wide beneath; and afterwards Heaven and Earth, another world, hanging o'r the realm of Chaos, and won from

Nuxla Dewy YeveTelpar assσopas nde bis dominion. See ver. 1002 &c. and

και ανδρών,

Νυξ γίνεσις παντων.

So alfo Spenfer in imitation of the
Ancients, Faery Queen, B. 1. C. 5.
St. 22.

978.

898. For bot, cold, moift, and dry, &c.] Ovid. Met. I. 19.

Frigida pugnabant calidis, humentia ficcis,

Moilia

Of each his faction, in their several clans,
Light-arm'd or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift or flow,
Swarm populous, un-number'd as the fands

Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid foil,

Levied to fide with warring winds, and poife 905
Their lighter wings. To whom these most adhere,
He rules a moment; Chaos umpire fits,
And by decision more embroils the fray
By which he reigns: next him high arbiter
Chance governs all. Into this wild abyfs,

910

The

904. Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid foil, A city and province of dry fandy Libya, Virg. Æn.

905 and poife] Give weight
or ballaft to. Pliny speaks of cer-
tain birds, who when a ftorm arifes
poife themfelves with little ftones,
L. 11. C. 10. Virgil has the famo
thought of his bees, Georg. IV.
Richardfon.
194

906. To ruhom thefe most adhere,]
Dr. Bentley reads the most adhere,
that is (fays he) he of the four
rules, while he has the majority.
But this is not Milton's fenfe, for
according to him no atoms adhere
to moift, but fuch as belong to his
faction, and the fame is to be faid
of hot, cold, and dry. Therefore
the reafon why any one of these
four champions rules (tho' but for
a moment) is becaufe the atoms

IV. 42.
Hinc deferta fiti regio, lateque of his faction adhere moft to him.

furentes

Barcæi.

VOL. I.

Firm dependence indeed (fays the
Doctor) and worthy the fuperlative

M

1

The womb of nature and perhaps her grave,
Of neither fea, nor fhore, nor air, nor fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mix'd
Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless th' almighty Maker them ordain.
His dark materials to create more worlds;
Into this wild abyss the wary Fiend
Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while,
Pond'ring his voyage; for no narrow frith
He had to cross. Nor was his ear lefs peal'd
With noifes loud and ruinous (to compare

915

920

Great

blunder, Milton is elsewhere guilty of it; we may rather fuppofe that he could not but fee it, and therefore that he thought it an allowable liberty in writing; for thus in V. 368. he says,

-what the garden choicest bears To fit and tastewhere fit and taste is us'd for fitting tafte; as here flood and look'd Pearce. for ftanding look'd.

Here is a remarkable tranfpofition of the words, the fenfe however is very clear; The wary Fiend stood on the brink of Hell, and look'd a while into this wild abyfs, pondering his voyage. 'Tis obfervable the poet himfelf feems to be doing what he defcribes, for the period begins at 910, then he goes hot on directly, but lingers, giving

an

Great things with fmall) than when Bellona ftorms,
With all her battering engins bent to rase

Some capital city'; or lefs than if this frame
Of Heav'n were falling, and these elements
In mutiny had from her axle torn

925

The ftedfaft earth. At last his fail-broad vans
He spreads for flight, and in the surging sinoke
Uplifted fpurns the ground; thence many a league,
As in a cloudy chair, afcending rides
Audacious; but that feat foon failing, meets
A vaft vacuity: all unawares

921 (to compare Great things with mall) An expreffion in Virg. Ecl. I. 24. parvis componere magna. And what an idea doth this give us of the noifes of Chaos, that even thofe of a city befieged, and of Heaven and Earth ruining from each other are but fmall in comparison ? And tho' both the fimilitudes are truly excellent and fublime, yet how furprisingly doth the latter rife above the former!

927.-his fail-broad vans] As the air and water are both fluids, the metaphors taken from the one

930