PARADISE LOST. FIRST BOOK. OF Man's first disobedience, and the fruit That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed, Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook, that flowed Lines 1-9. Of man's first disobedience.] The natural order of these lines is "Heavenly Muse, sing of man's first disobedience, &c." There has been some dispute among grammarians as to what part of speech of (the first word of the poem) ought to be considered. I incline to call it a preposition; but it certainly may be considered an adverb, being used to qualify the verb "sing" in 1. 6. The good of the inversion is that it enables the Poet to state at once the object of his song. 2. Whose mortal taste brought death, &c.] The word "mortal" is here used in the sense of "causing death," not "subject to death;" and it may be allowed that there is something pleonastic in the phrase. But the blemish is very slight, if it is one at all. Too many such pleonasms would indicate conscious weakness, but the occasional use of one may spring from the exuberance of strength. 5. Restore us, and regain the blissful seat.] What part of the verb are restore and regain here? Why does Milton use the definite article the blissful seat? 5 10 6. On the secret top of Oreb, &c.] Some have proposed to read "sacred" instead of secret;" but no one can study carefully the account of the giving of the law in Exodus, without being persuaded of the superior propriety of the former epithet. 7. Oreb or Horeb, and Sinai are two peaks of the same mountain range between the Gulfs of Suez and Akaba. It is about two miles from north to south, and about one fourth of a mile in width. Horeb is at the northern end of the range, and Sinai at the southern, nearly 100 miles from the top of the Gulf of Suez. "First" is It 8. Who first taught.] here an adjective, not an adverb. means that he "before any one else" taught &c., not that he taught them first, and then did something else. 10. Rose out of Chaos.] Milton here uses a classical word, but with a strictly scriptural idea attached to it. See Gen. i. 1 & 2. Chaos, the "rudis in. digestaque moles" of Ovid, means the rude and shapeless mass of matter which existed before the formation of the world. That with no middle flight intends to soar 14. That with no middle flight, &c.] Moses. 15. The Aonian mount was Helicon in Boeotia. It was sacred to Apollo and the Muses. Milton here intimates without reserve that he purposes to produce a nobler poem than any transmitted to us by the Greeks or Romans. 16. Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.] Mr. Conybeare, speaking of the metrical paraphrase of parts of Scripture, ascribed to a second Cædmon, alleges that the fall of man is considered, ushered in by an account of the pride, rebellion, and punishment of Satan and his powers, "with a resemblance to Milton so remarkable, that much of this portion might be almost literally translated by a cento of lines from that great poet." Mr. Turner, too, in his most excellent History of the Anglo-Saxons, brings the same accusation against our author; and, if these assertions could be established, they would show that Milton was doing anything rather than pursuing "things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme." But out of about 150 lines given in the Pictorial History of England, vol. i. p. 294-296., I find nothing more nearly resembling Milton's lines than these : "Then was the Almighty angry; 15 20 To bring a charge of plagiarism on such a slender foundation is contrary to all the rules of literary criticism. From the lines I refer to, I see no reason to think that Milton ever saw them; and it is quite certain that in FAIRFAX's Translation of Tasso, and still more in SPENSER'S Faërie Queene, we meet with lines by the dozen that more resemble Milton, and that yet arc quite different. It would have been easy for the objectors to put two or three lines, out of the cento or hundred that they talk about, into parallel columns ; but this they have not done. Milton was undoubtedly a great borrower and debtor both to Jew and Gentile, but whatever he took he fused in the fire of his own imagination. There is no mistaking his thunder. See also note on Book I. 1. 351-5. 17. And chiefly Thou, O Spirit that dost prefer, &c.] Coleridge remarks, in his Table Talk, that " John Milton himself is in every line of the Paradise Lost." We certainly see him here in his ardent piety and in his puritanic contempt for splendid temples. "Before all temples," . e. any possible temple that could be built by the hand of man. In his prose works we find a similar reference to the Holy Spirit, and get also an insight into the training of his mind for the production of some great work. Milton took to poetry as the business of his life, and certainly he was not "slothful in the business." "Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any knowing reader, that for some few years yet I may go on trust with him toward the payment of Illumine; what is low, raise and support; And justify the ways of God to men. Say first, for Heaven hides nothing from thy view, what I am now indebted, as being a i. 24. The height of this great argument.] Milton prays that he may be able to do justice to the difficult subject he has taken in hand, and convince men of the great truth that this world is not under the dominion of chance, but is really governed by God. 26. And justify, &c.] Pope has adopted this line with the change of one word-vindicate for justify. There is not much to choose between them. "Vindicate" is, perhaps, slightly more classical, and "justify" more scriptural. See Rom. iii. 4. 28. Tract of Hell.] i. e. region of hell. We still speak of a tract of land. 30. Favoured of Heaven.] What does "favoured" apply to; "parents" or state? 32. For one restraint, lords of the world besides.] Except for one restraint, lords of all the world. See Gen. ii. 16 & 17. 34. The infernal Serpent.] What case is serpent in here, and why? 36. What time.] A Latinism for when or after. 40. He trusted to have equ Most High.] There is a slight grammatical blemish here. It ought to be," He trusted to equal the Most High."-See CONNON'S English Grammar, p. 162. Raised impious war in Heaven, and battle proud, 45 50 55 55 60 Nine times the space that measures day and night To mortal men, he with his horrid crew Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf, Confounded, though immortal: But his doom Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought Both of lost happiness and lasting pain Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes, That witnessed huge affliction and dismay, Mixed with obdurate pride and stedfast hate: At once, as far as Angels' ken, he views The dismal situation waste and wild; A dungeon, horrible on all sides round, 44. Him the Almighty Power, &c.] The natural order would be "The Almighty Power hurled him headlong," &c. The transposition redeems the passage from being prosaic; and, in fact, gives it grandeur and sublimity. Nothing contributes more than inversion to the force and elevation of language the couplets of rhyme confine inversion within narrow limits; nor would the elevation of inversion, were there access for it in rhyme, be extremely concordant with the humbler tone of that sort of verse. It is universally agreed, that the loftiness of Milton's style supports admirably the sublimity of his subject; and it is not less certain, that the loftiness of his style arises chiefly from inversion.".. HOME'S Elements of Criticism. hardest iron or steel; "penal fire," i.e. fire kindled by vengeance, and inflicted as a punishment. 46. Hideous ruin and combustion.] Milton uses ruin in its etymological sense, including the idea of rushing with violence, noise, tumult and velocity; and then, as a body on fire glows the more the faster it passes through space, so the fallen angel feels and exhibits intenser heat the farther he falls. 48. In adamantine chains and penal fire.] "Adamantine," having the qualities of adamant; anything inflexible, or not to be broken, like the 49. Who durst defy, &c.] i. e. inasmuch as he dared to defy. The relative is equivalent sometimes to "and he," and at other times to " because he," but without any difference in the verb, as is the case in Latin. 50. Nine times the space, &c.] There would have been an anachronism in saying " nine days and nights," even if the phrase had been otherwise equally good. Milton is referring to a period when day was not divided from night. 56. Torments him.] Why ought the verb to be in the singular? 57. That witnessed huge affliction.] "Witnessed" here means manifested or showed to others, not beheld in others. 59. As far as Angels' ken.] "Ken" is connected with the verb to know, and when used as a noun it always means "sight at a distance." "As far as Angel's ken," therefore, is as far as the sight of an angel, or with the apostrophe after the s, of angels can reach. I prefer calling ken a noun; but let it not be thought altogether absurd to consider it as a verb, for Dr. Johnson, whose merits as a verbal critic are allowed by all, so considers it, and As one great furnace, flamed; yet from those flames Served only to discover sights of woe, Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed. quotes this very line as his autho- 62. Yet from those flames no light.] As we are accustomed to associate pleasure with light, Milton takes care to correct this notion, that we may not suppose there was any source of comfort left to the "horrid crew." The " no light, but rather darkness visible," is a grand picture. Indistinct, of course, it must be, but we can feel it. 66-67. Hope never comes that comes to all.] Hope that comes to all men, even the most miserable, never comes to them. Milton, no doubt, had in his mind one of the sentences that Dante tells us was written over the gates of hell," Put away hope all ye who enter here." The position of the relative that is objectionable; being too far off from its antecedent. 68. Urges.] i. e. pursues, so as to be hard upon; pursues with punishment. 70-74. Such place eternal Justice.] "To banish for ever into a local hell, whether in the air, or in the centre, or in that uttermost and bottomless gulf of chaos, deeper from holy bliss than the world's diameter multiplied." ·Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. 75. O how unlike the place from whence they fell!] Observe the climax here. The poet had laboured to express the horrible nature of the tortures that had been reserved for the fallen angels, and had enumerated circumstance after circumstance of the " dungeon horrible" where they were confined, attempting to produce that effect by iteration and accumulation of particulars which no single statement or simile would produce. But then, to condense all that had been said into the space of a single line, to drive the nail home, as it were, and clench it on the other side, he adds, "O how unlike the place from which they fell!” Nothing could be more impressive or magnificent. The force of contrast can no further go. 82. And thence in Heaven called Satan.] Satan is a Hebrew word transferred to the English. It is derived from a verb signifying "to lie in wait," "to oppose," "" to be an adver |