The thronging audience. In discourse more fweet 555 (For eloquence the foul, fong charms the fenfe,) Others apart fat on a hill retir'd, In thoughts more elevate, and reafon'd high Paffion and apathy, and glory' and shame, But the harmony (What could it less when Spirits immortal fing?) Sufpended Hell, &c. 555. In difcourfe more fweet] Our poet fo juftly prefers difcourfe to the highest harmony, that he has feated his reafoning Angels on a hill as high and elevated as their thoughts, leaving the fongfters in their humble valley. Hume. 565 Yet Fix'd fate, free will, foreknow ledge abfolute,] The turn of the words here is admirable, and very well exprefies the wand'rings and mazes of their discourse. And the turn of the words is greatly improv'd, and render'd still more beautiful by the addition of an epithet to each of them. 565. Vain wifdem all, and falfe philofophy:] Good and evil, and de finibus bonorum et malo rum, & were more particularly the fubjects of difputation among the philofophers and fophifts of old, as providence, free will, &c. were among the school-men and divines of later times, efpecially upon the introduction of the free notions of 559-foreknowledge, will, and Arminius upon thefe fubjects: and fate, our author fhows herein what an opinion Yet with a pleasing forcery could charm opinion he had of all books and learning of this kind. 568. th' obdured breaft] So we read in Milton's own editions, and not obdurate, as it is in Dr. Bentley's, Mr. Fenton's, and others: The fame word is ufed again in VI. 785. This faw his hapless foes, but stood obdur'd. 569. with triple feel.] An imitation of Horace, Od. I. III. Illi robur, et æs triplex Circa pectus erat, &c. His breaft was armed with the ftrength of threefold brafs, only our poet useth the hardest metal of the two Hume, 172 570% 575 Abhorred 572. That difmal world,] The feveral circumftances in the defcription of Hell are finely imagin'd; as the four rivers which difgorge themfelves into the fea of fire, the extremes of cold and heat, and the river of oblivion. The monstrous animals produced in that infernal world are represented by a fingle line, which gives us a more horrid idea of them, than a much longer defcription of them would have done. This epifode of the fallen Spirits and their place of habitation comes in very happily to unbend the mind of the reader from its at tention to the debate. An ordi nary poet would indeed have spun out fo many circumstances to a great length, and by that means have weaken'd, inftead of illustrated, the principal fable. Addifon. 577. Abborred Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate; Sad Acheron of forrow, black and deep; Heard on the rueful ftream; fierce Phlegethon, 580 Far off from thefe a flow and filent ftream, Her watry labyrinth, whereof who drinks, 577. Abhorred Styx, &c.] The Greeks reckon up five rivers in Hell, and call them after the names of the noxious fprings and rivers in their own country. Our poet follows their example both as to the number and the names of these infernal rivers, and excellently defcribes their nature and properties with the explanation of their names. Styx fo named of a Greek word στυγέω that fignifies to hate and abbor, and therefore called here Abborred Styx, the flood of deadly hate, and by Virgil palus inamabilis, An. VI.438. Acheron has its name from yos dolor and p: fluo, flowing with grief; and is reprefented accordingly Sad Acheron, the river of forrow as Styx was of hate, black and deep, agreeable to Virgil's character of it ---- tenebrofa palus Acheronte re- Cocytus, nam'd of lamentation, becaufe derived from a Greek word Forthwith nerve fignifying to weep and la ment: as Phlegethon is from another Greek word fignifying to burn; and therefore rightly described here fierce Phlegethon, whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage, as it is by Virgil, Æn. VI. 550. rapidus flammis torrentibus amnis Tartareus Phlegethon. Ενθα μεν εις Αχερια Πυριφλε and perhaps he describes their fitu- quently Forthwith his former ftate and be'ing forgets, quently confound them, and men- tion. Our poet therefore was at Lethæi ad fluminis undam Securos latices, et longa oblivia potant: and Milton attributes the fame effeat to it, and defcribes it as a flow and filent fream, as Lucan had done before him, IX. 355. 585 590 Betwixt Quam juxta Lethes tacitus prælabi tur amnis. The river of oblivion is rightly plac'd far off from the rivers of hatred, forrow, lamentation, and rage; and divides the frozen continent from the region of fire, and thereby completes the map of Hell with its general divifions. 589. dire bail,] Hor. Od. I. II. 1. 592. that Serbonian bog] Serbonis was a lake 200 furlongs in length and 1000 in compass between the ancient mountain Cafius and Damiata a city of Egypt on one of the more eastern mouths of the Nile. It was furrounded on all fides by hills of loofe fand, which carried into the water by high winds fo thicken'd the lake, as not to be diftinguifh'd from part of the continent, where whole ar Betwixt Damiata and mount Cafius old, Where armies whole have funk: the parching air Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire. 595 Thither by harpy-footed furies hal'd At certain revolutions all the damn'd Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change mies have been swallow'd up. Read Perfida tellus Cafiis excurrit Et vada teftantur junctas Ægyptia Syrtes, &c. Hume. 595. Burns frore,] Frore an old word for frofty. The parching air burns with froft. So we have in Virg. Georg. I. 93.. -Borex penetrabile frigus adurat: and in Ecclus. XLIII. 20, 21. When 600 Immoveable, this line is deriv'd from the Belgic halen or the French baler, and therefore fhould be fpelt as it is here, and not bail'd as in Milton's own editions. Spenfer ufes the word, Fairy Queen. B. 5. Cant. z. St. 26. Who rudely bal'd her forth with out remorfe : and we meet with it feveral times in Shakespear. 603.-thence burried back to fire.] This circumftance of the damned's fuffering the extremes of heat and cold by turns is finely invented to aggravate the horror of the de fcription, and feems to be founded upon Job XXIV. 19. but not as it is in the English tranflation, but in the Vulgar Latin verfion, which Milton frequently used. Ad nimium calorem tranfeat ab aquis nivium ; Let him pafs to exceffive heat from waters of now. And fo Jerom and other commentators understand it. There |