God fitting on his throne fees Satan flying towards this world, then newly created; fhows him to the Son who fat at his right hand; foretels the fuccefs of Satan in perverting mankind; clears his own juftice and wifdom from all imputation, having created Man free and able enough to have withstood his tempter; yet declares his purpose of grace towards him, in regard he fell not of his own malice, as did Satan, but by him feduc'd. The Son of God renders praises to his Father for the manifeftation of his gracious purpose towards Man; but God again declares, that Grace cannot be extended towards Man without the fatifaction of divine juftice; Man hath offended the majefty of God by afpiring to Godhead, and therefore with all his progeny devoted to death muft die, unless fome one can be found fufficient to answer for his offenfe, and undergo his punishment, The Son of God freely offers himself a ransome for Man the Father accepts him, ordains his incarnation, pronounces his exaltation above all names in Heaven and Earth; commands all the Angels to adore him; they obey, and hymning to their harps in full quire, celebrate the Father and the Son. Mean while Satan alights upon the bare convex of this world's outermost orb; where wand'ring he first finds a place, fince call'd The Limbo of Vanity; what perfons and things fly up thither; thence comes to the gate of Heaven, defcrib'd afcending by stairs, and the waters above the firmament that flow about it: His paffage thence to the orb of the fun; he finds there Uriel the regent of that orb, but first changes himself into the fhape of a meaner Angel; and pretending a zealous defire to behold the new creation, and Man whom God had plac'd here, inquires of him the place of his habitation, and is directed; alights first on mount Niphates. #83 PARADISE LOST. HAD AIL holy Light, ofspring of Heav'n first-born, May I express thee' unblam'd? fince God is light, Horace advifes a poet to confider thoroughly the nature and force of his genius. Milton feems to have known perfectly well, wherein his ftrength lay, and has therefore chofen a fubject entirely conformable to thofe talents, of which he was mafter. As his genius was wonderfully turned to the fublime, his fubject is the nobleft that could have entered into the thoughts of man. Every thing that is truly great and aftonishing has a place in it. The whole fyftem of the intellectual world; the Chaos and the Creation; Heaven, Earth, and Hell, enter into the conftitution of his poem. Having in the firft and fecond books reprefented the infernal world with all its horrors, the thread of his fable naturally leads him into the oppofit regions of blifs and glory. Addifon. 1. Hail boly Light, &c.] Our author's addrefs to Light, and lamentation of his own blindness may perhaps be cenfur'd as an excrefcence or digreffion not agreeable to the rules of epic poetry; but yet this is fo charming a part of the poem, that the moft critical And reader, I imagin, cannot wish it were omitted. One is even pleased with a fault, if it be a fault, that is the occafion of fo many beauties, and acquaints us fo much with the circumftances and character of the author. 2. Or of th' eternal coeternal beam May I express thee' unblam'd?] Or may I without blame call thee, the coeternal beam of the eternal God? The Ancients were very cautious and curious by what names they addrefs'd their deities, and Milton in imitation of them queftions whether he fhould addrefs the Light as the firft-born of Heaven, or as the coeternal beam of the eternal Father, or as a pure ethereal ftream whofe fountain is unknown: But as the fecond appellation feems to afcribe a proper eternity to Light, Milton very justly doubts whether he might use that without blame. ! And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee, in the light, which no man can approach unto. 6. Bright efluence of bright effence increate.] What the Wildom of Solomon fays of Wisdom, he applies to Light, VII. 25, 26. She is a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty, -She is the brightness of the everlafting light. 7. Or bear'ft thou rather] Or doft thou rather hear this addrefs, doft thou delight rather to be call'd, pure ethereal ftream? An excellent Latinism, as Dr. Bentley obferves, Hor. Sat. II. VI. 20. Matutine pater feu Jane libentius audis ? And we have an expreffion of the fame kind in Spenfer, Fairy Queen, B. 1. Cant. 5. St. 23. If old Aveugle's fons fo evil hear: Whofe fountain who fhall tell? As the question is afk'd in Job XXXVIII. 5 10 |