Sung Halleluiah, as the found of feas,

Through multitude that fung: Just are thy ways,
Righteous are thy decrees on all thy works;

Who can extenuate thee? Next, to the Son,
Deftin'd restorer of mankind, by whom

New Heav'n and Earth fhall to the ages rise,
Or down from Heav'n defcend. Such was their fong,

While the Creator calling forth by name

His mighty Angels gave them feveral charge, 650
As forted best with prefent things. The fun
Had first his precept fo to move, fo fhine,
As might affect the earth with cold and heat
Scarce tolerable, and from the north to call
Decrepit winter, from the fouth to bring

we must likewife take notice of the command which the Angels receiv'd, to produce the feveral changes in nature, and fully the beauty of the creation. Accordingly they are reprefented as infecting the itars and planets with malignant influences, weakning the light of the fun, bringing down the winter into the milder regions of nature, planting winds and storms in feveral quarters of the sky, ftoring the clouds with thunder, and in fhort perverting the whole frame of the universe to the condition of its criminal inhabitants. As this is a noble incident in the poem, the following lines, in which we fee the Angels heaving up the earth, and placing it in a different posture to the fun from what it had before the fall of Man, is conceiv'd with that fublime imagination which was fo peculiar to this great author.

Some fay he bid his Angels turn

afcanfe &c. Addifon.
655. Decrepit winter,] Alluding
perhaps to Spenfer's defcription of
winter under the figure of a decrepit
old man, Fairy Queen, B. 7. Cant. 7.

St. 31.
In his right hand a tipped staff he
held,

655 Solstitial

Solftitial fummer's heat. To the blanc moon

Her office they prefcrib'd, to th' other five
Their planetary motions and afpécts
In fextile, fquare, and trine, and oppofit
Of noxious efficacy, and when to join
In fynod unbenign; and taught the fix'd
Their influence malignant when to shower,

aut Boreâ gelidas, madidive tepentes Igne noti.

Lucan I. 54. very extravagantly, Nec polus averfi calidus qua vergitur auftri. Jortin.

656. To the blanc moon &c.] Of the French blanc, white, as Virgil calls her candida luna, Æn. VII. 8. and the Italian poets frequently bianca luna. And what is faid here of and of the ftars, Which of them rifing with the fun, or falling, Should prove tempestuous, was written probably not without an eye to Virgil Georg. I. 335.

the moon,

660

Which

The Sov'reign of the Heav'ns has fet on high

The moon, to mark the changes of

the sky,

When fouthern blafts fhould cease. Dryden. 659. In fextile, Square, and trine,

and oppofit] If a planet, in one part of the zodiac, be diftant from another by a fixth part of twelve, that is by two figns, their afpect is called fextile; if by a fourth, Square; by a third, trine; and if by one half, oppofit, which laft is faid to be of noxious efficacy, because the planets fo oppoíed are thought to ftrive, debilitate, and overcome one another; deemed of evil confequence to those born under or fubject to the influence of the diftreffed ftar. Hume. If an unneceffary oftentation of learnof our author's faults, it certainly ing be, as Mr. Addifon obferves, one he not only introduces, but countemust be an aggravation of it, where nances fuch enthufiaftic unphilofophical notions as this jargon of the aftrologers is made up of Thyer.

-

664. To the winds they fet &c.] Thus the first editions, and I think all others before Dr. Bentley's ap

pear'd:

Which of them rifing with the fun, or falling,

Should prove tempeftuous: To the winds they set
Their corners, when with blufter to confound 665
Sea, air, and fhore, the thunder when to roll
With terror through the dark aereal hall.

Some fay he bid his Angels turn ascanse

The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more

hall.

the text.

Let us hear his reafons for altering The winds (fays he) as diftinguish'd from one another, had their corners and quarters fet before the fall: but this affertion is directly contrary to what Milton tells us in ver. 695, &c. He asks what is meant by their corners, when with blufter to confound? But the fentence is to be thus fupply'd, fet their corners, and taught them when with blufter &c: and the fame ellipfis we have in ver. 660. Or if this fhould not be approv'd of, I had much rather read (as the Doctor proposes) fet their corners, whence with blufter to confound-the thunder whence to roll. It may be wonder'd at, how the Doctor came in the next verse to change the thunder when to roll, into, To thunder, when to roll; fince roll is plainly an active verb here, and thunder is

From

the accufative cafe after it. As little
reafon has he to change dark in the
laft verse into wide; for fince he al-
lows that the aereal hall or sky is
darken'd by the clouds that attend
and caufe thunder, the sky may as
well be faid in poetry to be then dark,
Pearce.
as darken'd.

668. Some fay be bid his Angels &c.] It was eternal Spring (IV. 268.) before the fall; and he is now accounting for the change of feafons after the fall, and mentions the two famous hypothefes. Some fay it was occafion'd by altering the pofition of the earth, by turning the poles of the earth above 20 degrees afide from the fun's orb, he bid his Angels turn afcanfe the poles of earth twice ten degrees and more from the fun's axle; and the poles of the earth are about 23 degrees and a half diftant from thofe of the ecliptic; they with labor pub'd oblique the centric globe, it was erect before, but is oblique now; the obliquity of a sphere is the proper aftronomical term, when the pole is raised any number of degrees lefs than 90; the centric globe fix'd on its center and therefore moved with labor and difficulty, or rather

S 3

centric

From the fun's axle; they with labor push'd
Oblique the centric globe: Some fay the fun
Was bid turn reins from th' equinoctial road
Like diftant breadth to Taurus with the feven
Atlantic Sifters, and the Spartan Twins
Up to the Tropic Crab; thence down amain
By Leo and the Virgin and the Scales,
As deep as Capricorn, to bring in change
Of feasons to each clime; elfe had the spring
Perpetual fmil'd on earth with vernant flowers,

670

675

Equal

centric as being the center of the as deep as Capricorn, the tropic of world, according to the Ptolemaic Capricorn, which is the fun's fartheft fyftem, which our author ufually fol- progrefs fouthwards. This motion lows. Some fay again this change of the fun in the ecliptic occafions was occafion'd by altering the course the variety of feafons, elfe had the of the fun, the fun was bid turn reins Spring perpetual fmil'd on earth with from the equinoctial road in which vernant flowers, if the fun had conhe had moved before, like diftant tinued to move in the equator. It is breadth in both hemifpheres, to Tau- likewife Dr. Burnet's affertion, that rus with the feven Atlantic Sifters, the primitive earth enjoy'd a perthe conftellation Taurus with the petual fpring, and for the fame reafeven stars in his neck, the Pleiades fon of the fun's moving in the equadaughters of Atlas, and the Spartan tor. But though this notion of a twins, the fign Gemini, Caftor and perpetual fpring may be very pleafing Pollux, twin-brothers, and fons of in poetry, yet it is very falfe in phi Tyndarus king of Sparta, up to the lofophy; and this pofition of the Tropic Crab, the tropic of Cancer, earth fo far from being the best is the fun's fartheft ftage northwards; one of the worst it could have, as thence down amain, Dr. Bentley reads Dr. Keill hath prov'd excellently as much, as much on one fide of the well in the fourth chapter of his Exequator as the other, but if any al-amination of Dr. Burnet's Theory of teration were neceffary it is eafier the Earth. to read thence down again, by Lea 673. to Taurus] Dr. Bentley and the Virgin, the fign Virgo, and reads through Taurus, through it the Scales, the conftellation Libra, and Gemini, up to Cancer. And

Mr.