Birth-day of Heav'n and Earth; with joy and fhout The hollow universal orb they fill'd, And touch'd their golden harps, and hymning prais'd God and his works, Creator him they fung, Both when firft evening was, and when firft morn. Again, God faid, Let there be firmament Amid the waters, and let it divide }, The waters from the waters: and God made The firmament, expanfe of liquid, pure, In circuit to the uttermoft convex Of this great round: partition firm and fure, to view one after another, in fuch a manner, that the reader feems present at this wonderful work, and to affift among the quires of Angels, who are the spectators of it. How glorious is the conclufion of the first day! Addifon, 256. with joy and fhout 261 265 The 261. Again, God faid, &c.] When he makes God fpeak, he adheres clofely to the words of Scripture. And God faid, Let there be a firmament in the midf of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. Gen. I. 6. But when he fays that God made the firmament he explains The bollow univerfal orb they fill'd,] what is meant by the firmament. The Angels finging and fhouting for The Hebrew word, which the Greeks joy at the creation of the world render by sepewa, and our tranf feems to be founded upon Job lators by firmament, fignifies expan XXXVIII. 4, 7. Where waft thou from; it is render'd expansion in the when I laid the foundations of the margin of our bibles, and Milton earth; when the morning fars jang rightly explains it by the expanfe of together, and all the fons of God elemental air, fhauted for joy? And with this joy and out they fill'd the hollow univerfal orb, the great round (as it is call'd. ver. 267.) of the universe, hollow as being concave and having no creatures to inhabit it. 264. liquid air,] Virg. En. VI. 202. liquidumque per aera. 267 partition firm and fure,] For its certainty not folidity. St. Auguftin upon Genefis. It is not call'd firmament as being a folid body, but The waters underneath from those above Dividing for as earth, fo he the world 270 Of Chaos far remov'd, left fierce extremes but because it is a bound or term between the upper and nether waters; a partition firm and immoveable, not upon account of its flation, but of its firmness and intranfgreffibility. Hume and Richardson. 268. The waters underneath from thofe above 275 The fembling water. Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters. Pfal. ČIV. 3. Praise him' ye Heavens of Heavens, and ye waters above the Heavens. Pfal. CXLVIII. 4. To this fenfe our poet agrees, and thus infers, that as God built the earth, and founded it on waters (fretched out the earth above the waters. Pfal. Dividing:] They who understand CXXXVI. 6 By the word of God the firmament to be the vast air, ex- the Heavens were of old, and the earth panded and ftretch'd out on all confifling out of the water and in the fides to the ftarry Heavens, efteem water. 2 Pet. III. 5.) fo alfo he the waters above it to be thofe ge- eftablish'd the whole frame of the nerated, in the middle region of heavenly orbs, in a calm crystallin the air, of vapors exhaled and drawn fea furrounding it, left the neighup thither from the steaming earth bourhood of the unruly Chaos should and nether waters; which defcend disturb it. But all fearch in works again in fuch vaft showers and mighty fo wonderful, fo distant and undif floods of rain, that not only rivers, cernable, as well as undemonftrable, but feas may be imaginable above, is quite confounded. as appeared when the cataracts came down in a deluge, and the flood gates of Heaven were open'd. Gen. VII. 11. Others, and thofe many, by thefe waters above understand the cryftallin Heaven (by Gaffendus made double) by our author better named cryftallin ocean, by its clearness re Hume. 274. And Heav'n be nam'd the firmament:] So Gen. I 8. And God called the firmament Heaven. But it may feem ftrange if the firmament means the air and atmosphere, that the air fhould be called Heaven: but fo it is frequently in the lan guage The earth was form'd, but in the womb as yet Of waters, embryon immature involv'd, Appear'd not: over all the face of earth Main ocean flow'd, not idle, but with warm guage of the Hebrews and in the ftile of Scripture. In this very chapter, ver. 20. it is faid fowl that may fy above the earth in the open firmament of Heaven. So in Pfal. CIV: 12. By them fall the fowls of the Heaven have their habitation, which fing among the branches. And Mat. VI. 26. what we tranflate the fowls of the air is in the original the fowls of Heaven, To wereva tou years. So again, Rev. XIX. 17. the fowls that fly in the midst of Heaven. And we read often in Scripture of the rain of Heaven, and the clouds of Heaven. The truth is there were three Heavens in the account of the Hebrews. Mention is made of the third Heaven 2 Cor. XII 2. The first Heaven is the air, as we have fhown, wherein the clouds move and the birds fly; the fecond is the ftarry Heaven, and the third Heaven is the habitation of the Angels and the feat of God's glory. Milton is fpeaking here of the firft Heaven, as he mentions the others in other places. 282. God faid 280 Into Be gather'd now ye waters under Into one place, and let dry land ap pear.] This is again exactly copied from Mofes; And God faid, Let the waters under the Heaven be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was fo. Gen. I. 9. And it was fo is very fhort in Mofes; Milton inlarges upon it, as the fubject will admit fome fine ftrokes of poetry, and feems to have had his eye upon the CIVth Pfalm, which is likewife a divine hymn in praife of the creation, 6th and following verfes. Thou coveredЛ the earth with the deep; the waters food above the mountains. At the rebuke they fled, at the voice of thy thunder they hafted away. They go up by the mountains, they go down by the valleys unto the place which thou haft founded for them, &c. We fuppofe that we need not defire the reader to remark the beautiful numbers in the following verfes of the poem, how they feem to rife with the rifing mountains, and to fink again with the falling waters. 285. Im Into one place, and let dry land appear. Immediately the mountains huge appear As drops on duft conglobing from the dry; 285 290 For hafte; such flight the great command impress'd.. Of trumpet (for of armies thou haft heard)... 295 If have bursting with kindly rupture. 303. And on the washy oofe deep 285. Immediately the mountains &c.] torrent rupture, as in ver. 419. we We have the fame elevation of thought in the third day, when the mountains were brought forth, and the deep was made. We have alfo the rifing of the whole vegetable world defcribed in this day's work, which is filled with all the graces that other poets have lavish'd on their defcription of the fpring, and leads the reader's imagination into a theatre equally furprifing and beautiful. Addifon. 299. If fleep, with torrent rapture,] I have feen a marginal reading with be dry, &c.] The earth was juft now emerg'd from the waters in which it had been wrapt; 'twas therefore all one great washy oose, flime and mud. In this foft earth deep channels were eafily worn by the ftreaming water, 'till 'twas dry every where If steep, with torrent rapture, if through plain, All but within thofe banks, where rivers now 305 And faw that it was good, and faid, Let th' earth He fcarce had faid, when the bare earth, till then Defert to be found in our author and all good poets. Richardson. 307. The dry land, earth, &c.] Thefe are again the words of Genefis form'd into verse. Gen. I. 10, 11. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he feas: and God faw that it bring forth grass, the herb yielding feed, was good. And God faid, Let the earth and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after. his kind, whofe feed is in itself upon the earth. But when he comes to the defcriptive part, he then opens a finer vein of poetry. C 321. The |