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More juftly, feat worthier of Gods, as built
With fecond thoughts, reforming what was old!
For what God after better worfe would build?
Terreftrial Heav'n, danc'd round by other Heavens
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,
Light above light, for thee alone, as feems,
In thee concentring all their precious beams
Of facred influence! As God in Heaven
Is center, yet extends to all, fo thou
Centring receiv'ft from all those orbs; in thee,
Not in themselves, all their known virtue'
Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth

other worlds inhabited. See III. 566. The imagination that all the heavenly bodies were created for the fake of the Earth was natural to human ignorance, and human vanity might find its account in it: but neither of these could influence Satan. Heylin.

As it is common with people to undervalue what they have forfeited and lon by their folly and wickednefs, and to overvalue any good that they hope to attain; fo Satan is here made to question whether Earth be not preferable to Heaven: but this is fpoken of Earth in its primitive and original beauty before the fall. As Mr. Thyer obferves, Spenter has the very fame thought upon a like occafion, for defcribing

appears

III

Of

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Of creatures animate with gradual life

Of growth, sense, reason, all fumm'd up in Man. With what delight could I have walk'd thee round, If I could joy in ought, fweet interchange

Of hill, and valley, rivers, woods and plains,

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Now land, now fea, and fhores with forest crown'd,
Rocks, dens, and caves! but I in none of these
Find place or refuge; and the more I fee
Pleasures about me, fo much more I feel

Torment within me', as from the hateful fiege
Of contraries; all good to me becomes

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Bane, and in Heav'n much worse would be my state.

perfection in God, as if he had mended his hand by creation, and as if all the works of God were not perfect in their kinds, and in their degrees, and for the ends for which they were intended.

113. Of growth, fenfe, reason, all

fumm'd up in Man.] The three kinds of life rifing as it were by steps, the vegetable, animal, and rational; of all which Man partakes, and he only; he grows as plants, minerals, and all things inanimate; he lives as all other animated crea

tures, but is over and above indued with reason. Richardfon.

119. Find place or refuge;] Dr. Bentley believes that the author gave it Find place of refuge: Another learned gentleman propofes to read

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But neither here feek I, no nor in Heaven

To dwell, unless by maft'ring Heav'n's Supreme; 125
Nor hope to be myself less miserable

By what I feek, but others to make fuch
As I, though thereby worse to me redound
For only in destroying I find ease

To

my

relentless thoughts; and him deftroy'd, 130

Or won to what may work his utter loss,

For whom all this was made, all this will foon
Follow, as to him link'd in weal or woe,
In woe then; that destruction wide may range:
To me shall be the glory fole among

Th' infernal Pow'rs, in one day to have marr'd
What he Almighty ftil'd, fix nights and days
Continued making, and who knows how long
Before had been contriving, though perhaps
Not longer than fince I in one night freed
From fervitude inglorious well nigh half
Th' angelic name, and thinner left the throng

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Of

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Of his adorers: he to be aveng'd,

And to repair his numbers thus impair'd,

Whether fuch virtue spent of old now fail'd

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More Angels to create, if they at least

Are his created, or to fpite us more,

Determin'd to advance into our room

A creature form'd of earth, and him endow,
Exalted from fo base original,

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With heav'nly spoils, our fpoils: What he decreed

He' effected; Man he made, and for him built
Magnificent this world, and earth his feat,
Him lord pronounc'd, and, O indignity!
Subjected to his fervice Angel wings,
And flaming minifters to watch and tend
Their earthly charge: Of these the vigilance
I dread, and to elude, thus wrapt in mist
Of midnight vapor glide obfcure, and pry

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In every bush and brake, where hap may find 160 The ferpent fleeping, in whofe mazy

ther the Angels were created by God; he had before afferted, that they were not, to the Angels themfelves, V. 859.

We know no time when we were

not as now;

folds

By our own quick'ning pow'r.

To

He maketh his Angels Spirits, and
156. And flaming minifters] For
his minifters a flaming fire. Pfal.
CIV. 4.
161.

in whofe mazy folds]

Know none before us, felf-begot, Dr. Bentley reads, in his mazy folds.

felf-rais'd

164.— am

To hide me, and the dark intent I bring.

O foul defcent! that I who erst contended

With Gods to fit the high'eft, am now constrain'd

Into a beast, and mix'd with beftial flime,

This effence to incarnate and imbrute,
That to the highth of deity afpir'd;
But what will not ambition and revenge
Defcend to? who afpires must down as low
As high he foar'd, obnoxious first or last
To bafeft things. Revenge, at firft though sweet,
Bitter ere long back on itself recoils

;

Let it; I reck not, so it light well aim'd,

164. am now constrain'd &c.] The construction is, am now forc'd into a beaft, and to incarnate &c. The verb conftrain'd governs both the members; and there are innumerable inftances (as Mr. Richardfon obferves) in Milton, Horace, and the best Latin and Greek poets, of the fame verb governing in one member of the period a noun &c and in the other a verb &c.

166. This effence to incarnate and imbrute,] So alfo in his Mask, The foul grows clotted by contagion, Imbodies and imbrutes. Thyer. 169. who afpires must down as low

As high he foar d,] Rather muft Fink as low (fays Dr. Bentley because it is better to have fome verb in the

165

170

Since

oppofition than the adverb down. But yet this way of speaking is agreeable to what Milton says in X. 503.

But up, and enter now into full blifs. In both places the adverbs are used as verbs, or fome verb of motion is to be fupplied in the sense. Pearce. There is a most beautiful inftance of the use of fuch adverbs for verbs in Spakespear, 2 Henry IV. Act IV.

For now a time is come to mock
at form;
Henry the fifth is crown'd: up, Va-
nity!
Down, royal State !

173. Let it ;] Let revenge recoil on itself, I reck not, I value not, Lo it light well aim'd, fince higher I fall fhort, on him who next provokes

my

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