Equal in days and nights, except to those
Beyond the polar circles; to them day
Had unbenighted fhone, while the low fun
To recompenfe his diftance, in their fight
Had rounded still th' horizon, and not known
Or east or weft, which had forbid the fnow
From cold Eftotiland, and fouth as far
At that tafted fruit

Beneath Magellan.

The fun, as from Thyéftean banquet, turn'd
His course intended; elfe how had the world

68

685

In

Thyeftes and Atreus brethren hated
each other outrageoufly; the first in
fpite lay with the wife of Atreus,
but he having gotten his brother's
children in his power pretended a
defire of reconciliation, and invited
him to a banquet. Thyeftes, that
he might fee his children, diffembling
his augmented malice, came; the
feaft being over, his brother let him
know he had been entertain'd with
the fleth of his fons, and their blood
mix'd with the wine, and fhow'd
him the fad proof of what he had
told him, their heads and hands
which he had referved for that pur-
pofe. At this the fun is faid to have
turn'd away, as Milton here fays he
did when the more dreadful banquet
was made on the fruit of the for-
bidden tree. Richardson.
We may farther obferve that it is
called the Thyeflean banquet, though
made not by him, but only for him;
and Euripides in like manner calls

Inhabited, though finlefs, more than now,

Avoided pinching cold and fcorching heat?

690

These changes in the Heav'ns, though flow, produc'd
Like change on fea and land, fideral blaft,

Vapor, and mift, and exhalation hot,
Corrupt and peftilent: Now from the north
Of Norumbega, and the Samoed shore,
Burfting their brazen dungeon, arm'd with ice
And fnow and hail and ftormy guft and flaw,
Boreas and Cacias and Argeftes loud

695

And Thrafcias rend the woods and feas upturn; 700

it durva Queck. Oreft. 1010. and Horace cana Thyefta. De Art. Poet. 91. and Mr. Pope would read here Thyeftes'.

696. Of Norumbega, and the Samoed fhore,] Norumbega a province of the northern America. Samoida, a province in the north-east of Mufcovy, upon the frozen fea. Hume.

697. arm'd with ice &c.] So Claudian de Rapt. Prof. I. 69.

ceu turbine rauco Cum gravis armatur Boreas, glacieque nivali &c. Richardfon.

-

698. and formy guft and flaw,] Guft and flaw feem to be words much of the fame import, only flaw is the ftronger, derived (as Junius fays) from the Greek a to break. Shakespear ufes both words in his Venus and Adonis,

Like a red morn that ever yet betoken'd

With

Guft and foul flaws to herdsmen . and to herds.

699. Boreas] The north wind. north east. Thrafcias blowing from Cacias the north-weit. Argeftes the Thrace, northward of Greece. Notus the fouth wind. Afer or Africus, the fouthwest from Africa;

Notufque ruunt creberque procellis Africus. Virg. Æn. I. 85. From Serraliona or Lion Mountains; a range of mountains fo call'd becaufe of the perpetual forms there the fouth-weft of Africa, within a roaring like a lion. These are to few leagues of Cape Verd, the western point. Eurus and Zephyr the east and weft, call'd alfo Levant and Ponent winds (rifing and setting) the one blowing from whence the fun rifes, the other whence it fets. Sirocco ventus Syrus, the fouth-eaft and Libecchio ventus Lybicus, the

t;

fouth

With adverse blast upturns them from the south
Notus and Afer black with thundrous clouds
From Serraliona; thwart of these as fierce
Forth rush the Levant and the Ponent winds
Eurus and Zephyr with their lateral noise,
Sirocco, and Libecchio. Thus began

Outrage from lifelefs things; but Discord first
Daughter of Sin, among th' irrational,

Death introduc'd through fierce antipathy:

705

709

Beast now with beast 'gan war, and fowl with fowl,
And fish with fish; to graze the herb all leaving,

fouth-weft: Italian terms ufed by feamen of the Mediterranean.

Hume and Richardfon. In this account of the winds is a needlefs oftentation of learning, and a ftrange mixture of ancient and modern, Latin and Italian names together. These are the foibles and weak parts of our author, and of these it may too truly be faid,

Such labor'd nothings, in fo ftrange a ftile,

Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned fmile.

710. Beaft now with beaft

Glar'd on him paffing ] These verfes are very like fome upon the fame occafion in Mafenius, as cited by Mr. Lauder.

Quadrupedi pugnat quadrupes, volucrique volucris,

Et pifcis cum pifce ferox hoftilibus

armis

De

Prælia fæva gerit: jam priftina pabula fpernunt,

Jam tondere piget viridantes gramine campos;

Alterum et alterius vivunt animalia letho:

Prifca nec in gentem humanam reverentia durat,

Sed fugiunt, vel fi fteterant, fera bella minantur

Fronte truci, torvofque oculos jaculantur in illam.

And perhaps two or three inftances at most in Milton are fomething fimilar to paffages in Mafenius: whether accidentally or defignedly is a question: but furely it is great abfurdity to charge Milton therefore with borrowing the fubftance of 2000 lines from him.

711.- to graze

the herb all leaving, &c.] The word all here makes strange fenfe of this paffage, fince according to common conftruc

Devour'd each other; nor ftood much in awe

Of Man, but fled him, or with count'nance grim
Glar'd on him paffing. These were from without
The growing miferies, which Adam faw
Already' in part, though hid in gloomiest shade,

tion it implies that beafts, fowl, and fifh, all graz'd before the fall, and immediately after it began all to prey upon each other, neither of which could poffibly be Milton's meaning. How to restore the true reading I don't pretend to determin, but the following lines feem to confine the devouring to the beafts, and might not therefore the word those be subftituted in the placc of all? Thyer. Whether Milton's notion was right or not is another queftion, but certainly it was his notion that beaft, fowl, and fib grazed the herb before the fall. Of the beafts there can be no doubt; and the fowl have the green herb given them for meat as well as the beafts. Gen. I. 30. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air I have given every green herb for meat. And the goofe particularly is by the poet who has belt imitated Milton called clofegrazer. Philips's Cyder. B. 1.

On the barren heath

715

But all here is not all and every one in particular, but only all in general. Fowl prey upon fowl, and fish upon fifh, as much as beaft upon beaft. Beaft, fowl, and fish, all the three kinds, tho' not all of the three kinds, devour each other.

712. nor flood much in awe

Of Man, but fled him,] Dr. Bentley reads but hunn'd him: becaufe (he fays) if they fled him, it was a fign of fear, of more than awe. True, and for that very reason fled is right here, because nothing more fhows our not standing much in awe of a Man than our fearing him. Awe is

The fhepherd tends his flock, that a respect or reverence paid to one

daily crop

whom we love, and love excludes

Their verdant dinner from the fear. Pearce.
moffy turf
Sufficient; after them the cackling
goofe,
Clofe grazer, finds wherewith to
eafe her want.

714.-Thefe were from without &c.] The tranfition to Adam here is very eafy and natural, and cannot fail of pleafing the reader. We have feen great alterations produced in nature,

and

To forrow' abandon'd, but worse felt within,
And in a troubled sea of paffion tost,
Thus to difburden fought with fad complaint.

O miferable of happy'! is this the end Of this new glorious world, and me fo late