About the world, at that assembly fam'd 677. 35 40 answered the Lord, and said, From in imitation of Virgil, Æn. iii. going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. Job i. 7. Compare 1 Pet. v. 8. Dunster. 41. Within thick clouds &c.] Milton in making Satan's residence to be in mid air, within thick clouds and dark, seems to have St. Austin in his eye, who speaking of the region of clouds, storms, thunder, &c. says, ad ista caliginosa, id est, ad hunc aerem, tanquam ad carcerem, damnatus est diabolus &c. Enarr. in Ps. cxlviii. s. 9. tom. v. p. 1677. Edit. Bened. Thyer. But Milton, in his Par. Lost, places the Deity also "amidst thick clouds and dark." Cernimus astantes nequicquam lu mine torvo Etneos fratres, cœlo capita alta ferentes, Concilium horrendum. By the word consistory I suppose Protinus acciri diros ad regia fratres manner. O ancient powers of air and this wide world, For much more willingly I mention air, 44. O ancient pow'rs of air and this wide world,] So the Devil is called in Scripture, the prince of the power of the air, Eph. ii. 2. and evil spirits the rulers of the darkness of this world, Eph. vi. 12. Satan here summons a council, and opens it as he did in the Paradise Lost: but here is not that copiousness and variety which is in the other; here are not different speeches and sentiments adapted to the different characters; it is a council without a debate; Satan is the only speaker. And the author, as if conscious of this defect, has artfully endeavoured to obviate the objection by saying, that their danger -admits no long debate, But must with something sudden be oppos'd: and afterwards -no time was then For long indulgence to their fears or grief. The true reason is, he found it impossible to exceed or equal the speeches in his former council, and therefore has assigned the best reason he could for not making any in this. 44. The object of this council, it should be recollected, is not to debate, but merely for Satan to communicate to his compeers his apprehensions of their approaching danger, and to receive from them a sort of commission to act, in prevention of it, as circumstances might require, and as he should judge best. This gives the poet an opportunity of 45 laying open the motives and general designs of the great antagonist of his hero. A council, with a debate of equal length to that in the second book of the Par. Lost, would have been totally disproportionate to this brief epic; which, from the nature of its subject, already perhaps abounds too much in speeches. In the second book of this poem, where this infernal council is again assembled, a debate is introduced, which, though short, is very beautiful. Dunster. 44. O ancient powers of air, and this wide world, (For much more willingly I mention air, This our old conquest, than remember hell, Our hated habitation,) well ye know, &c.] This passage is an eminently striking instance of the fine effect of a parenthesis, when introduced into a speech, and containing, as Lord Monboddo says, "matter of weight and pathos." "The ancients," observes the same writer, "were fond of the parenthesis; and particularly Demosthenes. Milton in this as in other things followed their taste and judgment, thinking he could not vary his composition sufficiently, nor sometimes convey the sense so forcibly as he could wish, without the use of this figure." (See the Origin and Progress of Language, part ii. b. iv. 6. and the Dissertation on the Composition of the Ancients.) Dunster. This our old conquest, than remember hell, This universe we have possess'd, and rul'd 50 55 always so. Why any interval should ever occur between the decrees of the Almighty and his execution of them, a reason is immediately subjoined, which forms a peculiarly fine transition to the succeeding sentence. Time is as nothing to the Deity; long and short having in fact no existence to a Being with whom all duration is present. Time to human beings has its stated measurement, and by this Satan had just before estimated it; How many ages, as the years of men, This universe we have possess'd. Time to guilty beings, human or spiritual, passes so quick, that the hour of punishment, however protracted, always comes too soon, And now, too soon for us, the circling hours This dreaded time have compass'd, wherein we Must bide the stroke of that longthreaten'd wound. Dunster. And now too soon for us the circling hours This dreaded time have compass'd, wherein we Must bide the stroke of that long threaten'd wound, At least if so we can, and by the head Broken be not intended all our power To be infring'd, our freedom and our being, 60 In this fair empire won of earth and air; For this ill news I bring, the woman's seed Things highest, greatest, multiplies my fear. 57. -the circling hours] Milton seems fond of this expression. See Far. Lost, vi. 3. vii. 342. And so Virgil, Georg. ii. 402. redit labor actus in orbem, Atque in se sua per vestigia volvitur annus. Kunλta to circle, as used by the 65 70 75 80 to lead the choral dance. The circling hours then are the same with "the hours in dance." Par. Lost. iv. 266. Dunster. 74. Purified to receive him pure,] Alluding to the Scripture expression 1 John iii. 3. And every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself even as he is pure. Out of the water, heav'n above the clouds And what will he not do to' advance his Son? 83. A perfect dove descend,] He had expressed it before ver. 30. in likeness of a dove, agreeably to St. Matthew, the Spirit of God descending like a dove, iii. 16. and to St. Mark, the Spirit like a dove descending upon him, i. 10. But as Luke says, that the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape, iii. 22. the poet supposes with Tertullian, Austin, and others of the fathers, that it was a real dove, as the painters always represent it. 87. He who obtains the monarchy of heaven:] Obtains is in the sense of obtineo in Latin; to hold, retain, or govern. Dun ster. 89. —and sore have felt, us to the deep :] 91. Who this is we must learn,] Our author favours the opinion of those writers, Ignatius and 85 90 others among the ancients, and Beza and others among the moderns, who believed that the Devil, though he might know Jesus to be some extraordinary person, yet knew him not to be the Messiah, the Son of God: and the words of the Devil, If thou be the Son of God, seem to express his uncertainty concerning that matter. The devils indeed afterwards knew him, and proclaimed him to be the Son of God, but they might not know him to be so at this time, before this temptation, or before he had entered upon his public ministry, and manifested himself by his miracles. And our author, who makes the Devil to hear the voice from heaven, This is my beloved Son, still makes him doubt in what sense Jesus was so called. See iv. 514. Thenceforth I thought thee worth my nearer view, And narrower scrutiny, that I might learn In what degree or meaning thou art called |