By one Man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foil'd
In all his wiles, defeated and repuls'd,
And Eden rais'd in the wafte wilderness.

long for the fhort term of years he could then hope for. Even in his Paradife Loft he expreffes his fears, left he had begun too late, and left an age too late, or cold climate, or years, should have damped his intended wing; and furely he had much greater cause to dread the fame now, and to be very cautious of launching out too far. THYER.

Ver. 7. And Eden rais'd in the wafte wilderness.] There is, I think, a particular beauty in this line, when one confiders the fine allufion in it to the curfe brought upon the Paradifiacal earth by the fall of Adam: Curfed is the ground for thy fake: Thorns allo and thistles Jhall it bring forth to thee." THYER.

In the fourth book of this poem, (ver. 523) we have,

"And follow'd thee ftill on to this wake wild."

Waste, or wasteful, is an epithet which our author had annexed to wilderness, at an early period of his life. Thus in his tranflation of the cxxxvith Palm, written when he was only fifteen, he has

"His chofen people he did bless

"In the wasteful wilderness.”

In that inftance, perhaps, he borrowed the whole phrafe from This favourite Spenfer: Fuer. Qu. i. 4. 32.

"Far hence (quoth he) in wajieful wilderness

"His dwelling is"

"The Lord

But the expreilion and the application of it, in this place, were evidently taken from a paffage in jaiah, li. 3. thall comfort Zion, he will comfort' all her wafte places, and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her defart like the garden of the Lord." From whence Pope alfo, in his Eloifa to Abelard; "You rais'd thefe hallow'd walls, the defart fmil'd, "And Paradife was open'd in the wild." DUNSTER.

I may add that the precife expreflion here ufed by Milton, from Spenfer's tranflation of Virgil's Culex:

Thou Spirit, who ledft this glorious eremite Into the defart, his victorious field,

Against the spiritual foe, and brought'ft him

thence

By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire,

"I carried am to a waste wildernesse,

"Waste wildernese among Cymmerian fhades."

10

And it occurs in the romance of Palmerin of England, 4to. vol. 1. bl. 1. f. d. chap. 93. "The places of most renowne in this empire fhall be changed to a waste and defolate wildernesse TODD.

Ver. 8. Thou Spirit, who ledft this glorious eremite

Into the defart, his victorious field, &c.] This invocation is so fupremely beautiful, that it is hardly poffible to give the preference even to that in the opening of the Paradife Loft. This has the merit of more concifenefs. Diffufenefs may be con dered as leffening the dignity of invocations on fuch fubjects. DUNSTER.

Ibid.

who ledft this glorious eremite

Into the defart,] It is faid, Mat. iv. 1. "Then was Jefus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil." And from the Greek original pnp the defart, and ipping an inhabitant of the defart, is rightly formed the word eremite; which was ufed before by Milton in his Paradife Loft, B. iii. 474. And by Fairfax, in his tranflation of Taffo, c. xi. A. iv. And in Italian, as well as in Latin, there is eremita, which the French, and we after them, contract into hermite, hermit. NEWTON.

Heremite, or eremite, had been a very common spelling, both in poetry and profe, before Milton's time. TODD.

Ver. 11.

inspire,

As thou art wont, my prompted fong, clje mute;] See the very fine opening of the ninth Book of the Paradife Loft, and alfo his invocation of Urania, at the beginning of the feventh Book. And in the introduction to the second book of The Reafon of Church-Government urged against Prelacy, where he

As thou art wont, my prompted fong, elfe mute; And bear, through highth or depth of Nature's bounds,'

promises to undertake fomething, he yet knows not what, that may be of use and honour to his country, he adds; "This is not to be obtained but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and fends out his Seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify whom he pleafes."-Here then we fee, that Milton's invo'cations of the Divine fpirit were not merely exordia pro formâ.→ Indeed his profe works are not without their invocations. Com pare alfo Taffo, Il Mondo Creato, Giorn. prim.

"Se non m' infpiri tu, la voce, e'l fuono.".

DUNSTER.

Ver. 12. my prompted fong, elfe mute;] "Milton's third wife, who furvived him many years, related of him, that he used to compofe his poetry chiefly in winter; and on his waking in a morning would make her write down fometimes twenty or thirty verfes. Being asked, whether he did not often read Homer and Virgil, the understood it as an imputation upon him for stealing from thofe authors, and answered with 'eagerness," he ftole from nobody but the Mufe who infpired him;" and, being afked by a lady present who the Mufe was, replied, "it was God's grace and the Holy Spirit that vifited him nightly." Newton's Life of Milton. Mr. Richardson alfo fays, that "Milton would fometimes lie awake whole nights, but not a verse could he make; and on a fudden his poetical fancy would rufh upon him with an impetus or aftrum." Johnson's Life of Milton.

Elfe mute might have been fuggefted by a paffage of Horace's moft beautiful ode to the Mufe, IV. iii.

"O teftudinis aureæ

"Dulcem quæ ftrepitum, Pieri, temperas ! "O mutis quoque pifcibus

"Donatura cygni, fi libeat, fonum !

Or from Quinctilian; " ipfam igitur orandi majeftatem, qua nihil dii immortales melius homini dederunt, et quâ remota

15

With profperous wing full fummid, to tell of deeds
Above heroick, though in fecret done,
And unrecorded left through many an age
Worthy to have not remain'd follong 'unfung."

Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice More awful than the found of trumpet, cried Repentance, and Heaven's kingdom nighat hand To all baptiz'd: To his great baptifm flock'd 21

muta funt omnia, et luce præfenti et memoriâ pofteritatis carent, toto animo petamus." L. xii. 11. DUNSTER.

Ver. 14. With profperous wing full fumm'd,] We have the like expreffion in Paradife Loft, B. vii, 421, "They fumm'd their pens ;" and it was noted there that it is a term in falconry. A hawk is faid to be full fumm'd, when all his feathers are grown, when he wants nothing of the jum of his feathers, “cui nihil de SUMMA pennarum deeft," as Skinner fays. NEWTON.

Milton had perhaps the following paffage of Drayton in mind, Polyolbion, Song xi.

"The Mufe from Cambria comes with pinions fumm'd and found." TODD.

Ibid.

to tell of deeds

Above heroick,] Thus Milton conceived the fubject of Paradife Loft to be of much greater dignity and difficulty than the argument of Homer and Virgil. See Par. L. ix. 13. See alfo B. i. 13, i. 24, iii. 3, ix. 27, &c. But, as Richardson obferves, the poet here confines himfelf to "Nature's bounds;" not as in the Par. Loft, where he foars" above the visible diurnal fphere." Compare what our author fays of fubjects for epick poetry, in his Church Government, Pr. W. i. 60. ed. 1698, where a "Chriftian hero" seems to be his choice; when he was a much younger man, about thirty years old. T. WARTON. ! {nt *,

Ver. 18.

with a voice

Lift up

<< More awful than the found of trumpet,] thy voice like a trumpet, and fhew my people their tranfgreflions," Ifaiah, lviii. 1. And fee Heb. xii, 18, 19. DUNSTER.

With awe the regions round, and with them

came

From Nazareth the fon of Jofeph deem'd

To the flood Jordan; came, as then obfcure,
Unmark'd, unknown; but him the Baptist foon
Defcried, divinely warn'd, and witnefs bore 26
As to his worthier, and would have refign'd
To him his heavenly office; nor was long

Ver. 24. To the flood Jordan; came, &c.] This line is curruptly pointed both by Tickell and Fenton, after Tonfon:

"To the flood Jordan came, as then obfcure,"

But, as Dr. Newton obferves, Milton's own pointing is emphatick, and worthy of repetition; "came with them to the 'flood Jordan," and came, as then obfcure." TODD.

Ver. 25.

but him the Baptift svon

Defcried, divinely wurn'd,] John the Baptift had notice given him before, that he might certainly know the Meffiah by the Holy Ghoft defcending and abiding upon him, "And I knew him not, but he that sent me to baptize with water, the fame faid unto me, Upon whom thou shalt fee the Spirit defcending and remaining on him, the fame is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghoft," John i. 33. But it appears from St. Matthew, that the Baptift knew him, and acknowledged him before he was baptized, and before the Holy Ghost descended upon him, Mat. iii. 14. "I have nced to be baptized of thee, and comeft thou to me?" To account for which we muft admit with Milton, that another divine revelation was made to him at this very time, fignifying that this was the perfon, of whom he had fuch notice. before. NEWTON.

Ver. 26. - divinely warn'd,] To comprehend the propriety of this word divinely, the reader muft have his eye upon the Latin DIVINITUS, from Heaven, fince the word divinely in our language fcarce ever comes up to this meaning. Milton ufes it in much the fame sense in Paradise Loft, B. vii. 500. "She heard me thus, and though divinely brought."

THYER