Of maffy ir'on or folid rock with cafe
Unfaftens: on a fudden open fly

880

With impetuous recoil and jarring found
Th'infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook
Of Erebus. She open'd, but to shut
Excell'd her pow'r; the gates wide open stood,
That with extended wings a banner'd hoft
Under spread enfigns marching might pass through
With horfe and chariots rank'd in loofe array;
So wide they stood, and like a furnace mouth
Caft forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame.
in fudden view appear

Before their

eyes

885

890 The

882. the lowest bottom book
Of Erebus.] The most profound

horrifono ftridentes cardine depth of Hell. facræ Panduntur portæ ?

The ingenious author of the Mifcellaneous Obfervations on the Tragedy

Erebi de fedibus imis.

T4

Virg. Georg. IV. 471.
Hume.

The fecrets of the hoary deep, a dark

Illimitable ocean, without bound,

Without dimenfion, where length, breadth, and highth,

And time, and place are loft; where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of nature, hold

Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise

Of endless wars, and by confufion ftand.

895

For hot, cold, moift, and dry, four champions fierce, Strive here for mast'ry, and to battel bring

Their embryon atoms; they around the flag

900

Of

894. where eldest Night And Chaos, &c.] All the ancient naturalifts, philofophers, and poets, hold that Chaos was the first principle of all things; and the poets particularly make Night a Goddefs, and reprefent Night or darknefs and Chaos or confufion as exercifing uncontroll'd dominion from the beginning. Thus Orpheus in the beginning of his hymn to Night addreffes her as the mother of the Gods and Men, and origin of all things,

O thou most ancient Grandmother

of all, More old than Jove, &c. And our author's fyftem of the univerfe is in fhort, that the empyrean Heaven, and Chaos and darknefs were before the creation, Heaven above and Chaos beneath; and then upon the rebellion of the Angels firft Hell was formed out of Chaos firetching far and wide bereath; and afterwards Heaven and Earth, another world, hanging o'er the realm of Chaos, and won from

Nuxla Sear eveтHegy aнgouas his dominion. See ver. 1002, &c.

nde nas avô pav,

Νυξ γενεσις παντων.

So alfo Spenfer in imitation of the
Ancients, Fairy Queen, B. 1. C. 5.
St. 22.

and 978.

898. For bot, cold, moift, and dry, &c.] Ovid. Met. I. 19. Frigida pugnabant calidis, humentia ficcis,

Of each his faction, in their feveral clans,

Light-arm'd or heavy, sharp, fmooth, fwift or flow,
Swarm populous, un-number'd as the fands
Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid foil,

Levied to fide with warring winds, and poife 905
Their lighter wings. To whom these most adhere,
He rules a moment; Chaos umpire fits,
And by decifion more embroils the fray
By which he reigns: next him high arbiter
Chance governs all. Into this wild abyss,

The reader may compare this whole defcription of Chaos with Ovid's, and he will eafily fee how the Roman poet has leffen'd the grandeur of his by puerile conceits and quaint antithefes every thing in Milton is great and masterly.

910 The

905.and poife] Give weight or ballaft to. Pliny speaks of certain birds, who when a ftorm arises poise themselves with little ftones, L. 11. C. 10. Virgil has the fame thought of his bees, Georg. IV. 194. Richardson.

Dr. Bentley reads the most adhere, 906. To whom thefe moft adhere,] that is (fays he) he of the four 902. Light-arm'd or heavy,] He rules, while he has the majority. continues the warlike metaphor; But this is not Milton's fenfe; for some of them are light-arm'd or according to him no atoms adhere heavy, levis or gravis armaturæ. to moift, but fuch as belong to his Hume. faction, and the fame is to be faid of hot, cold, and dry. Therefore the reason why any one of thefe four champions rules (tho' but for a moment) is because the atoms of his faction adhere moft to him. Firm dependence indeed (fays the Doctor) and worthy the fuperla

904. Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid Joil,] A city and province of dry fandy Libya, Virg. En. IV. 42.

Hinc deferta fiti regio, lateque
furentes
Barcæi.

The womb of nature and perhaps her grave,
Of neither fea, nor fhore, nor air, nor fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mix'd
Confus'dly, and which thus muft ever fight,
Unless th' almighty Maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more worlds;
Into this wild abyss the wary Fiend

Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while,
Pond'ring his voyage; for no narrow frith

He had to cross. Nor was his ear less peal'd
With noises loud and ruinous (to compare

915

920

Great

blunder, Milton is elsewhere guilty of it; we may rather fuppofe that he could not but fee it, and therefore that he thought it an allow able liberty in writing: for thus in V. 368. he says,

-what the garden choicest bears To fit and tafte

where fit and tafte is us'd for fitting tafte; as here flood and look'd for ftanding look'd. Pearce. Here is a remarkable tranfpofition of the words, the fenfe however is very clear; The wary Fiend flood on the brink of Hell, and look'd awhile into this wild abyfs, pondering his voyage. 'Tis obfervable the poet himfelf feems to be doing what he defcribes, for the period begins at 910, then he goes not on directly, but lingers, giving an

Great things with small) than when Bellona ftorms,
With all her battering engins bent to rase
Some capital city'; or less than if this frame
Of Heav'n were falling, and these elements
In mutiny had from her axle torn

925

The ftedfaft earth. At laft his fail-broad vans
He spreads for flight, and in the furging fmoke
Uplifted fpurns the ground; thence many a league,
As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides
Audacious; but that seat soon failing, meets
A vast vacuity: all unawares

930

Fluttering

are often applied to the other, and flying is compar'd to failing, and failing to flying.

Velorum pandimus alas, fays Virgil, Æn. III. 520. And En. I. 300.

- volat ille per aera magnum Remigio alarum.

The fame manner of speaking has
prevail'd likewise among the mo-
dern poets, and in Spenfer, as well
as in the paffage before us, wings
are liken'd to fails, Fairy Queen,
B. 1. Cant. II. St. 10.

His flaggy wings when forth he
did difplay,
Were like two fails.

And afterwards, St. 18.

he