If that way be your walk, you have not far So much the neater danger, go and speed; FI..voc and fpoil and ruin are my gain.

H: ceas'd and Satan ftay'd not to reply, But glad that now his fea should find a thore, With fresh alacrity and force renew'd Springs upward like a pyramid of fire

Into the wild expanfe, and through the shock
Of fighting elements, on all fides round

Environ'd wins his way; harder befet

1015

And more indanger'd, than when Argo pafs'd
Through Bosporus betwixt the juftling rocks:
Or when Ulyffes on the larbord fhunn'd
Charybdis, and by th' other whirlpool fteer'd. 1020

So

2019. Ar when Ulyffes on the las- Charybdis fituated on the larbord bord founn'd of his fhip as he was failing; but Charybdis, and by th other whirl that Ulyes failing on the larbord pool feer'd.] Thefe two (to the left hand where Scylla was) werfes Dr. Bentley would throw did thereby fhun Charybdis; which quite away. Larbord (he fays) is was the truth of the cafe. The abominable in heroic poetry; but Doctor's other objection is, that Dryden (as the Doctor owns) Scylla was no whirlpool, which thought it not unfit to be employ'd yet the is here fuppofed to have there: and Milton in other places been; But Virgil (whom Milton has ufed nautical terms, without follows ofter than he does Homer) being cenfar'd for it by the Doctor. defcribes Scylla as naves in faxa So in IX. 513. he speaks of work- trabentem, Æn. III. 425. and what ing a fhip, of veering and shifting; is that lefs than calling it a whirl and in I. 207. of mooring under the pool? And Athan. Kircher, who Lee. So Virgil's legere littus is ob- has written a particular account ferved to be a term borrow'd from of Scylla and Charybdis upon his mariners, by Servius in his notes own view of them, does not on Georg. II. 44. and En. III, fcruple to call them both whirl 127. But the Doctor has two pools. The truth is, that Scylla very formidable objections against is a rock fituated in a fmall bay the fenfe of thefe verfes. Firft he fays that larbord or left hand is a miftake here for farberd or right hand, Charybdis being to the far bard of Ulyes, when he failed thro' these ftraits. This is very true, but it does not affect what Milton here fays; for the fenfe may be, not that Ulysses fhuan'd

on the Italian coat, into which bay the tide runs with a very strong current, fo as to draw in the hips which are within the compass of its force, and either dash them against the rock, or fwallow them in the eddies; for when the ftreams have thus violently rush'd into the bay, they

So he with difficulty and labor hard

Mov'd on, with difficulty and labor he;
But he once paft, foon after when man fell,
Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain

Following his track, fuch was the will of Heaven,
Pav'd after him a broad and beaten way

1026

Over the dark abyfs, whose boiling gulf
Tamely indur'd a bridge of wondrous length
From Hell continued reaching th' utmost orb
Of this frail world; by which the Spirits perverfe
With easy intercourse pass to and fro

To tempt or punish mortals, except whom
God and good Angels guard by fpecial grace.

1031

But

interpolation: but the foregoing words, containing a repetition of what went before them, with dif ficulty and labor he, have no force nor propriety, unless it be added (as it is in thefe verses) that fome others afterwards went this way with more ease.

Pearce. It is evident that these lines are Milton's, and cannot be an interpolation of the editor. But yet I am afraid we cannot so easily get over the Doctor's other objection that this fame bridge is defcrib'd in Book X. for feveral lines together poetically and pompously, as a thing untouch'd before and an incident to surprise the reader;

and

But now at laft the facred influence

Of light appears, and from the walls of Heaven
Shoots far into the bofom of dim Night

1036

1040

A glimmering dawn; here Nature first begins
Her fartheft verge, and Chaos to retire
As from her outmoft works a broken foe
With tumult lefs and with lefs hoftile din,
That Satan with lefs toil, and now with ease
Wafts on the calmer waye by dubious light,
And like a weather-beaten veffel holds
Gladly the port, though fhrouds and tackle torn;
Or in the emptier waste, resembling air,
Weighs his spread wings, at leifure to behold

and therefore the poet fhould not
have anticipated it here. Let the
lines themfelves be approv'd; yet
it must be allow'd, it is wrong
conduct and want of oeconomy for
the whole poem. And we cannot
recollect a parallel inftance in
Homer or Virgil, or any autho-
riz'd poet.
1025. — fuch was the will of
Heaven,] A '77
Beλn. Hom. Iliad. I. 5.

1039. As from her outmoft works] Dr. Bentley reads his inftead of her: but the meaning is not that Chaos retires as from his own outmost

1045

Tenuis relicta lucis a tergo nitor, Fulgorque dubius folis afflicti cadit. Thyer.

1046. Weighs bis Spread wings,]

works, but retires as from the out- In like manner Tallo defcribing

the

Far off th' empyreal Heav'n, extended wide na 10
In circuit, undetermin'd square or round,
With opal tow'rs and battlements adorn'd domovi
Of living faphir, once his native feat;

And faft by hanging in a golden chain

This pendent world, in bignefs as a ftar

11050

ཟ། *

Of

the Angel Gabriel's flight, Cant. 1. menfely bigger than the Earth, a

St. 14.

E fi librò fu l'adeguate penne. But I think notwithstanding the natural partiality one has for one's Countryman, the preference muft be given to the Italian. The fame ftanza fuggefts another imitation. Taffo calls Gabriel's wings, Infaticabilmente, agili, e prefte.

And Milton, ver. 408,

Upborne with indefatigable wings. Thyer. 1049. With opal fo'rs] With towers of precious ftones. Opal is a ftone of diverfe colors, partaking of the carbuncles faint fire, the amethifts bright purple, and the emeralds chearing green.

Hume and Richardson,

1052. This pendent world, in big

nefs as a flar Of fmalleft magnitude close by the moon.] By this pendent world is not meant the Earth; but the new creation, Heaven and Earth, the whole orb of fix'd ftars im

mere point in comparison. This is fure from what Chaos had lately faid, ver. 1004.

Now lately Heav'n and Earth,
another world,
Hung o'er my realm, link'd in
golden chain.

Befides, Satan did not fee the Earth
the fudden view of all this world at
yet; he was afterwards furpris'd at
ance, III. 542. and wander'd long
on the outfide of it; till at laft he

faw our fun, and learned there of the Arch-Angel Uriel, where the Earth and Paradife were. See III. 722. This pendent world therefore muft mean the whole world, the new created universe, and bebeld far off it appear'd in comparison with the empyreal Heaven no bigger than a star of smallest magnitude; nay not fo large, it appear'd no bigger than fuch a ftar appears to be when it is close by the moon, the fuperior light whereof makes any ftar that happens to be near her difk, to feem exceedingly small and almost disappear. Dr. Bentley has ftrangely mistaken the fenfe of