70 To me alike, it deals eternal woe. Nay curs'd be thou; fince against his thy will Chose freely what it now fo justly rues. Me miferable! which way fhall I fly None left but by submission; and that word and again, ver. 93. But fay I could repent, &c. Try, what repentance: what can Yet what can it, when one cannot repent? 75 80 85 How How dearly I abide that boast fo vain, While they adore me on the throne of Hell. In mifery; fuch joy ambition finds. But say I could repent and could obtain By act of grace my former ftate; how foon 94 Would highth recall high thoughts, how foon unfay What feign'd fubmiffion fwore? ease would recant 100 Where wounds of deadly hate have pierc'd fo deep: 112. By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign; ] This paffage has occafion'd much perplexity and confufion, but it may eafily be understood thus. Evil be thou my good; be thou all my delight, all my happiness; by thee I hold at least divided empire with Heav'n's king at prefent, I ruling in Hell as God in Heaven: by thee I fay; he is made to repeat it with emphasis, to add the greater force This to his diabolical fentiment, and to mark it more ftrongly to the reader: and in a fhort time will reign perhaps more than half, in this new world as well as in Hell; as Man ere long and this new world fall know. And he is very properly made to conclude his fpeech with this, as this was now his main bufinefs and the end of his coming hither. 114.- each . 105 This knows my punisher; therefore as far 110 Thus while he fpake, each paffion dimm'd his face Thrice chang'd with pale, ire, envy, and despair; 115 Which marr'd his borrow'd vifage, and betray'd Him counterfeit, if any eye beheld. For heav'nly minds from fuch diftempers foul 114.-each paffion dimm'd his face Thrice chang'd with pale, ire, envy, and defpair;] Each paffion, ire, envy, and defpair, dimm'd his countenance which was thrice chang'd with pale through the fucceffive agitations of thefe three paffions. For that palenefs is the proper hue of envy and defpair every body knows, and we always reckon that fort of anger the most deadly and diabolical, which is ac Are companied with a pale livid countenance. It is remarkable that in the argument to this book we read, inftead of ire, fear, envy and defpair; and as fear may be justify'd by ver. 18. horror and doubt diftrat, and other places; fo is anger warranted by ver. 9. and by his curfing God and himfelf, and by his threatning of Man in the close of his fpeech. 126. -OM Are ever clear. Whereof he foon aware, Each perturbation smooth'd with outward calm, 121 Uriel once warn'd; whose eye pursued him down He mark'd and mad demeanour, then alone, So on he fares, and to the border comes Now nearer, crowns with her inclosure green, 126. on th' Affyrian mount ] Dr. Bentley reads Armenian mount: but Niphates is by Pliny reckon'd between Armenia and Affyria, and therefore may be called Affyrian. It is plain from Milton's account of the fituation of Eden, ver. 210, 285, that Eden was in Affyria; and it is plain from comparing III. 742. with IV. 27. that Niphates was not far from Eden; fo that Milton muft have plac'd it in Affyria, at least on the borders of it. Pearce. 132.where delicious Paradife, 130 As &c.] Satan is now come to the border of Eden, where he has a nearer profpect of Paradife, which the poet reprefents as fituated in a champain country upon the top of a fteep hill, called the Mount of Paradise. The fides of this hill were overgrown with thickets and bushes, fo as not to be paffable; and over-head above thefe, on the fides of the hill likewife, grew loftieft trees, and as they afcended in ranks fhade above shade, they formed a kind of natural theatre, the rows of trees rifing one above another the As with a rural mound, the champain head And higher than that wall a circling row another in the fame manner as the benches in the theatres and places of public fhows and fpectacles. And yet higher than the highest of thefe trees grew up the verdurous wall of Paradife, a green inclosure like a rural mound, like a bank fet with a hedge, but this hedge grew not up fo high as to hinder Adam's profpect into the neighbouring country below, which is called his empire, as the whole earth was his dominion, V. 751. But above this hedge or green wall grew a circling row of the 135 140 145 Appear'd, finest fruit trees; and the only entrance into Paradife was a gate on the eastern fide. This account in profe may perhaps help the reader the better to understand the defcription in verse. 140. A fylvan fcene,] So Virgil, En. I. 164. Tum fylvis fcena corufcis Defuper, horrentique atrum nemus imminet umbra. 147. Hume. with faireft fruit, Blooms and fruits at once of golden hue,] Dr. Bentley reads fruits |