The fignal to afcend, fit ling'ring here
Heav'n's fugitives, and for their dwelling place
Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame,
The prison of his tyranny who reigns

By our delay? no, let us rather choose,

Arm'd with Hell flames and fury, all at once
O'er Heav'n's high tow'rs to force refiftless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms

Against the torturer; when to meet the noise

Of his almighty engin he shall hear

Infernal thunder, and for lightning fee
Black fire and horror fhot with equal rage
Among his Angels, and his throne itself
Mix'd with Tartarean fulphur, and strange fire,
His own invented torments. But perhaps

The

way

seems difficult and steep to scale

With upright wing against a higher foe.

56.-fit ling'ring bere] Dr. Bentley reads fay ling'ring bere, because we have before ftand in arms: but fland does not always fignify the pofture; fee an inftance of this in John I. 26. To ftand in arms is no more than to be in arms. So in XI. 1. it is faid of Adam and Eve that they flood repentant, that is

60

65

70

Let

were repentant; for a little before it is faid that they proftrate fell. That fit is right here, may appear from ver. 164, 420, 475. Pearce. Sit ling'ring to anfwer fit contriving before. While they fit contriving, fhall the reft fit ling'ring?

69. Mix'd with Tartarean fulphur,}

Let fuch bethink them, if the fleepy drench
Of that forgetful lake benumm not still,
That in our proper motion we afcend
Up to our native seat: descent and fall
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Infulting, and purfued us through the deep,
With what compulsion and laborious flight
We funk thus low? Th'afcent is easy then;
Th'event is fear'd; fhould we again provoke
Our stronger, fome worse way his wrath may find
To our deftruction; if there be in Hell

75

T

80

Fear to be worse destroy'd: what can be worfe 85
Than to dwell here, driv'n out from blifs, condemn'd
In this abhorred deep to utter woe;
Where pain of unextinguishable fire
Muft exercise us without hope of end

The vaffals of his anger, when the scourge
Inexorably, and the torturing hour

go

Calls us to penance? More deftroy'd than thus
We should be quite abolish'd and expire.
What fear we then? what doubt we to incenfe
His utmost ire? which to the highth enrag'd,
Will either quite confume us, and reduce
To nothing this effential, happier far
Than miferable to have eternal being:
Or if our fubftance be indeed divine,

A

90. The vaffals of bis anger] The Devils are the vasals of the Aly mighty, thence Mammon fays, II. 252, Our fate of Splendid vaffalage. ; And the vaffels of anger is an expreffion confirm'd by Spenfer in his Tears of the Mufes, mongh .1.

Ah, wretched world, and all that are therein,

The vaffals of God's wrath, and flaves of fin. 1928105a

But yet when I remember St. Paul's words, Rom. IX. 22. The vessels of wrath fitted to deftruction, Exeun opyns, I fufpect that Milton here, as perpetually, kept close to the Scripture ftile, and leave it to the reader's choice, vaals or vessels.

3.

Bentley.

91. Inexorably,] In the firft editions it is Inexorably, in others Inexorable and it may be either,

95

And

And cannot cease to be, we are at worst

On this fide nothing; and by proof we feel
Our pow'r fufficient to disturb his Heaven,
And with perpetual inroads to alarm,
Though inacceffible, his fatal throne:
Which if not victory is yet revenge.

He ended frowning, and his look denounc'd
Defp'rate revenge, and battel dangerous
To less than Gods. On th' other fide up rofe
Belial, in act more graceful and humane;

bable at firft view: but the Angels though often called Gods, yet fometimes are only compar'd or faid to be like the Gods, as in I. 570.

Their vifages and ftature as of

Gods:

and of the two chief, Michael and Satan, it is faid VI.

301,

that

likeft Gods they feem'd:

100

105

A

and therefore the prefent reading To less than Gods may be juftify'd.

109. Belial, in act more graceful

and bumane ;] Belial is defcribed in the first book as the idol of the lewd and luxurious. He is in the fecond book, purfuant to that defcription, characterized as timorous and flothful; and if we look into the fixth book, we find him celebrated in the battel of

and of two others we read, VI. Angels for nothing but that fcof

366.

fing fpeech which he makes to Satan, on their fuppofed advantage

Two potent Thrones, that to be over the enemy. As his appear

lefs than Gods

Difdain'd:

ance is uniform and of a piece in thefe three feveral views, we find his fentiments in the infernal afhis character. Such are his apprefembly every way conformable to henfions of a fecond battel, his horrors of annihilation, his preferring to be miferable rather than not to be. I need not obferve, that

the

A fairer perfon loft not Heav'n; he feem'd
For dignity compos'd and high exploit:

But all was falfe and hollow; though his tongue
Dropt Manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Matureft counsels: for his thoughts were low; 115
To vice induftrious, but to nobler deeds
Timorous and flothful: yet he pleas'd the ear,
And with perfuafive accent thus began.

I should be much for open war, O Peers,
As not behind in hate; if what was urg'd
Main reason to perfuade immediate war,
Did not diffuade me most, and seem to caft
Ominous conjecture on the whole fuccefs:
When he who most excels in fact of arms,
In what he counfels and in what excels

the contraft of thought in this fpeech, and that which precedes, gives an agreeable variety to the debate. Addifon. The fine contraft, which Mr. Addifon obferves there is betwixt the characters of Moloch and Belial, might probably be firft fuggefted to our poet by a contraft of the fame kind betwixt Argantes and Aletes in the fecond Canto of Taffo's Jerufalem. Thyer.

120

125 Miftrustful,