The happier Eden, fhall enjoy their fill 510 Yet let me not forget what I have gain'd From their own mouths: all is not theirs it seems; By ignorance? is that their happy state, The proof of their obedience and their faith? Milton. But Sir Philip Sidney has it in Arcadia, p. 109. So this imparadis'd neighbourhood made Zelmane's foul cleave unto her. And the Italians had prior poffeffion Imparadifato. Bentley. 509. Where neither joy nor love,] This fentence has no exit, unless you'll fay without fenfe, where neither joy nor love pines. He gave it therefore 520 With With more defire to know, and to reject To keep them low whom knowledge might exalt They taste and die: what likelier can enfue? But firft with narrow fearch I muft walk round 526. 529 A chance but chance may lead where I may meet: Short pleasures, for long woes are to fucceed. 535 [roam. But with fly circumfpection, and began teration or any pun we read Mean may as our firft parents were created Pearce fays that without any alwith perfect understanding, and the only knowledge that was forbidden was the knowledge of evil by the commiffion of it. 530. A chance but chance may lead] Dr. Bentley cenfures this jingle, and thinks it unbecoming Satan at fo ferious a juncture to catch at puns; therefore proposes to read Jome lucky chance may lead &c. Dr. A chance (but chance) may lead &c that is a chance, and it can be only a chance, may lead &c. But this fort of jingle is but too common This here is not with Milton. much unlike the forte fortuna of the Latins. Mean while in utmost longitude, where Heaven With earth and ocean meets, the setting fun 539.- in utmost longitude,] At the utmost length, at the fartheft distance. Longitude is length, as in V. 754. from one entire globofe Stretch'd into longitude; and it is particularly apply'd to the diftance from eaft to weft. See the notes upon III. 555.574. 541. Slowly defcended,] Dr. Bentley objects to this verfe for a frivolous reafon, and reads Had low defcended, because the fun paffes èqual spaces in equal times. This is true (as Dr. Pearce replies) in philofophy, but in poetry it is ufual to reprefent it otherwife. But I have a ftronger objection to this verfe, which is that it feems to contradict what is faid before, ver. 353 The fun prone carreer To th' acean iles, 540 545 Still and to reconcile them I think we muft read Had low defcended or perhaps Lowly defcended, or understand it as Dr. Pearce explains it, that the fun defcended flowly at this time, because Uriel its Angel came on a fun-beam to Paradife, and was to return on the same beam; which he could not well have done, if the fun had mov'd on with its ufual rapidity of course. Arch-Angels, fent to fhow Daniel 549. Gabriel] One of the the vifion of the four monarchies and the feventy weeks, Dan. VII. and IX. and to the Virgin Mary to reveal the incarnation of our Hebrew fignifies the man of God, or Saviour, Luke I. His name in the the firength and power of God; well by our author pofted as chief of the angelic guards placed about Paradife. Hume. 551. heroic games] They were not now upon the watch, they awaited night; but their arms were Still as it rofe, impoffible to climb. Betwixt these rocky pillars Gabriel fat, Chief of th' angelic guards, awaiting night; 550 Th' unarmed youth of Heav'n, but nigh at hand were ready. The Angels would not be idle, but employ'd themfelves in these noble exercises. So the foldiers of Achilles during his quarrel with Agamemnon, and fo the infernal Spirits, when their chief was gone in fearch of the new creation, II. 528. Richardfon. 555. gliding through the even] That is thro' that part of the hemifphere, where it was then evening. Evening (fays Dr. Bentley) is no place of fpace to glide thro': no more is day or night, and yet in the fenfe, which I have given to even, Milton fays in the next verfe but one thwarts the night, and elsewhere fpeaks of the confines of day. Pearce. In ver. 792. Uriel is faid to be arriv'd from the fun's decline, which is no more a place than the evening, but beautifully poetical; and juftify'd by Virgil, Georg. IV. 59. where a fwarm of bees fails thro' the glowing fummer: 555 In Nare per æftatem liquidam fufpexeris agmen. Richardfon. 556. On a fun beam,] Uriel's gliding down to the earth upon a fun-beam, with the poet's device to make him defcend, as well in his return to the fun, as in his coming from it, is a prettiness that might have been admired in a little fanciful poet, but feems below the genius of Milton. The description of the host of armed Angels walking their nightly round in Paradise, is of another spirit, So faying, on he led his radiant files Dazling the moon; as that account of the hymns which our firft parents used to hear them fing in these their midnight walks, is altogether divine, and inexpreffibly amufing to the imagination. Addifon. As Uriel was coming from the fun Ee 3 to fir'd In autumn thwarts the night, when vapors to the earth, his coming upon a fun-beam was the moft direct and level courfe that he could take; for the fun's rays were now pointed right against the eaftern gate of Paradife, where Gabriel was fitting, and to whom Uriel was going. And the thought of making him glide on a fun beam, I have been inform'd, is taken from fome capital picture of fome great Italian mafter, where an Angel is made to defcend in like manner. I fince recollect, it is from a picture of Annibal Caracci in the King of France's cabinet. 556.-fwift as a footing ftar &c.] Homer in like manner compares Minerva's defcent from Heaven to a shooting star, Iliad. IV, 74. Βη δε κατ' κλυμποιο καρήνων H VAUTHO! TEERS, HE SEXTE wals ευρεί Λαμπρον το δε τε πολλοί απο σπινθήρες ιείται. 560 Fertur; ut interdum de cœlo ftella fereno, Etfi non cecidit, potuit cecidiffe videri. The breathless Phaeton, with flaming hair, Shot from the chariot, like a falling ftar, That in a fummer's evening from the top Of Heav'n drops down, or feems at least to drop. Addison. thwarts or croffes the night in auMilton adds that this shooting ftar tumn, because then these phænomena are most common after the heat of fummer, when the vapors taking fire make violent impreffions and agitations in the air, and they Where Dr. Clarke fays, Non Toy ufually portend tempeftuous wea ther, |