They measure all, of other excellence
Not emulous, nor care who them excels;
Nor other strife with them do I vouchsafe.

n

So spake the Son; and into terrour changed
His countenance, too severe to be beheld,
And full of wrath bent on his enemies.
At once the Four' spread out their starry wings
With dreadful shade contiguous, and the orbs
Of his fierce chariot roll'd as with the sound
Of torrent floods, or of a numerous host,
He on his impious foes right onward drove,
Gloomy as night m; under his burning wheels
The stedfast empyrean shook throughout,
All but the throne itself of God. Full soon
Among them he arrived; in his right hand
Grasping ten thousand thunders, which he sent
Before him, such as in their souls infix'd
Plagues: they, astonish'd, all resistance lost,
All courage; down their idle weapons dropp'd:
O'er shields, and helms, and helmed heads he rode
Of thrones and mighty seraphim prostrate;
That wish'd the mountains now might be again
Thrown on them, as a shelter from his ire.
Nor less on either side tempestuous fell

His arrows from the fourfold-visaged Four.
Distinct with eyes, and from the living wheels

1 At once the Four.

Whenever he mentions the four cherubim, and the Messiah's chariot, he still copies from Ezekiel's vision. See ch. i. 9. 19. 24.-NEWTON.

m Gloomy as night.

From Homer, Il. xii. 462, where the translator uses Milton's words :

Νυκτὶ θοῇ ἀτάλαντος ὑπώπια.

A similar expression, translated in these words of Milton, is also in Odyss. xi. 609.— NEWTON.

n Under his burning wheels.

Job xxvi. 11 :-"The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at his reproof."— HUME.

This sublime passage owes part of its magnificence to another sacred description, Daniel. vii. 9, of the Ancient of Days:-" His throne was as the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire." Milton's diction is here superior even to Hesiod's celebrated lines, Theog. v. 841 :

Ποσσὶ δ ̓ ὑπ' ἀθανάτοισι μέγας πελεμίζετο Ολυμπος
Ορνυμένοιο ἄνακτος· ἐπεστενάχιζε δὲ γαῖα.

The majesty of the exception, which Milton adds, affords to the whole passage a solemnity unparalleled and inimitable :

Under his burning wheels

The stedfast empyrean shook throughout,
All but the throne itself of God.-Todd.

• That wish'd the mountains.

See Rev. vi. 16:-" They said to the mountains, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: which is very applicable here, as they had been overwhelmed with mountains, v. 655. before, they wished as a shelter now.- -NEWTON.

What was so terrible