He walked with to support uneasy steps

Over the burning marl―

To which we may add his call to the fallen angels, that lay plunged and stupified in the sea of fire.

He called so loud, that all the hollow deep

Of hell resounded

But there is no single passage in the whole poem worked up to a greater sublimity, than that wherein his person is described in those celebrated lines :

-He, above the rest,

In shape and gesture proudly eminent,
Stood like a tower, &c.

His sentiments are every way answerable to his character, and suitable to a created being of the most exalted and depraved nature. Such is that in which he takes possession of his place of torments.

-Hail horrors, hail

Infernal world! and thou profoundest hell,
Receive thy new possessor: one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.

And afterwards,

Here at least

We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy; will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.

Amidst those impieties which this enraged spirit utters in other places of the poem, the author has taken care to introduce none that is not big with absurdity, and incapable of shocking a religious reader; his words, as the poet describes them, bearing only a semblance of worth, not substance." He is likewise with great art described as owning his adversary to be almighty. Whatever perverse interpretation he puts on the justice, mercy, and other attributes of the Supreme Being, he frequently confesses his omnipotence, that being the perfection he was forced to allow him, and the only consideration which could support his pride under the shame of his defeat.

Nor must I here omit that beautiful circumstance of his bursting out in tears, upon his survey of those innumerable

spirits whom he had involved in the same guilt and ruin with himself.

-He now prepared

To speak whereat their doubled ranks they bend
From wing to wing, and half enclose him round
With all his peers: attention held them mute.
Thrice he assayed, and thrice, in spite of scorn,
Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth-

The catalogue of evil spirits has abundance of learning in it, and a very agreeable turn of poetry, which rises in a great measure from its describing the places where they were worshipped, by those beautiful marks of rivers, so frequent among the ancient poets. The author had doubtless in this place Homer's catalogue of ships and Virgil's list of warriors in his view. The characters of Moloch and Belial prepare the reader's mind for their respective speeches and behaviour in the second and sixth book. The account of Thammuz is finely romantic, and suitable to what we read among the ancients of the worship which was paid to that idol.

-Thammuz came next behind,

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer's day,
While smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale
Infected Sion's daughters with like heat,
Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch
Ezekiel saw, when by the vision led

His eyes surveyed the dark idolatries

Of alienated Judah

The reader will pardon me if I insert as a note on this beautiful passage, the account given us by the late ingenious Mr. Maundrell of this ancient piece of worship, and probably the first occasion of such a superstition. "We came to a fair large river-doubtless the ancient river Adonis, so famous for the idolatrous rites performed here in lamentation of Adonis. We had the fortune to see what may be supposed to be the occasion of that opinion which Lucian relates concerning this river, viz. that this stream, at certain seasons of the year, especially about the feast of Adonis, is of a bloody colour; which the heathens looked upon as proceeding from a kind of sympathy in the river for the death of Adonis, who was killed by a wild boar in the mountains, out

of which this stream rises. Something like this we saw actually come to pass; for the water was stained to a surprising redness; and, as we observed in travelling, had discoloured the sea a great way into a reddish hue, occasioned doubtless by a sort of minium, or red earth, washed into the river by the violence of the rain, and not by any stain from Adonis's blood."

The passage in the catalogue, explaining the manner how spirits transform themselves by contraction, or enlargement of their dimensions, is introduced with great judgment, to make way for several surprising accidents in the sequel of the poem. There follows one, at the very end of the first book, which is what the French critics call marvellous, but at the same time probable, by reason of the passage last mentioned. As soon as the infernal palace is finished, we are told the multitude and rabble of spirits immediately shrunk themselves into a small compass, that there might be room for such a numberless assembly in this capacious hall. But it is the poet's refinement upon this thought which I most admire, and which is, indeed, very noble in itself. For he tells us, that, notwithstanding the vulgar, among the fallen spirits, contracted their forms, those of the first rank and dignity still preserved their natural dimensions.

Thus incorporeal spirits to smallest forms

Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large,
Though without number, still amidst the hall
Of that infernal court. But far within,

And in their own dimensions like themselves,
The great seraphic lords and cherubim,
In close recess and secret conclave sat,
A thousand demi-gods on golden seats,
Frequent and full-

The character of Mammon, and the description of the Pandæmonium, are full of beauties.

There are several other strokes in the first book wonderfully poetical, and instances of that sublime genius so peculiar to the author. Such is the description of Azazel's stature, and of the infernal standard which he unfurls; as also of that ghastly light, by which the fiends appear to one another in their place of torments.

The seat of desolation, void of light,

Save what the glimmering of those livid flames
Cast pale and dreadful-

The shout of the whole host of fallen angels when drawn

up in battle array :

-The universal host up sent

A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond
Frighted the reign of Chaos and old night.

The review which the leader makes of his infernal army:

-He through the armed files

Darts his experienced eye, and soon traverse
The whole battalion views their order due,

Their visages and stature as of gods;

Their number last he sums, and now his heart

Distends with pride, and hardening in his strength
Glories-

The flash of light which appeared upon the drawing of their swords:

He spake and to confirm his words out flew

Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thigh
Of mighty cherubim: the sudden blaze

Far round illumined hell

The sudden production of the Pandemonium:

Anon out of the earth a fabric huge Rose like an exhalation, with the sound Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet. The artificial illuminations made in it:

-From the arched roof,

Pendent by subtle magic, many a row
Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed
With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky.-

There are also several noble similes and allusions in the first book of Paradise Lost. And here I must observe, that when Milton alludes either to things or persons, he never quits his simile till it rises to some very great idea, which is often foreign to the occasion that gave birth to it. The resemblance does not, perhaps, last above a line or two, but the poet runs on with the hint, till he has raised out of it some glorious image or sentiment, proper to inflame the mind of the reader, and to give it that sublime kind of entertainment, which is suitable to the nature of an heroic poem. Those who are acquainted with Homer's and Virgil's way of writing, cannot but be pleased with this kind of structure in Milton's similitudes. I am the more particular

on this head, because ignorant readers, who have formed their taste upon the quaint similes, and little turns of wit, which are so much in vogue among modern poets, cannot relish these beauties which are of a much higher nature, and are therefore apt to censure Milton's comparisons, in which they do not see any surprising points of likeness. Monsieur Perrault was a man of this vitiated relish, and for that very reason has endeavoured to turn into ridicule several of Homer's similitudes, which he calls Comparaisons à longue queue, "Long-tailed comparisons." I shall conclude this

paper on the first book of Milton with the answer which Monsieur Boileau makes to Perrault on this occasion: "Comparisons (says he) in odes, and epic poems, are not introduced only to illustrate and embellish the discourse, but to amuse and relax the mind of the reader, by frequently disengaging him from too painful an attention to the principal subject, and by leading him into other agreeable images. Homer (says he) excelled in this particular, whose comparisons abound with such images of nature as are proper to relieve and diversify his subjects. He continually instructs the reader, and makes him take notice, even in objects which are every day before our eyes, of such circumstances as we should not otherwise have observed." To this he adds, as a maxim universally acknowledged, "that it is not necessary in poetry for the points of the comparison to correspond with one another exactly, but that a general resemblance is sufficient, and that too much nicety in this particular savours of the rhetorician and epigrammatist.'

In short, if we look into the conduct of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, as the great fable is the soul of each poem, so to give their works an agreeable variety, their episodes are so many short fables, and their similes so many short episodes; to which you may add, if you please, that their metaphors are so many short similes. If the reader considers the comparisons in the first book of Milton, of the sun in an eclipse, of the sleeping leviathan, of the bees swarming about the hive, of the fairy dance, in the view wherein I have placed them, he will easily discover the great beauties that are in each of those passages.