Some say, he bid his angels turn askance
The poles of earth, twice ten degrees and more,
From the sun's axle; they with labour push'd
Oblique the centric globe: some say, the sun
Was bid turn reins from the equinoctial road
Like-distant breadth to Taurus with the seven
Atlantic Sisters, and the Spartan Twins,
Up to the tropic Crab: thence down amain
By Leo, and the Virgin, and the Scales,
As deep as Capricorn; to bring in change
Of seasons to each clime; else had the spring
Perpetual smiled on earth with vernant flowers
Equal in days and nights, except to those
Beyond the polar circles; to them day
Had unbenighted shone; while the low sun,
To recompense his distance, in their sight
Had rounded still the horizon, and not known
Or east or west; which had forbid the snow
From cold Estotiland, and south as far
Beneath Magellan. At that tasted fruit,
The sun, as from Thyestean banquet," turn'd
His course intended; else, how had the world
Inhabited, though sinless, more than now,
Avoided pinching cold and scorching heat?

These changes in the heavens, though slow, produced
Like change on sea and land; sideral blast,
Vapour, and mist, and exhalation hot,

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Corrupt and pestilent: now from the north

Of Norumbega, and the Samoed shore,

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Bursting their brazen dungeon, arm'd with ice,
And snow, and hail, and stormy gust and flaw,
Boreas, and Cæcias, and Argestes loud,

And Thrascias, rend the woods, and seas upturn;

P Bid his angels.

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It was "eternal spring," b. iv. 268, before the Fall; and he is now accounting for the change of seasons after the Fall, and mentions the two famous hypotheses.-NEWTON.

q Estotiland.

A great tract of land in the north of America, towards the Arctic circle and Hudson's Bay; as Magellan is a country in South America, which, together with its straits, took their name of Ferdinandus Magellanus, a Portuguese, who in the year 1520 first discovered them.-HUME.

Thyestean banquet.

The bloody banquet given by Atreus to his brother Thyestes, at which the flesh of his own children was served up among the festive meats; an implacable resentment of an adulterous injury. This feast was the master and leading horror of classical antiquity; it drew retributive vengeance upon the head of Agamemnon, the son of Atreus; followed by the parricide of Orestes: but all these horrors are summed up in the prophetic ravings of Cassandra, as given by the daring Eschylus, in his ". Agamemnon." • Of Norumbega.

Norumbega, a province of the northern Armenia; Samoieda, in the north-east of Muscovy, upon the frozen sea.-HUME.

t Boreas and Cacias.

In this account of the winds, is a needless ostentation of learning, and a strange mix

With adverse blast upturns them from the south
Notus, and Afer black with thunderous clouds
From Serraliona: thwart of these, as fierce,
Forth rush the Levant and the Ponent winds,
Eurus and Zephyr, with their lateral noise,
Sirocco and Libecchio. Thus began
Outrage from lifeless things; but Discord first,
Daughter of Sin, among the irrational
Death introduced, through fierce antipathy:

Beast now with beast 'gan war, and fowl with fowl,
And fish with fish: to graze the herb" all leaving,
Devour'd each other; nor stood much in awe
Of man, but fled him; or, with countenance grim,
Glared on him passing. These were from without▾
The growing miseries, which Adam saw
Already in part, though hid in gloomiest shade,
To sorrow abandon'd, but worse felt within;
And, in a troubled sea of passion tost,
Thus to disburden sought with sad complaint:

O miserable of happy! is this the end
Of this new glorious world, and me so late
The glory of that glory? who now become
Accursed, of blessed, hide me from the face
Of God, whom to behold was then my highth
Of happiness! Yet well, if here would end
The misery; I deserved it, and would bear
My own deservings; but this will not serve:
All that I eat or drink, or shall beget,
Is propagated curse. O voice, once heard
Delightfully, Increase and multiply;
Now death to hear! for what can I increase
Or multiply, but curses on my head?
Who of all ages to succeed, but, feeling
The evil on him brought by me, will curse
My head? Ill fare our ancestor impure!

For this we may thank Adam! but his thanks
Shall be the execration: so, besides

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ure of ancient and modern, Latin and Italian names together. These are the foibles and weak parts of our author.-NEWTON.

These "foibles and weak parts" of Milton may not be equally apparent to all critics. He gratified his ear indeed with words of truly epic force and dignity; but it is best at least to explain such as are unusual to the English reader. The Levant and the Ponent (Eurus and Zephyr) are the east and west winds; "their lateral noise, Sirocco and Libecchio," are the south-east and south-west.

To graze the herb.

Whether Milton's notion was right or not, is another question; but certainly it was his notion, that beast, fowl, and fish grazed the herb before the Fall.-NEWTON.

These were from without.

The transition to Adam here is very easy and natural, and cannot fail of pleasing the reader. We have seen great alterations produced in nature, and it is now time to see how Adam is affected with them; and whether the disorders within are not even worse than those without.-NEWTON.

Mine own that bide upon me, all from me
Shall with a fierce reflux on me rebound;
On me, as on their natural centre, light
Heavy, though in their place. O fleeting joys
Of Paradise, dear-bought with lasting woes!
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me, or here place
In this delicious garden? As my will
Concurr'd not to my being, it were but right
And equal to reduce me to my dust;
Desirous to resign and render back
All I received; unable to perform
Thy terms too hard, by which I was to hold
The good I sought not. To the loss of that,
Sufficient penalty, why hast thou added
The sense of endless woes? Inexplicable
Thy justice seems: yet, to say truth, too late
I thus contest; then should have been refused
Those terms, whatever, when they were proposed:
Thou didst accept them; wilt thou enjoy the good,
Then cavil the conditions? and, though God
Made thee without thy leave, what if thy son
Prove disobedient, and, reproved, retort,

Wherefore didst thou beget me? I sought it not:
Wouldst thou admit for his contempt of thee
That proud excuse? yet him not thy election,
But natural necessity begot.

God made thee of choice his own, and of his own

To serve him; thy reward was of his grace;

Thy punishment then justly is at his will.
Be it so, for I submit; his doom is fair,
That dust I am, and shall to dust return:
O welcome hour whenever! Why delays

His hand to execute what his decree
Fix'd on this day? Why do I overlive?

Why am I mock'd with death, and lengthen'd out
To deathless pain? How gladly would I meet

Mortality my sentence, and be earth

Insensible! How glad would lay me down,
As in my mother's lap! There I should rest,
And sleep secure; his dreadful voice no more

w From my clay.

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See Isaiah's animated expostulation, xiv. 9:- Shall the clay say to him that fash.oneth it, What makest thou?"-TODD.

Thou didst.

The change of persons, sometimes speaking of himself in the first, and sometimes to himself in the second, is very remarkable in this speech, as well as the change of passions: and in like manner he speaks sometimes of God.-NEWTON.

y His dreadful voice.

Perhaps suggested by Job xxxvii. 5:—" God thundereth marvellously with his voice." -TODD.

Would thunder in my ears; no fear of worse
То me, and to my offspring, would torment mc
With cruel expectation. Yet one doubt
Pursues me still, lest all I cannot die;
Lest that pure breath of life, the spirit of man
Which God inspired, cannot together perish
With this corporeal clod: then in the grave,
Or in some other dismal place, who knows
But I shall die a living death? O thought
Horrid, if true! Yet why? It was but breath
Of life that sinn'd; what dies but what had life
And sin? The body properly hath neither.
All of me then shall die: let this appease
The doubt, since human reach no farther knows :
For, though the Lord of all be infinite,

Is his wrath also? Be it, man is not so,
But mortal doom'd. How can he exercise
Wrath without end on man, whom death must end?
Can he make deathless death? That were to make
Strange contradiction, which to God himself
Impossible is held; as argument

Of weakness, not of power. Will he draw out,
For anger's sake, finite to infinite,

In punish'd man, to satisfy his rigour,

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Satisfied never? That were to extend

To the reception of their matter, act;

That death be not one stroke, as I supposed,

Not to the extent of their own sphere. But say

Bereaving sense, but endless misery

From this day onward; which I feel begun
Both in me, and without me; and so last
To perpetuity-ay, me! that fear

b

Comes thundering back with dreadful revolution
On my defenceless head; both death and I

Am found eternal, and incorporate both :

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All other agents act in proportion to the reception or capacity of the subject matter, and not to the utmost extent of their own power: an allusion to an axiom of the schools. -"Omne efficiens agit secundum vires recipientis, non suas."-NEWTON.

The thought is fine as it is natural. The sinner may invent never so many arguments in favour of the annihilation and utter extinction of the soul; but, after all his subterfuges and evasions, the fear of a future state, and the dread of everlasting punishment, will still pursue him: he may put it off for a time, but it will return with dreadful revolution; and, let him affect what serenity and gayety he pleases, will, notwithstanding, in the midst of it all, come thundering back on his defenceless head.-NEWTON.

So disinherited, how would you bless

none !

Me, now your curse! Ah, why should all mankind,
For one man's fault, thus guiltless be condemned,

If guiltless! But from me what can proceed,

But all corrupt; both mind and will depraved,
Not to do only, but to will the same

With me? How can they then acquitted stand
In sight of God? Him, after all disputes,

Forced I absolve: all my evasions vain,

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And reasonings, though through mazes, lead me still

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But to my own conviction: first and last

On me, me only, as the source and spring

Of all corruption, all the blame lights due;

So might the wrath! Fond wish! couldst thou support

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That burden, heavier than the earth to bear;
Than all the world much heavier, though divided
With that bad woman? Thus, what thou desirest,
And what thou fear'st, alike destroys all hope
Of refuge, and concludes thee miserable
Beyond all past example and future:
To Satan only like both crime and doom.

O conscience! into what abyss of fears

And horrours hast thou driven me; out of which
I find no way, from deep to deeper plunged!
Thus Adam to himself lamented loud,
Through the still night; not now, as ere man fell,
Wholesome, and cool, and mild, but with black air
Accompanied; with damps and dreadful gloom;
Which to his evil conscience represented
All things with double terrour: on the ground
Outstretch'd he lay, on the cold ground; and oft
Cursed his creation; death as oft accused
Of tardy execution, since denounced

The day of his offence. Why comes not death,

• Nor I on my part single.

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And this curse was the patrimony which he was to leave to his sons. The author had in view 2 Esdr. vii. 48:-"O thou Adam, what hast thou done? for though it was thou that sinned, thou art not fallen alone, but we all that come of thee."-NEWTON.

d Beyond all past example.

As Adam is here speaking in great agonies of mind, he aggravates his own misery, and concludes it to be greater and worse than that of the fallen angels, or all future men; as having in himself alone the source of misery for all his posterity; whereas both angels and men had only their own to bear. Satan was only like him, as being the ringleader; and this added very much to his remorse; as we read in b. i. 605.— NEWTON.

e Through the still night.

This, we conceive, must be some other night than that immediately after the Fall.NEWTON.