Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore :
Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when, call'd
In secret, riding through the air she comes,
Lured with the smell of infant blood o, to dance
With Lapland witches, while the labouring moon P
Eclipses at their charms. The other shape 9,
If shape it might be call'd, that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,

Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,
For each seem'd either; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,

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And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.

Satan was now at hand, and from his seat
The monster moving onward came as fast,

With horrid strides; hell trembled as he strode.

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The undaunted fiend what this might be admired;
Admired, not fear'd: God and his Son except,
Created thing nought valued he, nor shunn'd;
And with disdainful look thus first began :-

Whence and what art thou, execrable shape,

• Lured with the smell of infant blood.

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Here is a mixture of classical and demonological learning. Compare Eschylus, "Eumenid." 246, ed. Schütz.; and Wierus, "De Lamiis," 4to. 1852, coll. 240, 241. --TODD.

P The labouring moon.

The ancients believed the moon greatly affected by magical practices; and the Latin poets call the eclipses of the moon, labores lunæ. The three foregoing lines, and the former part of this, contain a short account of what was once believed, and in Milton's time not so ridiculous as now.-RICHARDSON.

The other shape.

God and his Son except,

See Spenser, F. Q. VII. vii. 46.—THYER.

Created thing.

The commentators try in vain to justify this ungrammatical expression.

s Whence and what art thou?

Milton has interwoven in the texture of his fable some particulars which do not seem to have probability enough for an epic poem; particularly in the actions which he ascribes to Sin and Death, and the picture which he draws of the Limbo of Vanity, with other passages in the second book. Such allegories rather savour of the spirit of Spenser and Ariosto, than of Homer and Virgil.

It is, however, a very finished piece of its kind, when it is not considered as a part of an epic poem. The genealogy of the several persons is contrived with great delicacy: Sin is the daughter of Satan, and Death the offspring of Sin: the incestuous mixture between Sin and Death produces those monsters and hell-hounds, which from time to time enter into their mother, and tear the bowels of her who gave them birth: these are the terrors of an evil conscience, and the proper fruits of Sin, which naturally rise from the apprehensions of death. This last beautiful moral is, I think clearly intimated in the speech of Sin, where, complaining of this her dreadful issue, she adds :

Before mine eyes in opposition sits

Grim Death, my son and foe; who sets them on,
And me, his parent, would full soon devour

For want of other prey, but that he knows

His end with mine involved.

I need not mention to the reader the beautiful circumstance in the last part of this

That darest, though grim and terrible, advance
Thy miscreated front athwart my way

To yonder gates? through them I mean to pass,
That be assured, without leave ask'd of thee:
Retire, or taste thy folly; and learn by proof,
Hell-born, not to contend with spirits of heaven!
To whom the goblin full of wrath replied:-
Art thou that traitor angel, art thou he,

Who first broke peace in heaven, and faith, till then
Unbroken, and in proud rebellious arms
Drew after him the third part of heaven's sons
Conjured against the Highest; for which both thou
And they, outcast from God, are here condemn'd
To waste eternal days in woe and pain?
And reckon'st thou thyself with spirits of heaven,
Hell-doom'd, and breathest defiance here and scorn,
Where I reign king, and, to enrage thee more,
Thy king and lord! Back to thy punishment,
False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings;
Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue

Thy lingering, or with one stroke of this dart
Strange horrour seize thee, and pangs unfelt before.
So spake the grisly terrour; and in shape,

So speaking, and so threatening, grew tenfold
More dreadful and deform: on the other side,
Incensed with indignation, Satan stood
Unterrified, and like a comet burn'dt,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head
Level'd his deadly aim; their fatal hands
No second stroke intend; and such a frown
Each cast at the other, as when two black clouds,

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quotation he will likewise observe how naturally the three persons concerned in this allegory are tempted, by one common interest, to come into a confederacy together: and how properly Sin is made the portress of hell, and the only being than can open the gates of that world of tortures.

The descriptive part of this allegory is likewise very strong, and full of sublime ideas. The figure of Death, the regal crown upon his head, the menace of Satan, his advancing to the combat, the outcry at his birth, are circumstances too noble to be passed over in silence, and extremely suitable to this king of terrors. I need not mention the justness of thought which is observed in the generation of these several symbolical persons; that Sin was produced upon the first revolt of Satan, that Death appeared soon after he was cast into hell, and that the terrors of conscience were conceived at the gate of this place of torments. The description of the gates is very poetical, as the opening of them is full of Milton's spirit.-ADDISON.

Addison seems to have been strangely nice in the objection to the introduction of these shadowy beings into an epic poem; and so thought Dr. Newton.

And like a comet burn'd.

The ancient poets frequently compare a hero in his shining armour to a comet. Poetry delights in omens, prodigies, and such wonderful events as were supposed to follow upon the appearance of comets, eclipses, and the like.-NEWTON.

With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on
Over the Caspian "; then stand front to front,
Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow
To join their dark encounter in mid air;
So frown'd the mighty combatants, that hell

Grew darker at their frown; so match'd they stood;
For never but once more was either like

To meet so great a Foe: and now great deeds

Had been achieved, whereof all hell had rung,
Had not the snaky sorceress, that sat
Fast by hell gate, and kept the fatal key,
Risen, and with hideous outcry rush'd between.
O father, what intends thy hand, she cried,
Against thy only son ?
What fury, O son,

Possesses thee to bend that mortal dart

Against thy father's head? and know'st for whom?
For him who sits above, and laughs the while
At thee, ordain'd his drudge, to execute
Whate'er his wrath, which he calls justice, bids;
His wrath, which one day will destroy ye both.

She spake, and at her words the hellish pest
Forebore; then these to her Satan return'd:-

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So strange thy outcry, and thy words so strange
Thou interposest, that my sudden hand
Prevented spares to tell thee yet by deeds
What it intends; till first I know of thee,

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What thing thou art, thus double form'd; and why,

In this infernal vale first met, thou call'st

Me father, and that phantasm call'st my son:

I know thee not, nor ever saw till now
Sight more detestable than him and thee.

To whom thus the portress of hell gate replied:

Hast thou forgot me then, and do I seem
Now in thine eye so foul, once deem'd so fair

In heaven? when at the assembly, and in sight

Of all the seraphim with thee combined
In bold conspiracy against heaven's King,
All on a sudden miserable pain

Surprised thee; dim thine eyes, and dizzy swum
In darkness, while thy head flames thick and fast
Threw forth; till on the left side opening wide,
Likest to thee in shape and countenance bright,
Then shining heavenly fair, a goddess arm'd,

Over the Caspian.

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With great judgment did the poet take this simile from the Caspian; for that sea is remarkably tempestuous. See "Purchas his Pilgrimes," part iii. p. 241: and Horace, Ode II. ix. 2.-BowLE.

So great a Foe.

Jesus Christ, who, as it follows v. 734, will one day destroy both Death, and "him that has the power of death, that is, the devil." Heb. ii. 14.-NEWTON.

Out of thy head I sprung: amazement seized
All the host of heaven; back they recoil'd afraid
At first, and call'd me Sin, and for a sign
Portentous held me: but, familiar grown,
I pleased, and with attractive graces won
The most averse; thee chiefly; who full oft
Thyself in me thy perfect image viewing
Becamest enamour'd; and such joy thou took'st
With me in secret, that my womb conceived
A growing burden. Meanwhile war arose,

And fields were fought in heaven; wherein remain'd
(For what could else ?) to our Almighty Foe
Clear victory, to our part loss and rout
Through all the empyrean: down they fell

Driven headlong from the pitch of heaven, down
Into this deep, and in the general fall

I also; at which time this powerful key

my

Into hand was given, with charge to keep
These gates for ever shut, which none can pass
Without my opening. Pensive here I sat
Alone, but long I sat not, till my womb,
Pregnant by thee and now excessive grown,
Prodigious motion felt and rueful throes.
At last this odious offspring whom thou seest,
Thine own begotten, breaking violent way,

Tore through my entrails, that, with fear and pain
Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew
Transform'd: but he, my inbred enemy,
Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart
Made to destroy: I fled, and cried out Death;
Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd
From all her caves, and back resounded, Death.
I fled, but he pursued, though more, it seems,
Inflamed with lust than rage; and, swifter far,
Me overtook, his mother, all dismay'd;
And, in embraces forcible and foul
Ingendering with me, of that rape begot

w Out of thy head I sprung.

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Sin is rightly made to spring out of the head of Satan, as Wisdom or Minerva did out of Jupiter's; and Milton describes the birth of the one very much in the same manner as the ancient poets have described that of the other, particularly the author of the "Hymn to Minerva," vulgarly ascribed to Homer: and what follows seems to be a hint improved upon Minerva's being ravished soon after her birth by Vulcan, as we may learn from Lucian, "Dial. Vulcani et Jovis," et "de Domo."--NEWTON.

Insonuere cavæ, gemitumque dedere, cavernæ.-HUME.

The repetition of Death here is a beauty of the same kind as that of the name of Eurydice in Virgil, Georg. iv. 525, and of Hylas, Ecl. vi. 44.-NEWTON.

But how infinitely more sublime !

These yelling monsters, that with ceaseless cry
Surround me, as thou saw'st; hourly conceived
And hourly born, with sorrow infinite
To me for, when they list, into the womb
That bred them they return, and howl and gnaw
My bowels, their repast; then bursting forth
Afresh with conscious terrours vex me round,
That rest or intermission none I find.
Before mine eyes in opposition sits

Grim Death, my son and foe, who sets them on;
And me his parent would full soon devour
For want of other prey, but that he knows
His end with mine involved; and knows that I
Should prove a bitter morsel, and his bane,
Whenever that shall be; so Fate pronounced.
But thou, O father, I forewarn thee, shun
His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope
To be invulnerable in those bright arms,
Though temper'd heavenly; for that mortal dint,
Save he who reigns above, none can resist.

She finish'd, and the subtle fiend his lore

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:

Soon learn'd, now milder, and thus answer'd smooth :-
Dear daughter, since thou claim'st me for thy sire,
And my fair son here show'st me, the dear pledge
Of dalliance had with thee in heaven, and joys
Then sweet, now sad to mention, through dire change
Befallen us, unforeseen, unthought of; know,

I come no enemy, but to set free

From out this dark and dismal house of pain,
Both him and thee, and all the heavenly host
Of spirits, that, in our just pretences arm'd,
Fell with us from on high: from them I go
This uncouth errand sole, and one for all
Myself expose; with lonely steps to tread

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The unfounded deep, and through the void immense
To search with wandering quest a place foretold
Should be, and, by concurring signs, ere now

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Created, vast and round, a place of bliss

In the purlieus of heaven, and therein placed
A race of upstart creatures, to supply
Perhaps our vacant room; though more removed,
Lest heaven, surcharged with potent multitude,
Might hap to move new broils. Be this, or aught
Than this more secret, now design'd, I haste

To know; and, this once known, shall soon return,

y Dear daughter.

835

Satan had now learned his lore or lesson; and the reader will observe how artfully he changes his language: he had said before that he had never seen "sight more detestable;" but now it is dear daughter, and fair son.-NEWTON.