Page images
PDF
EPUB

grave,

With this corporeal clod, then in the
Or in fome other dismal place, who knows
But I fhall die a living death? O thought
Horrid, if true! yet why? it was but breath
Of life that finn'd; what dies but what had life
And fin? the body properly hath neither.
All of me then shall die: let this appease
The doubt, fince human reach no further knows.
For though the Lord of all be infinite,

790

795

Is his wrath alfo? be it, Man is not so,
But mortal doom'd. How can he exercise
Wrath without end on Man whom death must end?

Hefternis vitiis animum quoque præ

gravat unà, Atque affigit humo divinæ particulam auræ.

789. it was but breath Of life that finn'd;] Adam is here endevoring to prove to himself that the breath of life (the Spirit of Man which God infpir'd into him ver. 784.) was to die with his body; and his argument here and in what follows runs thus Nothing but breath of life finn'd; nothing, but what had life and fin, dies; the body properly has neither of these, and therefore he concludes that the breath of life (or fpirit of Man within him) was to die; and that all of him was to die, because the body he knew was mortal. Pearce.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Can he make deathlefs death? that were to make

trange contradiction, which to God himself

mpoffible is held, as argument

Of weakness, not of pow'r. Will he draw out,
For anger's fake, finite to infinite

n punish'd Man, to fatisfy his rigor
atisfy'd never? that were to extend

His fentence beyond duft and nature's law,
By which all causes elfe according still

To the reception of their matter act,

Not to th' extent of their own fphere. But fay
That death be not one stroke, as I fuppos'd,

beyond what he thought imply'd in the words, thou shalt to duft return. See alfo ver. 748, 1085. where Adam fpeaks of being reduc'd to duft, as the final end of him. Pearce.

806. By which all caufes elfe &c.] All other agents act in proportion to the reception or capacity of the fubject matter, and not to the utmoft extent of their own power. An allufion to another axiom of the fchools: Omne efficiens agit fecundum vires recipientis, non fuas. But this is not fo bad as what Mr. Pope has objected to our author,

Milton's ftrong pinion now not

Heav'n can bound,
Now ferpent-like, in profe he fweeps
the ground;
VOL. II.

800

805

Be

In quibbles Angel and Arch-Angel join,

And God the Father turns a Schooldivine.

But it should be confider'd that this fort of divinity was much more in fashion in Milton's days; and no wonder that he was a little oftentatious of showing his reading in this, as well as in all other branches of learning. And for his creeping in profe, which Mr. Dryden has likewife objected to our author in the preface to his Juvenal, we are fatiffied that he is thought to do fo the more only because of his writing in blank verfe: And if those two poets themselves (excellent as they are) were ftript and divefted of their rime, it would appear in several T

places

Bereaving fenfe, but endless mifery

From this day onward, which I feel begun
Both in me, and without me, and fo laft

To perpetuity; Ay me, that fear

810

Comes thund'ring back with dreadful revolution

On my defenfelefs head; both Death and I

Am found eternal, and incorporate both,

815

Nor I on my part fingle, in me all
Pofterity stands curs'd: Fair patrimony
That I must leave ye, Sons; O were I able
To waste it all myself, and leave ye none !
So difinherited how would ye blefs

820

Me now your curfe! Ah, why fhould all mankind For one man's fault thus guiltless be condemn'd,

places of their works, that they have little elfe to fupport them.

813.- Ay me, that fear &c.] This is fomewhat like the famous foliloquy of Hamlet, A& III. Ay, there's the rub &c.

that fear Comes thund'ring back with dreadful resolution

my defenfelefs head; The thought is fine as it is natural. The finner may invent never fo many arguments in favor of the annihilation and utter extinction of the foul; but after all his fubterfuges and evafions, the fear of a future ftate and

[blocks in formation]

f guiltlefs? But from me what can proceed,

But all corrupt, both mind and will deprav'd, 825 Not to do only, but to will the fame

Vith me? how can they then acquitted stand

n fight of God? Him after all disputes

"orc'd I abfolve: all my evafions vain,

and reafonings, though through mazes, lead me still ut to my own conviction: firft and last

831

Of all corruption, all the blame lights due;

On me, me only, as the fource and spring

835

o might the wrath. Fond wish! couldst thou fupport
That burden heavier than the earth to bear,
Than all the world much heavier, though divided
With that bad Woman? Thus what thou defir'ft

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

heavier than the earth to bear,

Than all the world much heavier,] We quote this only that the reader may obferve the beautiful turn of the words, heavier the first in one line and the laft in the other and that much is well thrown in, and raifes the fenfe greatly; the burden

And what thou fear'ft, alike destroys all hope
Of refuge, and concludes thee miserable
Beyond all past example and futúre,

To Satan only like both crime and doom.

O Confcience, into what abyfs of fears
And horrors haft thou driv'n me; out of which
I find no way, from deep to deeper plung'd!

840

845

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 confcience represented

[ocr errors]

is not only heavier than the earth to bear, it is heavier than all the world, nay it is much heavier.

840. Beyond all past example and future,] As Adam is here fpeaking in great agonies of mind, he aggravates his own mifery, and concludes it to be greater and worfe than that of the fallen Angels or all future men, as having in himself alone the fource of mifery for all his pofterity, whereas both Angels and Men had only their own to bear. Satan was only like him, as being the ring-leader, and this added very much to his remorfe as we read in I. 605. The accent upon the word future is indeed very uncommon, but it is the Latin accent, and there is a like inftance in Fairfax's Taffo, Cant. 17. St. 88.

[blocks in formation]
« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »