PARADISE LOS T. T воок BOO K XI. HUS they in lowlieft plight repentant stood 1. Thus they in lovlieft plight &c.] Tilton has fhown a wonderful art à describing that variety of paffions, hich arife in our first parents upon he breach of the commandment hat had been given them. We fee hem gradually paffing from the riumph of their guilt through renorfe, fhame, despair, contrition, prayer and hope, to a perfect and Complete repentance. At the end of the tenth book they are repreented as proftrating themfelves upon the ground, and watering the earth with their tears: to which the poet oins this beautiful circumftance, that they offer'd up their penitential prayers on the very place where their udge appeared to them when he pronounced their fentence. There is a beauty of the fame kind in a tragedy of Sophocles, where Oedipus, after having put out his own eyes, instead of breaking his neck from the palace battlements (which furnishes fo elegant an entertainment for our English audience) defires that he may be conducted to tive were. So in II. 55. ftand in fenfe than that of the noun fubftanmount Citharon, in order to end arms fignifies are in arms. In the fame fenfe ftetit and snxe are often ufed by the Latins and Greeks. See my note on II. 56. As the author never fails to give a poetical turn to his fentiments, he defcribes in the beginning of this book the acceptance which thefe their prayers met with, in a fhort allegory form'd upon that beautiful paffage in holy Writ: (Rev. VIII. 4.) And another Angel came and flood at the altar, having a golden cenfer; and there was given unto him much incenfe, that he should offer it with the prayers of all faints upon the golden altar which was before the throne: and the fmoke of the incenfe, which came with the prayers of the faints, afcended up before God. We have the fame thought exprefs'd a second time in the interceffion of the Meffiah, which is conceiv'd in very emphatic fentiments and expreffions. Addifon. his life in that very place where he was expofed in his infancy, and where he should then have died, had the will of his parents been executed, I. repentant flood Praying,] Dr. Bentley thinks that the author intended it repentant knceld, because it is faid in ver. 150, and in X. 1099, that they kneel'd and fell proftrate: But flood here has no other Pearce. 5.- that Prevenient grace descending had remov'd Not of mean fuiters, nor important less 8. — yet their part &c.] This get refers fo far back as to line the first, Thus they in lowlieft plight repentant food praying, yet their port not of mean fuiters, all the intermediate lines being to be understood as in a parenthesis. Nor did their petition feem of lefs importance, than when the ancient pair fo renown'd in old fables, yet not fo ancient a pair as Adam and Eve, Deucalion and chafte Pyrrha, in order to reftore the race of mankind after the deluge, flood de. voutly praying before the fhrine of Themis, the Goddefs of juftice, who had the most famous oracle of thofe mantior æqui Vir fuit, aut illâ metuentior als Atque ita, Si precibus, dixerunt, numina juftis Victa remollefcunt, fi flectitur in Dic, Themi, qua generis damnum Arte fit: et merfis fer opem, mit He ΤΟ Seem'd their petition, than when th' ancient pair 10 The race of mankind drown'd, before the fhrine Dimen from thence may illuftrate his fubject as well as from any thing elfe, efpecially fince it is one of the first things that we learn at school, and is made by the Ancients fuch an effential part of poetry, that it can hardly be feparated from it; and no wonder that Milton was ambitious of fhowing fomething of his reading in this kind, as well as in all others. 16. Blown vagabond or fruftrate:] It is a familiar expreffion with the ancient poets, to fay of fuch requests as are not granted, that they are difperfed and driven away by the winds. Thus Virgil, Æn. XI. 794. Audiit, et voti Phoebus fuccedere partem Mente dedit: partem volucres dif- Sterneret ut fubitâ turbatam morte Annuit oranti: reducem ut patris Non dedit; inque notos vocem ver- Apollo heard, and granting half He |
