The irksome hours, till his great chief return. : H 7 530 Upon the wing, or in fwift race contend, the images are rais'd in proportion Pars in gramineis exercent mem- Pars pedibus plaudunt choreas, et Their aery limbs in fports they exercise, And on the green contend the wrestler's prize. Some in heroic verfe divinely fing; Others in artful measures lead the ring. &c. Dryden. #535 Till thickest legions clofe; with feats of arms uproar. As when Alcides, from Oechalia crown'd 539. Others with vaft Typhean rage &c.] Others with rage like that of Typhoeus or Typhon, one of the giants who warred against Heaven, of whom see before I. 199. The contraft here is very remarkable. Some are employ'd in fportive games and exercifes, while others rend up both rocks and hills, and make wild upFoar. Some again are finging in a valley, while others are difcourf ing and arguing on a hill; and thefe are reprefented as fitting, while others march different ways to discover that infernal world. Every company is drawn in contraft both to that which goes before, and that which follows. 542. As when Alcides, &c.] As when Hercules named Alcides from his grandfather Alcæus, from Oechalia crown'd with conqueft, after his return from the conqueft of Oechalia a city of Boeotia, having brought with him from thence lole 549 545 Into the king's daughter, felt th' envenom'd robe, which was fent him by Deianira in jealoufy of his new miftrefs, and ftuck so close to his fkin that he could not pull off the one without pulling off the other, and tore through pain up by the roots Theffalian pines, and Licbas who had brought him the poifon'd robe, from the top of Oeta, a mountain in the borders of Theffaly, threw into th' Euboic fea, the fea near Euboa an iland in the Archipelago. The madness of Hercules, was a fubject for tragedy among the Ancients (Homens μavoury by Euripides, Hercules furens by Seneca) but our author has comprised the principal circumftances in this fimilitude, and feems more particularly to have copied Ovid, Met. IX. 136. Victor ab, Oechalia-&c. But as Mr. Thyer rightly obferves, Milton in this fimile falls vastly fhort Into th' Euboic fea. Others more mild, With notes angelical to many a harp Their own heroic deeds and hapless fall 134 By doom of battel; and complain that fate. 550 The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet 555 (For eloquence the foul, fong charms the sense,) Others apart fat on a hill retir'd, In thoughts more elevate, and reafon'd high 560 565 Yet Fix'd fate, free will, foreknow ledge abfolute,] The turn of the words here is admirable, and very well expreffes the wand'rings and mazes of their difcourfe. And the turn of the words is greatly improv'd, and render'd ftill more beautiful by the addition of an epithet to each of them. 565. Vain wisdom all, and falfe philofophy:] Good and evil, and de finibus bonorum et malo rum, & were more particularly the fubjects of difputation among the philofophers and fophifts of old, as providence, free will, &c. were among the fchool-men and divines of later times, especially upon the introduction of the free notions of 559-foreknowledge, will, and Arminius upon thefe fubjects: and ... fate, our author fhows herein what an opinion Yet with a pleafing forcery could charm 570 575 Abhorred 572. That difmal world,] The feveral circumftances in the defcrip tion of Hell are finely imagin'd; a the four rivers which difgorge themselves into the fea of fire, the extremes of cold and heat, and the river of oblivion. The monftrous animals produced in that infernal world are represented by a fingle line, which gives us a more horrid idea of them, than a much longer defcription of them would have done. This epifode of the fallen Spirits and their place of habitation comes in very happily to unbend the mind of the reader from its attention to the debate. An ordinary poet would indeed have spun out fo many circumftances to a great length, and by that means have weaken'd, inftead of illuftrated, the principal fable. Addifon. 577. Abborred |