Back to the gates of Heav'n: the fulphurous hail Of Heav'n receiv'd us falling; and the thunder, To bellow through the vaft and boundless deep. Seeft thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, 180 Save what the glimmering of these livid flames There reft, if any reft can harbour there, And re-affembling our afflicted Powers, Confult how we may henceforth most offend 185 What reinforcement we may gain from hope, 190 If not what refolution from despair. Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate As whom the fables name of monftrous fize, Pectora quorum inter fluctus arrecta, jubæque 195 Briareos Per tota novem cui jugera corpus Porrigitur. Sanguineæ exuperant undas; pars And alfo that of the old dragon cætera pontum Pone legit. 196. Lay floting many a rood,] A rood is the fourth part of an acre, fo that the bulk of Saan is exprefs'd by the fame fort of measure, as that of one of che giants in Virgil, Æn. VI. 596. in Spenfer. Fairy Queen B. 1. Cant. 11. St. 8. That with his largenefs measured much land. Briareos or Typhon, whom the den By ancient Tarfus held, or that fea-beast 199. Briareos] So Milton writes it, that it may be pronounced as four fyllables; and not Briareus, which is pronounced as three. Et centumgeminus Briareus. Virg. Æn. VI. 287. And Briareus with all his hundred hands. Dryden. 199. -or Typhon, whom the den By ancient Tarfus held,] Typhon is the fame with Typhoeus. That the den of Typhoeus was in Cilicia, of which Tarfus was a celebrated city, we are told by Pindar and Pomponius Mela. I am much mistaken, if Milton did not make ufe of Farnaby's note on Ovid Met. V. 347. to which I refer the reader. He took ancient Tarfus perhaps from Nonnus: Ταρσ αποδοχη πρωτοπόλις which is quoted in Lloyd's Dictionary. Fortin. 200.- that fea-beaft 200 Deeming beaft, and attributes fcales to it: and yet by fome things one would think that he took it rather for a whale (as was the general opinion) there being no crocodiles upon the coafts of Norway, and what follows being related of the whale, but never, as I have heard, of the crocodile. 202. Created bugeft &c.] This verfe is found fault with as being too rough and abfonous, but that is not a fault but a beauty here, as it better expreffes the hugeness and unwieldiness of the creature, and no doubt was defign'd by the author. 204. night-founder'd fkiff] Some little boat, whofe pilot dares not proceed in his courfe for fear of the dark night; a metaphor taken from a founder'd horse that can go no farther. Hume. Dr. Bentley reads nigh-founder'd; but the common reading is better, because if (as the Doctor fays}" Leviathan,] The best critics feem foundering is finking by a leaking now to be agreed, that the author in the fhip, it would be of little of the book of Job by the levia- ufe to the pilot to fix his anchor on than meant the crocodile; and Mil- an iland, the fkiff would fink notton describes it in the fame man- withstanding, if leaky. By nightner partly as a fi and partly as a founder'd Milton means overtaken by Deeming fome iland, oft, as fea-men tell, With fixed anchor in his skaly rind Moors by his fide under the lee, while night 205 So ftretch'd out huge in length the Ar'ch-Fiend lay Chain'd on the burning lake, nor ever thence 210 Had preffion than umbris nox operit terras of Virgil Æn. IV. 352. But our author in this (as Mr. Thyer remarks) alludes to the figurative defcription of night used by the poets, particularly Spenfer. Fairy Queen. B. 1. Cant. 11. St. 49. By this the drooping day-light 'gan to fade, And yield his room to fad fucceeding night, Who with her fable mantle 'gan to fbade The face of earth. Milton alfo in the fame taste speaking of the moon, IV. 609. And o'er the dark her filver mantle threw. 209. So ftretch'd out buge in length the Arch-Fiend lay, ] The length of this verfe, confifting of fo many monofyllables, and pronounc'd fo flowly, is excellently adapted to the fubject that it would defcribe. The tone is upon the firft fyllable in this line, the Arch-Fiend lay; whereas it was upon the last fyllable of the word in ver. 156. th Arch-Fiend reply'd; a liberty that Milton fometimes takes to pronounce the fame word with Had ris'n or heav'd his head, but that the will 215 Infinite goodness, grace and mercy shown |