Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth 111 Of creatures animate with gradual life

Of growth, fenfe, reason, all fumm'd up in Man. With what delight could I have walk'd thee round, If I could joy in aught, fweet interchange 115 Of hill, and valley, rivers, woods, and plains, Now land, now fea and fhores with forest crown'd, Rocks, dens, and caves! But I in none of these Find place or refuge; and the more I fee Pleasures about me, fo much more I feel Torment within me, as from the hateful siege Of contraries: all good to me becomes

120

Ver. 113. Of growth, fenfe, reason, all fumm'd up in Man.] The three kinds of life, rifing as it were by steps, the vegetable, animal, and rational; of all which Man partakes, and he only; he grows as plants, minerals, and all things inanimate; he lives as all other animal creatures, but is over and above endued with reafon. RICHARDSON.

Ver. 119. Find place or refuge;] Dr. Bentley believes that the author gave it Find place of refuge: Another learned gentleman propofes to read Find peace or refuge: but it may be underftood thus, but Iin none of these find place to dwell in or refuge from Divine Vengeance. And this fenfe feems to be confirmed by what follows.

"But neither here feek I, no nor in Heaven
"To dwell,

"Nor hope to be myself less miferable, &c." :

that is (as Dr. Greenwood adds) I find no place to dwell here, for I do not seek or defire it; and I expect no refuge, because I cannot hope to be lefs miferable. NEWTON.

By place Milton means allotted station. What Satan fays, is, "I find none of thefe delightful places, or parts of the earth, permitted to be a refidence for me; neither can I poffibly escape from that hell to which I am doomed, or take refuge in this delightful earth the allotted feat of man." DUNSTER.· ́

Bane, and in Heaven much worse would be my state.

But neither here feek I, no nor in Heaven
To dwell, unless by mastering Heaven's Supreme;
Nor hope to be myself lefs miferable

By what I feek, but others to make fuch
As I, though thereby worse to me redound:
For only in deftroying I find ease

126

131

To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed,
Or won to what may work his utter lofs,
For whom all this was made, all this will foon
Follow, as to him link'd in weal or woe;
In woe then; that deftruction wide may range:
To me shall be the glory fole among

135

The infernal Powers, in one day to have marr'd

Ver. 127.

– but others to make such

As I,] It is true, as Dr. Bentley remarks, that the fyntax requires "to make. such as me:" But may not the verb substantive am be understood, "to make others fuch as am ?" and is fuch an abbreviation uncommon? NEWTON..

Ver. 130. and, him deftroyed,] Milton fometimes uses the oblique cafe, instead of the nominative, in the ablative abfolute. Thus, in B. vii. 142, "us difpoffefs'd." Again, in Samfon, v. 463, "me overthrown." But, in general, he obferves the English form of adapting the nominative to what is called the cafe abfolute. TODD.

Ver. 136.

in one day to have marr'd What he, Almighty ftyl'd, fix nights and days Continued making;] This farcaftically pointed fneer on the fix days work of creation, well adapted to the character of the speaker, feems to have been fuggefted from Quarles's Emblems, B. ii. Embl. ii.

What he, Almighty styl'd, fix nights and days
Continued making; and who knows how long
Before had been contriving? though perhaps
Not longer than since I, in one night, freed 140
From fervitude inglorious well nigh half
The angelick name, and thinner left the throng
Of his adorers: He, to be aveng'd,

And to repair his numbers thus impair'd,
Whether fuch virtue spent of old now fail'd 145
More Angels to create, if they at least
Are his created, or, to fpite us more,
Determin'd to advance into our room

A creature form'd of earth, and him endow,
Exalted from fo base original,

With heavenly spoils, our spoils: What he decreed,

He effected; Man he made, and for him built
Magnificent this world, and earth his seat,
Him lord pronounc'd; and, O indignity!
Subjected to his service angel-wings,

"Are not thy joints grown fore with fhaking, "To view the effect of thy bold undertaking,

155

"That in one hour didft marr what Heaven fix days was making.”

Ver. 146.

DUNSTER.

if they at least

Are his created,] He queftions whether the Angels were created by God; he had before afferted that they were not, to the Angels themselves, B. v. 859.

"We know no time when we were not as now;
"Know none before us, felf-begot, felf-rais'd
"By our own quickening power." NEWTON.

And flaming minifters to watch and tend
Their earthy charge: Of these the vigilance
I dread; and, to elude, thus wrapt in mist
Of midnight vapour glide obfcure, and pry
In every bush and brake, where hap may find 160
The ferpent sleeping; in whofe mazy folds
To hide me, and the dark intent I bring.

O foul descent! that I, who erft contended With Gods to fit the highest, am now conftrain'd

Into a beaft; and, mix'd with beftial flime, 165
This effence to incarnate and imbrute,
That to the highth of Deity afpir'd!

But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to? Who aspires, must down as low

Ver. 156. And flaming minifters] His Angels are a flaming fire," Pfalm civ. 4.. HUME.

Ver. 157. Their earthy charge:] give his angels charge over thee to

Pfalm xci. 11. "He shall keep thee in all thy ways."

The poet's own editions read earthy; almost every other edition earthly. TODD.

Ver. 161.

in whofe mazy folds] Dr. Bentley

reads, "in his mazy folds." NEWTON.

Ver. 164. am now conftruin'd &c.] The conftruction is, am now forced into a beast, and to incarnate, &c. The verb confirain'd governs both the members; and there are innumerable inftances (as Mr. Richardfon obferves) in Milton, and in the best Latin and Greek poets, of the fame verb governing in one member of the period a noun &c. and in the other a verb &c. NEWTON.

Ver. 166. This effence to incarnate and imbrute,] See the notes on Comus, v. 468. TODD.

Ver. 169.

who afpires, muft down as low &c.]

As high he foar'd; obnoxious, first or last, 170
To baseft things. Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils:

Let it; I reck not, fo it light well aim'd,
Since higher I fall fhort, on him who next

Rather "must fink as low," fays Dr. Bentley, because it is better to have fome verb in the oppofition than the adverb down. But yet this way of fpeaking is agreeable to what Milton fays in B. x. 503. "But up, and enter now into full blifs." In both places the adverbs are used as verbs, or some verb of motion is to be fupplied in the fenfe. PEARCE.

There is a most beautiful inftance of the use of fuch adverbs for verbs in Shakspeare's fecond part of Hen. IV.

"For now a time is come to mock at form;
"Henry the fifth is crown'd: up, Vanity!

"Down, royal State!" NEWTON.

Ver. 171.

Revenge, at first though fweet,

Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils:] The fame

fentiment as in Comus, ver. 593.

"But evil on itfelf fhall back recoil."

TODD.

Ver. 173. Let it ;] Let revenge recoil on itself, I reck not, I value not, fo it light well aim'd, fince higher I full short, on him who next provokes my envy, fo it light on Man, fince I cannot accomplish my revenge on God. A truly diabolical fentiment this. So he can but be any ways revenged, he does not value though his revenge recoil on himself. NEWTON.

I have often wondered that this fpeech of Satan's efcaped the particular obfervation of Addifon. There is not in my opinion any one in the whole book that is worked up with greater judgement, or better fuited to the character of the speaker. There is all the horrour and malignity of a fiend-like Spirit expreffed, and yet this is fo artfully tempered with Satan's fudden starts of recollection upon the meannefs and folly of what he was going to undertake, as plainly fhow the remains of the Arch-Angel, and the ruins of a fuperior nature. THYER,