observed, that Milton's beauties generally depend upon solid thought, strong reasoning, noble passion, and a continued thread of moral doctrine; but in this place he has shown what an exalted fancy and mere force of poetry can do.-NEWTON.

Lord Shaftesbury had not a very accurate idea of Milton's genius; which, if it had all the qualities here ascribed to it, was not less rich and gigantic in imagination and invention.

8 Ver. 107.

End.

Bid his absence, till thy song

The sun did stand still at the voice of Joshua.-NEWTON. Milton's favourite Ovid touches upon the suspense of

day

:

et euntem multa loquendo

Detinuit sermone diem.

9 Ver. 121. Thine own inventions. So in Psalm cvi. 29: "Thus they provoked him to anger with their own inventions."-PEARCE.

10 Ver. 122. The invisible King. As God is styled, 1 Tim. i. 17, "the invisible King," so this is the properest epithet that could have been employed here, when he is speaking of "things not revealed, suppressed in night, to none communicable in earth or heaven," neither to men nor angels; as it is said of the day of judgment, Matt. xxiv. 36: "Of that day and hour knoweth no man: no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."-NEWTON.

11 Ver. 130. Nourishment to wind. See St. Paul, 1 Cor. viii. 1: Knowledge puffeth up."-TODD.

12 Ver. 144. Whom their place. See Job, vii. 10: "Neither shall his place know him any more."-NEWTON.

VOL. III.

с

13 Ver. 165. My overshadowing Spirit. See Luke i. 35 : "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee."-NEWTON.

14 Ver. 210.

They view'd.

From the shore

Here is a most magnificent picture, breathing all the powers of poetry.

15 Ver. 216. Silence, ye troubled waves. How much does the brevity of the command add to the sublimity and majesty of it! It is the same kind of beauty that Longinus admires in the Mosaic history of the creation: it is of the same strain with the same "Omnific Word's" calming the tempest in the Gospel, when he said to the raging sea, “Peace, be still." Mark iv. 39. And how elegantly has he turned the commanding words, silence and peace, making one the first and the other the last in the sentence, and thereby giving the greater force and emphasis to both !-NEWTON.

16 Ver. 225. He took the golden compasses. See Prov. viii. 27: "When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the deep."RICHARDSON.

17 Ver. 232. Thus God the heaven created. The reader will naturally remark how exactly Milton copies Moses in his account of the creation. This seventh book of Paradise Lost may be called a larger sort of paraphrase upon the first chapter of Genesis: Milton not only observes the same series and order, but preserves the very words as much as he can.-NEWTON.

18 Ver. 243. Let there be light, said God. Gen. i. 3.— "And God said, Let there be light; and there was light." This is the passage that Longinus particularly admires; and

no doubt its sublimity is greatly owing to its conciseness: but our poet enlarges upon it, endeavouring to give some account how light was created the first day, when the sun was not formed till the fourth day. He says that it was sphered in a radiant cloud, and so journeyed round the earth in a cloudy tabernacle; and herein he is justified by the authority of some commentators, though others think this light was the light of the sun, which shone as yet very imperfectly, and did not appear in full lustre till the fourth day.-NEWTON.

19 Ver. 256. With joy and shout. Job xxxviii. 4. 7. "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth; when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"-NEWTON.

20 Ver. 261. Let there be firmament. See Gen. i. 6:"Firmament" signifies expansion.-NEWTON.

21 Ver. 274. And heaven. So Gen. i. 8. According to the Hebrews, there were three heavens. The first is the air, wherein the clouds move, and the birds fly; the second is the starry heaven; and the third is the habitation of the angels, and the seat of God's glory. Milton is speaking here of the first heaven, as he mentions the others in other places.-NEWTON.

22 Ver. 283. Be gather'd now, ye waters. See Gen. i. 9; and Psalm civ. 6, et seq.-NEWTON.

23 Ver. 307. The dry land, earth. These are again the words of Genesis formed into verse, i. 10, 11. But when he comes to the descriptive part, he then opens a finer vein of poetry.-NEWTON.

24 Ver. 317. Sudden flower'd. See Esdras vi. 44.TODD.

25 Ver. 374. The Pleiades before him danced. These are beautiful images, and very much resemble the famous picture of the morning by Guido, where the sun is represented in his chariot, with Aurora flying before him, shedding flowers, and seven beautiful nymph-like figures, dancing before and about his chariot, which are commonly taken for the Hours, but possibly may be the Pleiades, as they are seven in number, and it is not easy to assign a reason why the Hours should be signified by that number particularly. The picture is on a ceiling at Rome; but there are copies of it in England, and an excellent print by Jac. Frey. The Pleiades are seven stars in the neck of the constellation Taurus, which, rising about the time of the vernal equinox, are called by the Latins "Vergiliæ." Our poet, therefore, in saying that the Pleiades danced before the sun at his creation, intimates very plainly that the creation was in the spring according to the common opinion, Virg. Georg. ii. 338, &c.-NEWTON.

26 Ver. 375. Shedding sweet influence. See Job, xxxviii. 31" Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades?"-HUME.

27 Ver. 387. And God said, Let the waters. This, and eleven verses following, are almost word for word from Genesis, i. 20—22: the poet afterwards branches out this general account of the fifth day's creation into the several particulars.—Newton.

28 Ver. 402. Sculls is undoubtedly shoals.

29 Ver 424. On cliffs and cedar-tops. See Job, xxxix. 27, 28.-NEWTON.

20 Ver. 427. Intelligent of seasons. See Jerem. viii. 7.NEWTON.

31 Ver. 435. The solemn nightingale. Milton's fondness and admiration of the nightingale may be seen, as Newton has remarked, in Il Penseroso,' in his first sonnet, and again in Paradise Lost,' b. iii. 38; b. iv. 648. 771; b. v. 40; b. viii. 518.-Todd.

ment.

32 Ver. 487. Pattern of just equality. We see that Milton, upon occasion, discovers his principles of governHe enlarges upon the same thought in his 'Ready Way to establish a free Commonwealth,' Prose W. i. 591. He commends the ants or emmets for living in a republic, as the bees are said to live under a monarchy.— NEWTON.

The author keeps

33 Ver. 519. Let us make now man. closely to Scripture in his account of the formation of man, as well as of the other creatures. See Gen. i. 26, 27, 28. There are scarcely any alterations but what were requisite for the verse or were occasioned by the change of the person, as the angel is speaking to Adam. And what additions are made, are plainly of the same original. — NEWTON.

66

34 Ver. 565. Open, ye everlasting gates! See Psalm xxiv. 7 :—“ Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in." This hymn was sung when the ark of God was carried up into the sanctuary on Mount Sion, and is understood as a prophecy of our Saviour's ascension into Heaven; and therefore is fitly applied by our author to the same Divine Person's ascending thither, after he had created the world.-NEWTON.

In the seventh book the author appears in a kind of composed and sedate majesty; and though the sentiments do not give so great an emotion as those in the former