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Him lord pronounc'd, and, O indignity!
Subjected to his service angel wings,
And flaming ministers to watch and tend
Their earthly charge of these the vigilance
I dread, and to elude, thus wrapt in mist
Of midnight vapour glide obscure, and pry
In every bush and brake, where hap may find
The serpent sleeping, in whose mazy folds
To hide me, and the dark intent I bring.

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O foul descent! that I who erst contended

With Gods to sit the high'est, am now constrain'd

Into a beast, and mix'd with bestial slime,

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This essence to incarnate and imbrute,
That to the highth of deity aspir'd;
But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to? who aspires must down as low

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As high he soar'd, obnoxious first or last

To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long back on itself recoils;

Let it; I reck not, so it light well aim'd,
Since higher I fall short, on him who next
Provokes my envy, this new favourite
Of heav'n, this man of clay, son of despite,
Whom us the more to spite his Maker rais'd
From dust spite then with spite is best repaid.
So saying, through each thicket dank or dry,
Like a black mist low creeping, he held on

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offspring of hatred and envy, created to increase his punishment, by seeing this man of clay substituted into that glorious station of him forlorn, outcast of heaven. Hume.

I have often wondered that this speech of Satan's escaped the particular observation of the ingenious Mr. Addison. There is not in my opinion any one in the whole book that is worked up with greater judgment, or better suited to the character of the speaker. There is all the horror and malignity of a fiendlike spirit expressed, and yet this is so artfully tempered with Satan's sudden starts of recollection upon the meanness and folly of what he was going to undertake, as plainly shew the remains of the archangel, and the ruins of a superior nature. Thyer.

178. -spite then with spite is best repaid.] Eschylus Prometh. 944.

Ούτως ὑβρίζειν της υβρίζοντας χρέων.
Richardson.

His midnight search, where soonest he might find
The serpent: him fast sleeping soon he found
In labyrinth of many a round self-roll'd,

His head the midst, well stor'd with subtle wiles:
Not yet in horrid shade or dismal den,
Nor nocent yet, but on the grassy herb
Fearless unfear'd he slept; in at his mouth
The devil enter'd, and his brutal sense,
In heart or head, possessing soon inspir'd
With act intelligential; but his sleep

Disturb'd not, waiting close th' approach of morn.
Now when as sacred light began to dawn
In Eden on the humid flow'rs, that breath'd

186. Nor nocent yet,] Thus it is in the second and in the subsequent editions; in the first edition it is Not nocent yet. 186. -the grassy herb] So we have in Virgil, Ecl. v. 26. graminis herbam.

192. Now when as sacred light &c.] The author gives us a description of the morning, which is wonderfully suitable to a divine poem, and peculiar to that first season of nature: he represents the earth, before it was cursed, as a great altar, breathing out its incense from all parts, and sending up a pleasant savour to the nostrils of its Creator; to which he adds a noble idea of Adam and Eve, as offering their morning worship, and filling up the universal consort of praise and adoration. Addison.

This is the morning of the ninth day, as far as we can reckon the time in this poem, a

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great part of the action lying out of the sphere of day. The first day we reckon that wherein Satan came to the earth; the space of seven days after that he was coasting round the earth; he comes into Paradise again by night, and this is the beginning of the ninth day, and the last of man's innocence and happiness. And the morning often is called sacred by the poets, because that time is usually allotted to sacrifice and devotion, as Eustathius says in his remarks upon Ho

mer.

193. In Eden on the humid
flow'rs that breath'd
Their morning incense, when

all things that breathe,] Here Milton gives to the English word breathe, which is generally used in a more confined sense, the extensive signification of the Latin spirare, imitating perhaps Spenser, Faery Queen, b. i. cant. iv. st. 38.

Their morning incense, when all things that breathe,
From th' earth's great altar send up silent praise
To the Creator, and his nostrils fill

With grateful smell, forth came the human pair,
And join'd their vocal worship to the quire
Of creatures wanting voice; that done, partake
The season, prime for sweetest sents and airs:
Then commune how that day they best may ply
Their growing work; for much their work outgrew
The hands dispatch of two gard'ning so wide,
And Eve first to her husband thus began.

With pleasance of the breathing fields yfed.

Thyer.

197. With grateful smell,] This is in the style of the eastern poetry. So it is said, Gen. viii. 21. The Lord smelled

a sweet savour.

Our

199. -that done,] author always supposes Adam and Eve to employ their first and their last hours in devotion. And they are only would-bewits, who do not believe and worship a God. The greatest geniuses in all ages, from Homer to Milton, appear plainly by their writings to have been men of piety and religion.

200. The season, prime for sweetest sents and airs:] Sents, so Milton spells it, doubtless from the Latin sentiendo. And

so Skinner spells it, and this is the true way of spelling it. I presume, it was first spelt with a c scent, to distinguish it from the participle sent missus; but the sense will sufficiently dis

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Adam, well may we labour still to dress
This garden, still to tend plant, herb, and flower,
Our pleasant task enjoin'd, but till more hands
Aid us, the work under our labour grows,
Luxurious by restraint; what we by day
Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind,
One night or two with wanton growth derides
Tending to wild. Thou therefore now advise,
Or bear what to my mind first thoughts present;
Let us divide our labours, thou where choice
Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind 215
The woodbine round this arbour, or direct
The clasping ivy where to climb, while I
In yonder spring of roses intermix'd

With myrtle, find what to redress till noon:
For while so near each other thus all day
Our task we choose, what wonder if so near
Looks intervene and smiles, or object new
Casual discourse draw on, which intermits
Our day's work brought to little, though begun
Early, and th' hour of supper comes unearn❜d.
To whom mild answer Adam thus return'd.

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213. Or bear what to my mind] So the second edition has it; in the first it is Or hear. Either will do, and we find sometimes the one and sometimes the other in the following editions.

226. To whom mild answer Adam thus return'd.] The dispute which follows between our two first parents is represented with great art it proceeds from a difference of judgment, not of

passion, and is managed with reason, not with heat: it is such a dispute as we may suppose might have happened in Paradise, had man continued happy and innocent. There is a great delicacy in the moralities which are interspersed in Adam's discourse, and which the most ordinary reader cannot but take notice of. That force of love, which the father of mankind so

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