Yet not till the Creator, from his work
Desisting, though unwearied, up returned,
Up to the Heaven of Heavens, his high abode,
Thence to behold this new-created World,
The addition of his empire, how it showed
In prospect from his throne, how good, how fair,
Answering his great idea. Up he rode,
Followed with acclamation, and the sound
Symphonious of ten thousand harps, that tuned
Angelic harmonies. The Earth, the Air
Resounded,

The heavens and all the constellations rung,
The planets in their stations listening stood,
While the bright pomp ascended jubilant.

From this passage, one might almost imagine that Milton had seen the illumination, or rather drawing, which accompanies this part of the Junian manuscript, where the Deity is represented as having returned to his high abode,

Thence to behold this new-created World.

Neither of these versions of Creation, however chaste or picturesque, can ever be said to rival the fine, old Hebrew legend, in the quaint simplicity of the story, in the strangely philosophical mode of expression in certain parts of the narrative, or to surpass it, in its utter untrustworthiness (if taken literally), as a historical document.

CHAPTER V.

The Fall of the Rebel Angels.

HE action of the epic of Paradise Lost opens

THE

abruptly, as we have already seen, with the awakening of the rebel Archangel amid

whirlwinds of tempestuous fire,

whither he had been

Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,

To bottomless perdition.

Here, as he raises his giant form, still half-stupefied by his fall through

hideous ruin and combustion,

he casts his gaze around upon his "horrid crew" as they

Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf,
Confounded, though immortal.

At this point, the poet gives no detailed account of the treason of the rebel host, or of the wars in

Heaven, reserving these cardinal points in the epic to be related by the Archangel Raphael in the Fifth and Sixth Books of the poem.

Cadmon, however, more naturally, and more in accordance with classical models, (though not with such strong dramatic effect), presents these incidents more in their ideal, chronological order, and opens this part of his narrative with an account of the origin of the ten Angel tribes:

Of old,

The King Eternal by His sovereign Might,
Ordained ten Angel tribes, of equal rank,
With beauty, power, and wisdom richly dower'd
And in this host Angelic, whom in Love
He moulded in His own similitude,

He evermore reposed a holy trust
To work His Will in loving loyalty,
And added of His grace, celestial wit
And bliss unspeakable.

We do not find, in Milton, any such numerical exactitude in his description of the angelic tribes as in Cædmon, but he gives us to understand that there

were

mighty regencies

Of Seraphim and Potentates and Thrones
In their triple degrees.

Moreover, he depicts the Almighty Himself, when