But he probably says here what he means, because, as angels did not fight on terra firma, there seems no reason why they should not fight in cubes, which is rather a grand idea.

404. Unobnoxious to be pain'd. Not liable, from the Latin obnoxius. 410. On the foughten field. The passive participle of fight: not formed according to analogy, but used by Shakspeare in Hen. V.: "As on this glorious and well-foughten field.”

412. Their watches round, Cherubic waving fires. i.e. Cherubim-like fires waving; the Cherubim being described by our author, agreeably to Scripture (Gen. iii. 24), as of a fiery substance and nature. As they were remarkable for their love and fidelity, they are properly made here the sentinels.

418. O now in dangers tried, now known in arms. This speech of Satan is generally admired, and has been pronounced very artful. Satan flatters both the pride and vanity of his followers, and persuades them to his own purpose with great ingenuity.

428. Then fallible, it seems, of future. Liable to be mistaken as regards the future—a classical use of the genitive.

440. And worse our foes, i.e. damage them. The word worse, used as a verb, though analogical enough, is not now used.

447. Nisroch, of Principalities the prime. A god of the Ninevites, in whose temple Sennacherib was assassinated by his two sons, 2 Kings xix. His speaking afterwards of pain as the greatest of evils, the doctrine of Hieronymus and others, was suitable to the deity of the effeminate Assyrians. Milton probably called him of principalities the prime, being worshipped by so great a prince, and at the capital city of Nineveh.

467. To me deserves no less than for deliverance what we owe. i.e. in my opinion, deserves no less a reward that we should owe for our deliverance.

472. Which of us who beholds, &e. Which has been thought by some to be the nominative to survey, at line 476; but the nominative to is understood, i.e. which of us is there who beholds, and whose eye so superficially surveys? &c. Milton frequently suppressed the substantive verb, in imitation of the ancient classic poets.

479. Of spirituous and fiery spume. i.e. a frothy matter produced by the effervescence of spirituous and fiery particles. See line 512, where sulphur and nitre are named.

482. The deep shall yield us, pregnant with infernal flame. The deep, though generally used for hell, is here only used in opposition to surface, and is the same as deep under ground, mentioned at line 478. Ariosto (Orl. Fur. ix. 28), and Spenser (Fairy Queen, I. vii. 13) somewhat in the same way describe cannon, and attribute the invention to the devil.

496. Their drooping cheer enlighten'd. i.e. brightened or lit up their drooping spirits. Light in Scripture is joined with joy and gladness, as in Esther viii. 16.

514. Concocted and adusted; they reduced; i.e. purified and dried by fire. (By a printer's error adjusted stands in the text.)

519. Incentive reed; a kindling reed or match; from the Latin incendens.

520. Pernicious with one touch to fire; probably, in the sense of the Latin word pernix-quick, speedy; therefore not to be understood in the common acceptation.

526, 527. In arms they stood of golden panoply; in armour at all points, from head to foot. Ephes. vi. 11.

535. Zophiel. In Hebrew, the spy of God.

539, 540. So thick a cloud he comes. This metaphor is used in many languages to express a great multitude. Heb. xii. 1, "A cloud of witnesses;" Hom. Iliad, iv. 274; Virgil, Æn. viii. 793.

540, 541. In his face I see sad resolution. By 'sad' is here meant grave or sullen, as tristis in Latin; or it may mean serious or earnest, a sense frequent in our old authors.

541. Secure. Confident, assured, without fear of the result.

548. Quit of all impediment. The carriages and baggage of an army were called in Latin impedimenta; and the good angels are said to be quit of all impediment in opposition to the others encumbered with their heavy artillery.

553. Training his devilish enginery; drawing in train, from the term train of artillery.

559, 560. How we seek peace and composure; i.e. a composition or settlement of differences.

572, 573. A triple mounted row of pillars, laid on wheels. Mr. Keightley thinks Milton here and at line 650 must mean three successive rows, and not a triple row, as he "cannot conceive how cannon that were drawn could be ranged over each other like the guns of a battery," and in another place he applies a similar objection to a cubic phalanx of Angels. But as neither the angels nor the cannon were on terra firma, and merely poised in the air, there seems no reason why they should not be placed in either triplets, rows, or cubes.

579, 580. And in his hand a reed stood waving. In all Milton's own editions this is the reading, but, as the word stood occurs three times in three consecutive lines, Bentley here substitutes held, which is a manifest improvement, though not generally followed.

587. Embowell'd with outrageous noise the air. Embowelled is to be understood here as the roar of cannon which embowelled (gutted, or emptied) the air with its outrageous noise, and tore all her entrails. 598. Foul dissipation follow'd; i.e. they were scattered or dispersed, in the Latin sense of dissipatio.

665. With jaculation dire; throwing or casting: from the Latin jaculatio.

674. Permitted all, advised; advised' for advisedly. ciple is frequently in the Latin classics used adverbially.

The parti

678, 679. His Son, the assessor of his throne. Assessor is one who

sits by the side of another, as next in dignity, to assist in council. Christ is so called by some of the old fathers.

681, 682. Son, in whose face invisible is beheld visibly. Invisible here is a neuter adjective used for a substantive, and is in allusion to these texts; Rom. i. 20, "The invisible things of God are clearly seen;" and Col. i. 15, "The image of the invisible God." See also John i. 18. The construction and sense is this: Son, in whose face what is invisible, is beheld visibly, that is, "what I am by deity."

683. In whose hand what by decree I do; in the work of whose hand is beheld what by decree I do.

690. Equal in their creation they were form'd, &c. They were formed equal in their creation, and therefore are so now, save to the extent which sin hath impaired them, which however gives as yet no perceptible advantage to the other party, since I delay their doom.' See Matt. viii. 29. Jude 6.

698. Wild work in heaven, and dangerous to the main; that is, dangerous to the whole extent of Heaven.

737. Rid heaven of these rebell'd; these who have rebelled; these rebellious.

740,741. That from thy just obedience could revolt, whom to obey is, &c.; i.e. the obedience of thee whom, &c. This mode of expression, in which the relative refers to the substantive or personal pronoun, understood out of the adjective or passive pronoun, Milton occasionally adopts in imitation of the ancient classic writers.

756. Of beryl, and careering fires between. The beryl is a precious stone of a sea-green colour (Exod. xxviii. 20), and careering fires are lightnings darting out by fits. Compare 1. 848, and B. i. 766.

757. Over their heads a crystal firmament. All this is from Ezekiel i. 22, 26-28.

761. Of radiant Urim, work divinely wrought. Urim, which signifies light, and Thummim, which signifies perfection, were something in Aaron's breastplate, but what they exactly were critics are by no means agreed. Milton, however, by applying the word Urim to panoply, evidently agreed with the opinion of Josephus, (Antiq. iii. 8,) and other authors, who describe them as precious stones of the high priest's breast-plate, engraven with the names of the twelve tribes, which, by the nature of their lustre, revealed the will of God. Epiphanius and Suidas think they were epithets denoting a diamond of extraordinary splendour on the pectoral (in addition to the twelve stones), from whose shining the high priest drew his inferences. God was consulted by Urim and Thummím only on occasions of public interest to the church or state. See Exod. xxviii. and Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible.

797. In universal ruin last. Tickell's edition here substitutes lost, and Bentley adopts the reading without any note or acknowledg ment, as though it were so printed in all former editions.

867, 868. Hell saw heaven ruining, &c. The word ruining is in the sense of the Italian word ruinando; and denotes falling headlong with precipitation and ruin. See B. ii. 993, and Tasso, Jerus. del.

ix. 39.

879. Her mural breach, returning whence it roll'd. The wall must be understood as included in mural.

893. Thus measuring things in heaven by things on earth. This line should be remembered, as the best defence that can be made for the bold fictions which pervade the poem throughout.

900. With Satan; he who envies now thy state. He' is here put in the nominative case, in apposition to Satan, the ablative, but the construction requires the accusative him: or it may be understood thus: He (it is) who envies now thy state. The use of the nominative for the accusative is not an uncommon mistake even in the best writers.

BOOK VII.

Line 1. Descend from heaven, Urania. The poet here invokes Urania, 'the heavenly Muse,' as in Book i. line 6; and as he there said that he intended to soar above th' Aonian mount, so now he says that he has effected what he intended, and soar'd above the Olympian hill, above the flight of Pegaséan wing; that is, his subject is more sublime than the loftiest flights of the heathen poets.

5. The meaning, not the name, I call; i.e. pertaining to Heaven, not the mere name of one of the Muses. Urania was properly the muse of astronomy.

8-10. Before the hills appear'd, or fountain flow'd, &c. From Proverbs viii. 24, 25, 30. "When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: Then was I by him, as one brought up with him; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him:" or playing, according to the Latin Vulgate (ludens coram eo omni tempore), to which Milton alludes, in v. 10.

14, 15. And drawn empyreal air, thy tempering. Said in reference to the difficulty of respiration on high mountains. This empyreal air was too pure and fine for him; but the heavenly Muse temper'd and qualified it, so as to enable him to breathe it. Dunster explains the passage as expressive of his confidence of success. Under the Divine guidance of Urania he had successfully ascended the empyreum, or highest heaven, and there breathed the pure air which she had so highly tempered; and now he requests her to guide him back to his native element with equal safety, that he may there describe the creation of the world and of man.

17-19. As once Bellerophon, though from a lower clime, dismounted. The story of Bellerophon is told in the Iliad, vi. 190 Being a man of extraordinary bravery and beauty, he excited the love of Antea the wife of Prœtus, king of the Argives, at whose court he was a guest. Like Joseph in holy writ, he rejected her corrupt solicitations. She then, through revenge, falsely accused him to her husband of an attempt on her honour; who, restrained by the laws of hospitality from putting him to death, sent him on a feigned embassy to his father-in-law Jobates, king of Lycia, with a letter detailing his supposed offence, and requesting of him to contrive his death. Hence the phrase, "carrying Bellerophon's letters," i.e. a message fatal to the bearer. Jobates, having hospitably entertained him nine days as the ambassador of a friendly sovereign, before he opened the letter, on seeing its contents, also felt restrained from putting him to death, but sent him on a number of most perilous enterprises. Bellerophon was victorious in all these; which so pleased the king that he gave him his daughter in marriage, and named him his successor. In his old age, however, Bellerophon became melancholy mad, and wandered the Aleian field alone, wasting in spirit and avoiding the path of men. It is added by others, that endeavouring vaingloriously to mount up to heaven on the winged horse Pegasus (the steed of the Muses), he fell on the Aleian plain, where he wandered till he died. Newton remarks, "The plain truth of this story seems to be, that in his old age he grew mad with his poetry, which Milton begs may never be his own case." But the more probable explanation is, that Bellerophon's poetic flight was unsuccessful, which caused his melancholy; and that Milton here prays he may not be so unsuccessful.

21. Half yet remains unsung. Milton is supposed by most commentators to mean half of the episode, not of the whole work, as when the poem was divided into only ten books, this passage stood at the beginning of the seventh as it does now. And the argument is that the episode has two principal parts, the war in Heaven, and the new creation; the one already sung, the other remaining unsung. But it is by no means improbable that Milton means half the poem, using the term in its loose and familiar acceptation. Besides which, by altering his poem into twelve books, he may have done at a later period what he originally intended.

25. Though fall'n on evil days. A lively picture of the poet's wretched condition. Though fallen on evil days, and in darkness, with dangers compassed round and solitude, obnoxious to the government, and having a world of enemies among the royal party, and therefore obliged to live in privacy and alone. "And what strength of mind was it (says Bishop Newton) that could not only support him under the weight of these misfortunes, but enable him to soar to such heights as no human genius ever reached before!"

26. On evil days though fall'n. This repetition and turn of words is praised by several critics, who suppose that the passage has