BOOK I.

"There is a solemnity of sentiment, as well as majesty of numbers, in the exordium of this noble poem, which, in the works of the ancients, has no example.

"The sublimest of all subjects was reserved for Milton; and, bringing to the contemplation of that subject, not only a genius equal to the best of theirs but a heart also deeply impregnated with the divine truths which lay before him, it is no wonder that he has produced a composition, on the whole, superior to any that we have received from former ages. But he who addresses himself to the perusal of this work, with a mind entirely unaccustomed to serious and spiritual contemplation, unacquainted with the word of God, or prejudiced against it, is ill qualified to appreciate the value of a poem built upon it, or to taste its beauties. Milton is the poet of Christians: an infidel may have an ear for the harmony of his numbers, may be aware of the dignity of his expression, and, in some degree, of the sublimity of his conceptions; but the unaffected and masculine piety, which was his true inspirer, and is the very soul of his poem, he will either not perceive, or it will offend him."

To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.

Line 177.

"In this we seem to hear a thunder suited both to the scene and the occasion, incomparably more awful than any ever heard on earth, and the _thunder winged with lightning_ is highly poetical. It may be observed here, that the thunder of Milton is not hurled from the hand like Homer's, but discharged like an arrow. Thus in book vi. line 712, the Father, ordering forth the Son for the destruction of the rebel angels, says--

..... Bring forth all my war, _My bow, and thunder_.

As if, jealous for the honour of the true God, the poet disdained to arm him like the god of the heathen."[736]

He spake, and to confirm his words, &c. &c.

Line 663.

[736] Psalm vii. 12.

"This is another instance in which appears the advantage that Milton derives from the grandeur of his subject. What description could even he have given of a host of human warriors insulting their conqueror, at all comparable to this? First, their multitude is to be noticed. They are not thousands but millions; and they are millions, not of puny mortals, but of mighty cherubim. Their swords flame, not metaphorically, but they are swords of fire; they flash not by reflection of the sunbeams, like the swords of Homer, but by their own light, and that light plays not idly in the broad day, but far round illumines Hell. And lastly, they defy not a created being like themselves, but the Almighty."