Of father, son, and brother, first were known.
Far be it, that I should write thee sin or blame,
Or think thee unbefitting holiest place,
Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets,
Whose bed is undefiled and chaste pronounced,
Present, or past, as saints and patriarchs used!
Here Love his golden shafts employs, here lights
His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings,
Reigns here and revels; not in the bought smile
Of harlots, loveless, joyless, unendeared,
Casual fruition: nor in court amours,
Mixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball,
Or serenate, which the starved lover sings
To his proud fair, best quitted with disdain.
These, lulled by nightingales, embracing slept,
And on their naked limbs the flowery roof
Showered roses, which the morn repaired. Sleep on,
Blest pair; and O yet happiest, if ye seek
No happier state, and know to know no more.
Now had night measured with her shadowy cone
Half way up hill this vast sublunar vault,

dently imitated from Cicero:-" Cari sunt parentes, liberi, propinqui, familiares; sed omnes omnium caritates patria una complexa est."-De Offic. i. 17. In Paley's Natural Theology we find a similar use of the word. "The family of a sick parent is a school of filial piety. The charities of domestic life, and not only these, but all the social virtues, are called out by distress."

763. Here Love his golden shafts, fc.] Compare the following stanza from the Faerie Queene:

"Most sacred fyre, that burnest mightily In living brests, ykindled from above;

sky,

Emongst th' eternall spheres and lamping And thence poured into men, which men call love;

Not that same, which doth base affections

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There is a

restrain your curiosity.
sort of play upon the double meaning
of the word "know." The figure by
which the same word is thus used in
different senses is called Paronomasia.
We have a beautiful instance of it in
the words of our Saviour, "Let the
dead bury their dead."

This

776. Her shadowy cone.] The shadow of the earth forms a cone, the base standing on that side of the globe where the sun is not, and consequently when it is night there. cone, to those who are on the darkened side of the earth, could it be seen, would mount as the sun fell lower and be at its utmost height in the vault of their heaven when it was midnight. The shadowy cone had now risen halfway (up the ascent of heaven), conse quently, supposing it to be about the time when the days and nights were of equal length, it must be now about nine o'clock; the accustomed hour of the angels setting their sentries.RICHARDSON.

And from their ivory port the Cherubim,
Forth issuing, at the accustomed hour, stood armed
To their night watches in warlike parade;
When Gabriel to his next in power thus spake;

"Uzziel, half these draw off, and coast the south
With strictest watch; these other wheel the north;
Our circuit meets full west." As flame they part,
Half wheeling to the shield, half to the spear.
From these, two strong and subtle Spirits he called
That near him stood, and gave them thus in charge;

"Ithuriel and Zephon, with winged speed

Search through this garden, leave unsearched no nook;
But chiefly where those two fair creatures lodge,
Now laid perhaps asleep secure of harm.
This evening from the sun's decline arrived
Who tells of some infernal Spirit seen

Hitherward bent (who could have thought?) escaped
The bars of Hell, on errand bad no doubt:
Such where ye find, seize fast, and hither bring."
So saying, on he led his radiant files,

Dazzling the moon; these to the bower direct

In search of whom they sought: him there they found Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve,

782. UZZIEL, in the Hebrew, means, the strength of God; ITHURIEL, the discovery of God; and ZEPHON, a secret, or searcher of secrets. The name is significant of the office.

785. Half wheeling to the shield, half to the spear.] The shield was carried in the left hand, and the spear in the right; therefore, "to wheel to the shield," is what is now done in answer to the command "Left face," and "to the spear" to the command "right face." Milton may have often heard Cromwell shout "Right and Left face," and here we have a sort of reproduction of the scene.

791. Secure of harm] is a Latinism. It means, without care of harm, i. e. thinking themselves in no danger.

794. Hitherward bent (who could have thought?) escaped.] We have in the parenthesis an instance of what the French call "construction louche," or squinting construction. It may be applied to what goes before, or what

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800

follows. Here, indeed, there is little doubt but it is meant to apply to the clause following it, but still it might apply to what goes before. In Cornelius Nepos, we have an instance of the same thing, known to every Grammar school boy. "Post id factum paucis diebus apud Zamam cum eodem conflixit; pulsus, incredibile dictu, biduo et duabus noctibus Adumentum pervenit, quod abest à Zamâ circiter millia passuum trecenta."-Life of Hannibal.

800. Squat like a toad.] i. e. cowering close to the ground. "No word in the language," says Dr. Campbell, "could have so happily expressed the posture as that which the poet hath chosen;" and if the word squat is contemptuous in itself, the comparison like a toad· "ugly and venomous serves to deepen the contempt, and even adds a mixture of the ridiculous to it. The word "nook," too, in 1. 789, is meant to be ludicrously mean. See an inter

Assaying by his devilish art to reach

The organs of her fancy, and with them forge
Illusions as he list, phantasms and dreams;
Or if, inspiring venom, he might taint
The animal spirits, that from pure blood arise
Like gentle breaths from rivers pure, thence raise
At last distempered, discontented thoughts,
Vain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires,
Blown up with high conceits ingendering pride.
Him thus intent Ithuriel with his spear
Touched lightly; for no falsehood can endure
Touch of celestial temper, but returns
Of force to its own likeness: up he starts
Discovered and surprised. As when a spark
Lights on a heap of nitrous powder, laid
Fit for the tun, some magazine to store
Against a rumoured war, the smutty grain,
With sudden blaze diffused, inflames the air:
So started up in his own shape the Fiend.
Back stept those two fair Angels, half amazed
So sudden to behold the grisly king;
Yet thus, unmoved with fear, accost him soon.
"Which of those rebel spirits adjudged to Hell
Comest thou, escaped thy prison? and transformed,
Why sat'st thou like an enemy in wait,
Here watching at the head of these that sleep?"
"Know ye not then," said Satan, filled with scorn,
"Know ye not me? ye knew me once, no mate
For you, there sitting where ye durst not soar:
Not to know me argues yourselves unknown,
The lowest of your throng; or, if ye know,

esting essay by Mr. Samuel Bailey,
"On the Changes in the English Lan-
guage," in his recent work, Discourses
on Various Subjects. All Mr. Bailey's
works, but particularly his first and
greatest, On the Formation and Pub-
lication of Opinion, are worthy of a
careful perusal by young teachers. It
ranks next to Locke's Conduct of the
Understanding, and not far below it.

812. But returns of force.] i. e. is obliged to return to its own likeness again. Perforce is perhaps more common in this sense than of force, which Milton here uses.

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829. There sitting where ye durst not soar.] We have here at once the two figures of alliteration and antithesis. "There" and "where" are strongly contrasted, and in "sitting" and "soar," there is perhaps a double contrast. It is as if he had said :-" I had a permanent seat at a height, which you with the greatest effort could only occasionally reach;" and, besides, there may be a reference to the Eastern idea of "sitting," which is considered a position of the greatest honour.

Why ask ye, and superfluous begin

Your message, like to end as much in vain?"

To whom thus Zephon, answering scorn with scorn,
"Think not, revolted Spirit, thy shape the same,
Or undiminished brightness to be known

As when thou stood'st in Heaven upright and pure;
That glory then, when thou no more wast good,
Departed from thee; and thou resemblest now
Thy sin and place of doom, obscure and foul.
But come, for thou, be sure, shalt give account
To him who sent us, whose charge is to keep
This place inviolable, and these from harm.'

So spake the Cherub; and his grave rebuke,
Severe in youthful beauty, added grace
Invincible: abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her shape how lovely; saw, and pined
His loss; but chiefly to find here observed
His lustre visibly impaired; yet seemed
Undaunted. "If I must contend," said he,
"Best with the best, the sender not the sent,
Or all at once; more glory will be won,

Or less be lost." "Thy fear," said Zephon bold,
Will save us trial what the least can do
Single against thee wicked, and thence weak."

846-849. Abashed the Devil stood.] "The opinion-that there is an inseparable connection between a good heart and a good taste-is, I think, just, if a good heart is understood merely to imply a delicate perception of moral good or evil; but if it be understood to imply farther, a conformity of our lives to the precepts we revere, our daily experience furnishes us with melancholy proofs that the maxim does not hold without many exceptions. Milton has forcibly, though indirectly, conveyed this important lesson,

"Abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her shape how lovely; saw and pined
His loss."

-STEWART's Elements of the Philoso-
phy of the Human Mind.

The idea in line 845., "severe in youthful beauty," seems taken from Virgil;

I

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"Tutatur favor Euryalum, lacrymæque decoræ Gratior et pulchro veniens in corpore virtus." En. v. 343.

The whole passage is in fact loaded with classical allusions, which recal to the memory of the scholar Cicero's declaration about Plato's description of virtue, as well as the famous curse against tyrants, which we find in the Third Satire of Persius

66

"Virtutem videant intabescantque relictâ." mentators that the word pined, 1. 848., We are told by some of Milton's commeans regretted; but those wh know the force of the Latin word intabesco will hardly be content with such a mild translation. Our word rot comes much nearer the original idea, but of course it is hardly to be mentioned in ears polite.

856. Wicked and thence weak.] We have here another specimen of Milton's power to condense thought,

The Fiend replied not, overcome with rage;
But, like a proud steed reined, went haughty on,
Champing his iron curb: to strive or fly
He held it vain; awe from above had quelled
His heart, not else dismayed. Now drew they nigh
The western point, where those half-rounding guards
Just met, and closing stood in squadron joined,
Awaiting next command. To whom their chief
Gabriel from the front thus called aloud;

"O friends! I hear the tread of nimble feet
Hasting this way, and now by glimpse discern
Ithuriel and Zephon through the shade,
And with them comes a third of regal port,
But faded splendour wan; who, by his gait
And fierce demeanour, seems the Prince of Hell,
Not likely to part hence without contést;
Stand firm, for in his look defiance lours.”

He scarce had ended, when those two approached
And brief related whom they brought, where found,
How busied, in what form and posture couched.

To whom with stern regard thus Gabriel spake;
"Why hast thou, Satan, broke the bounds prescribed
To thy transgressions, and disturbed the charge
Of others, who approve not to transgress

till it assume a very portable shape.
The alliteration assists the memory
greatly, and the doctrine indicated is
of prime importance. The just thing
is the strong thing "who knows not
that truth is strong strong next to
the Almighty," are sentiments of con-
stant recurrence in the prose works of
Milton; but as
general statement
of the connection between error and
misery, I shall transcribe a passage
from the amiable and enlightened
Stewart: "The connection between
error and misery, between truth and
happiness, becomes gradually more ap-
parent as our inquiries proceed, and
produces at last a complete conviction
that even in those cases where we are
unable to trace it, the connection sub-
sists. He who feels this as he ought,
will consider a steadfast adherence to
the truth as an expression of benevo-
lence to man and of confidence in the
righteous administration of the universe,

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880

and will suspect the purity of those motives which would lead him to advance the good of his species or the glory of his Maker, by deceit and hypocrisy."- STEWART's Active and Moral Powers.

869. Of regal port, but faded splendour wan.] Regal port, i. e. kingly carriage or behaviour; wan, darkish white, a hue of the countenance brought on by suffering, and indicating settled melancholy.

"With woeful measures wan Despair
Low, sullen sounds his grief beguiled," &c.
COLLINS.

878. The bounds prescribed to thy transgressions.] i. e. the bounds over which you were commanded not to go. Transgressions and transgress are both used in a physical and not in a moral sense. The boundaries of hell were those prescribed to Satan, and beyond these he had no right to pass.

880. Who approve not to trans