Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire: 300 305 Hath vex'd the Red-sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew 299. Nathless] Nevertheless. This word is frequently used by Spenser, and the old poets. 299.] From na, that is, not, the less. Johnson's Dict. 302. Thick as autumnal leaves] Virg. Æn. vi. 309. Quam multa in sylvis autumni frigore primo Lapsa cadunt folia. the woods. Thick as the leaves in autumn strow Lryden. But Milton's comparison is by far the exactest; for it not only expresses a multitude, but also the posture and situation of the angels. Their lying confusedly in heaps, covering the lake, is finely represented by this image of the leaves in the brooks. And besides the propriety of the application, if we compare the similes themselves, Milton's is by far superior to the other, as it exhibits a real landscape. See An Essay upon Milton's imitations of the Ancients, p. 23. 303. Vallombrosa,] A famous valley in Etruria or Tuscany, so named of Vallis and Umbra, remarkable for the continual cool shades, which the vast number Busiris and his Memphian chivalry, While with perfidious hatred they pursued And broken chariot wheels: so thick bestrown Dr. Bentley throws out six lines here, as the Editor's, not Milton's: his chief reason is, That that single event of Moses's passing the Red-sea has no relation to a constant quality of it, that in stormy weather it is strowed with sedge. But it is very usual with Homer and Virgil (and therefore may be allowed to Milton) in a comparison, after they have shewn the resemblance, to go off from the main purpose and finish with some other image, which was occasioned by the comparison, but is itself very different from it. Milton has done thus in almost all his similitudes; and therefore what he does so frequently, cannot be allowed to be an objection to the genuineness of this passage before us. As to Milton's making Pharaoh to be Busiris (which is another of the Doctor's objections to the passage) there is authority enough for to justify a poet in doing so, though not an historian: it has been supposed by some, and therefore Milton might follow that opinion. Chivalry for cavalry, and cavalry (says Dr. Bentley) for chariotry, is twice wrong. But it is rather twice right: for chivalry (from the French che 310 valerie) signifies not only knighthood, but those who use horses in fight, both such as ride on horses and such as ride in chariots drawn by them: in the sense of riding and fighting on horseback this word chivalry is used in ver. 765. and in many places of Fairfax's Tasso, as in cant. v. st. 9. cant. viii. st. 67. cant. xx. st. 61. In the sense of riding and fighting in chariots drawn by horses, Milton uses the word chivalry in Par. Reg. iii. ver. 344. compared with ver. 328. Pearce. 308 -perfidious hatred] Because Pharaoh, after leave given to the Israelites to depart, followed after them like fugitives. Hume. 310. From the safe shore their floating carcases &c.] Much has been said of the long similitudes of Homer, Virgil, and our author, wherein they fetch a compass as it were to draw in new images, besides those in which the direct point of likeness consists. I think they have been sufficiently justified in the general: but in this before us, while the poet is digressing, he raises anew similitude from the floating carcases of the Egyptians. Heylin. He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep Of hell resounded. Princes, Potentates, Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find 315 320 325 330 They heard, and were abash'd, and up they sprung In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel; 328. with linked thunderbolts Illum expirantem transfixo pectore flammas Turbine corripuit, scopuloque infixit acuto. Virg. En. i. 44, 45. 335 Who pleaseth to read the Devil's speech to his damned assembly in Tasso, cant. iv. from stanza 9 to stanza 18, will find our author has seen him, though borrowed little of him. Hume. 338. As when the potent rod &c.] See Exod. x. 13. Moses stretched forth his rod over the Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, land of Egypt, and the Lord 341 warping] Working themselves forward, a sea term. Hume and Richardson. 351. A multitude, like which &c.] This comparison doth not fall below the rest, as some have imagined. They were thick as the leaves, and numberless as the locusts, but such a multitude the north never poured forth; and we may observe that the subject of this comparison rises very much above the others, leaves and locusts. The populous north, as the northern parts of the world are observed to be more fruitful of people, than the hotter countries: Sir William Temple calls it the northern hive. Poured never, a very proper word to express the inundations of these northern nations. From her fro 340 345 350 zen loins, it is the Scripture ex- And overflow'd all countries far away, Pour'd never from her frozen loins, to pass And pow'rs that erst in heaven sat on thrones ; 355 360 Got them new names, till wand'ring o'er the earth, 365 They were the Goths, and Huns, and Vandals, who overrun all the southern provinces of Europe, and crossing the Mediterranean beneath Gibraltar landed in Africa, and spread themselves as far as the sandy country of Libya. Beneath Gibraltar, that is, more southward, the north being uppermost in the globe. 363. the books of life.] Dr. Bentley reads the book of life, that being the Scripture expression. And Shakespeare says likewise blotted from the book of life, Richard II. act i. My name be blotted from the book of life. in the plural as well as records just before; and the plural agrees better with the idea that he would give of the great number of angels. 367. By falsities and lies] That is, as Mr. Upton observes, by false idols, under a corporeal representation, belying the true God. The poet plainly alludes to Rom. i. 22, &c. When they knew God, they glorified him not as God-and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image-who changed the truth of God into a lie. So Amos ii. 4. Their lies caused them to err, Jer. xvi. 19. Surely our fathers But the author might write books have inherited lies, &c. |