650 Stand ready at command, and are his eyes That run through all the Heav'ns, or down to th’Earth Bear his swift errands over moist and dry, O'er fea and land: him Satan thus accofts. Uriel, for thou of those fev'n Spi'rits that stand All these his wondrous works, but chiefly Man, 650. and are his eyes &c.] An expreffion borrow'd from Zech. IV. 10. Thofe feven, they are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth The Jews therefore believed there were Jeven principal Angels, who were the captains and leaders as it were of the heavenly hoft. See Tobit XII. 15. Rev. I. 4. V. 6. VIII. 2. 654. Uriel,] His name is derived from two Hebrew words 660 665 Hath Hath brought me from the quires of Cherubim In which of all these shining orbs hath Man But all these shining orbs his choice to dwell; 670 That I Or open may find him, and with secret gaze admiration him behold, On whom the great Creator hath bestow'd Worlds, and on whom hath all these graces pour'd; That both in him and all things, as is meet, The universal Maker we may praise; Who justly hath driv'n out his rebel foes reads and favorite whom, and fays that Man his chief favor is not English. But, as Dr. Pearce replies, by favor furely may be meant the object of his favor; as by delight is plainly meant not his delight itfelf, but the object of his delight. And as Mr. Upton obferves, it is only using the abstract for the concrete. So Terence ufes fcelus for fceleftus, Andria, Act. V. Scelus 675 680 For neither Man nor Angel can difcern Hypocrify, the only' evil that walks Invisible, except to God alone, 684 By his permiffive will, through Heav'n and Earth: Refigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill The sharpeft fighted Spirit of all in Heaven; Fair Angel, thy defire which tends to know great The Work-Mafter, leads to no excefs 690 695 The fible to all but God, &c: But yet the evil Spirit did not pafs wholly undiscover'd, for though Uriel was not aware of him now, yet he found reafon to fufpect him afterwards from his furious geftures in the mount. 683. Hypocrify, &c.] What is faid here of hypocrify is cenfur'd as a digreffion, but it seems no more than is abfolutely neceffary; for otherwise it might be thought very strange, that the evil Spirit fhould pafs undiscover'd by the ArchAngel Uriel, the regent of the fun, 686. And oft though wisdom wake, and the fharpeft-fighted Spirit in &c.] He must be very critically Heaven, and therefore the poet fplenetic indeed, who will not parendevors to account for it by fay- don this little digreffional observaing, that hypocrify cannot be dif- tion. There is not in my opinion cern'd by Man or Angel, it is invi-nobler fentiment, or one more poetically The more it seems excess, that led thee hither 705 To witness with thine eyes what fome perhaps 700 poetically exprefs'd, in the whole poem. What great art has the poet fhown in taking off the drynefs of a mere moral fentence by throwing it into the form of a fhort and beautiful allegory! _Thyer. 694. Fair Angel, &c.] In the anfwer which this Angel returns to the difguis'd evil Spirit, there is fuch a becoming majefty as is altogether fuitable to a fuperior being. The part of it, in which he reprefents himfelf as prefent at the cre. 710 Swift Swift to their several quarters hafted then The cumbrous elements, earth, flood, air, fire; 715 Each had his place appointed, each his course; 720 Look downward on that globe, whose hither fide moon Tatas, which Tully renders in 715. The cumbrous elements,] Even 725 (So air and fire are fo in comparison of the ethereal quinteffence, celeftial fire, or pure fpirit. Richardson. 716. And this ethereal quintef fence of Heaven] The four elements hafted to their quarters, but this fifth efence few upward. It fhould be this, as it is in Mil ton's own editions: and not the ethereal quintessence, as it is in Bentley's, Fenton's, and fome other editions. For the Angel who speaks is in the fun, and therefore fays this, as the fun was a part of this ethereal quinteffence. And this notion our author borrow'd from |