To add more sweetness; and they thus began. These are thy glorious works, Parent of good, Almighty, thine this univerfal frame, Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then! In these thy lowest works; yet these declare The author has raifed our expecta- ye 155.-thyself how wondrous then!] Wild. XIII. 3. 4, 5. With whofe beauty, if they being delighted, took them to be Gods; let them know how much better the Lord of them is: for 156 160 On the firft author of beauty bath created them. But if they were aftonished at their power and virtue, let them understand by them, how much mightier he is that made them. For by the greatness and beauty of the creatures, proportionably the maker of them is feen. 160. Speak ye who beft can tell,&c.] He is unspeakable, ver. 156. no creature can speak worthily of him as he is; but fpeak ye who are best able ye Angels, ye in Heaven; on Earth join all ye creatures, &c. 162. day without night,] According to Milton there was grateful viciffitude like day and night in Heaven, VI. 8. and we prefume that he took the notion from Scripture, Rev. VII. 15. They are before the Him first, him last, him midst, and without end. 165 Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, If better thou belong not to the dawn, Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling morn 170 Lucifer, et cæli ftatione noviffimus exit. The ftars were fled, for Lucifer had chas'd The ftars away, and fled himself at laft. Addison. I don't know whether it is worth re marking that our author feems to have committed a mistake. The planet Venus, when she rifes before the fun, is called Phosphorus, Lucifer, and the Morning Star; when the fets after the fun is called Hefperus, Vefper, and the Evening Star; but fhe cannot rife before him, and fet after him at the fame time: and yet it may be objected that our author makes her do fo; for defcribing the laft evening, he particularly mentions Hiperus that led the farry hoft, IV. 605. and the very laft in the train of night. If this next morning the is addrefs'd as objection fhould be admitted, all we can say to it is, that poet is not obliged to speak with the strictnefs and accuracy of a philofopher. 172. Acknow Acknowledge him thy greater, found his praise 172. Acknowledge him thy greater,] It is not an improbable reading up light. 176 Air, Eternumque adytis effert penetralibus ignem.: which Dr. Bentley propofes Ac- and ufes the adverb æternum in knowledge him Creator, or as Mr. the fame manner for continually. Thyer Acknowledge thy Creator: but I fuppofe the author made ufe of Georg. II. 400. greater answering to great. Thou Sun, of this great world both eye and foul, Acknowledge him thy greater. So Ovid calls the fun the eye of the world, Mundi oculus, Met. IV. 228. And Pliny the foul, Nat. Hift. Lib. 1. c. 6. Hunc mundi effe to. tius animum. And the expreffion thy greater may be fitly parallel'd with thy fierceft IV. 927. and bis greater in Paradise Regain'd I. 279. 173. In thy eternal courfe,] In thy continual courfe. Thus Virgil calls the fun, moon and ftars eternal fires, En. II. 154. Vos, aterni ignes; and the facred fire that was conftantly kept burning eternal fire, En. II. 297. VOL. I. - glebaque verfis Eternum frangenda bidentibus. 175. Moon, that now meet'ft the orient fun, now flyft, &c.] The conftruction is, Thou Moon, that now meet'ft and now flyft the orient fun, together with the fix'd fars, and ye five other wand'ring fires &c. He had before called upon the fun who governs the day, and now he invokes the moon, and the fix'd ftars, and the planets who govern the night, to praise their Maker. The moon fometimes meets and fometimes fies the fun, approaches to and recedes from him in her monthly course With the fix'd ftars, fix'd in their orb that flies; they are fix'd in their orb, but their orb flies, that is moves round with the utmost rapidity; for Adam I i is Air, and ye Elements, the eldest birth Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion run And nourish all things; let your ceafelefs change Ye Mifts and Exhalations that now rife is made to fpeak according to appearances, and he mentions in another place, VIII. 19 and 21. their rolling Spaces incomprehenfible, and their fwift return diurnal. And ye five other wandring fires. Dr. Bentley reads four, Venus and the Sun and Moon being mention'd before, and only four more remaining, Mercury and Mars and Jupiter and Saturn. And we muft either fuppose that Milton did not confider the morning ftar as the planet Venus; or he must be supposed to include the earth, to make up the other five befides thofe he had mention'd; and he calls it elfewhere VIII. 129. The planet earth; tho' this be not agreeable to the fyftem, according to which he is fpeaking at present. Wand'ring fires in oppofition to fix'd ftars. That move in myftic dance not without fong, alluding to the doctrin of the An 180 185 Or wet the thirsty earth with falling fhowers, 199 195 His praise ye Winds, that from four quarters blow, 181.-that in quaternion run &c.] That in a fourfold mixture and combination run a perpetual circle, one element continually changing into another, according to the doctrin of Heraclitus, borrow'd from Orpheus. Et cum quattuor fint genera corporum, viciffitudine eorum mundi continuata natura eft. Nam ex terra, aqua: ex aqua, oritur aer: ex aere, æther: deinde retrorfum, viciffim ex æthere, aer: inde aqua: ex aqua, terra infima. Sic naturis his, ex quibus omnia conftant, furfus, deorfus, ultro, citro commeantibus, mundi partium conjunctio continetur. Cicero de Nat. Deor. II. 33. 197. -ye living Souls;] Soul is ufed here as it fometimes is in Scripture for other creatures befides Man. So Gen. I. 20. the moving creature that hath life, that is foul in the Hebrew, and in the |