FullReads

We are in the next place to consider the Machines of the Fourth Book. Satan being now within Prospect of Eden, and looking round upon the Glories of the Creation, is filled with Sentiments different from those which he discovered whilst he was in Hell. The Place inspires him with Thoughts more adapted to it: He reflects upon the happy Condition from which he fell, and breaks forth into a Speech that is softned with several transient Touches of Remorse and Self-accusation: But at length he confirms himself in Impenitence, and in his Design of drawing Man into his own State of Guilt and Misery. This Conflict of Passions is raised with a great deal of Art, as the opening of his Speech to the Sun is very bold and noble.

O thou that with surpassing Glory crown’d,
Look’st from thy sole Dominion like the God
Of this new World; at whose Sight all the Stars
Hide their diminish’d Heads; to thee I call,
But with no friendly Voice, and add thy name,
O Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my Remembrance from what State
I fell, how glorious once above thy Sphere.

This Speech is, I think, the finest that is ascribed to Satan in the whole Poem. The Evil Spirit afterwards proceeds to make his Discoveries concerning our first Parents, and to learn after what manner they may be best attacked. His bounding over the Walls of Paradise; his sitting in the Shape of a Cormorant upon the Tree of Life, which stood in the Center of it, and overtopped all the other Trees of the Garden, his alighting among the Herd of Animals, which are so beautifully represented as playing about Adam and Eve, together with his transforming himself into different Shapes, in order to hear their Conversation, are Circumstances that give an agreeable Surprize to the Reader, and are devised with great Art, to connect that Series of Adventures in which the Poet has engaged [this [3]] Artificer of Fraud.

The Thought of Satan’s Transformation into a Cormorant, and placing himself on the Tree of Life, seems raised upon that Passage in the Iliad, where two Deities are described, as perching on the Top of an Oak in the shape of Vulturs.

His planting himself at the Ear of Eve under the [form [4]] of a Toad, in order to produce vain Dreams and Imaginations, is a Circumstance of the same Nature; as his starting up in his own Form is wonderfully fine, both in the Literal Description, and in the Moral which is concealed under it. His Answer upon his being discovered, and demanded to give an Account of himself, [is [5]] conformable to the Pride and Intrepidity of his Character.

Know ye not then, said Satan, fill’d with Scorn,
Know ye not Me? ye knew me once no mate
For you, there sitting where you durst not soar;
Not to know Me argues your selves unknown,
The lowest of your throng;–

Zephon’s Rebuke, with the Influence it had on Satan, is exquisitely Graceful and Moral. Satan is afterwards led away to Gabriel, the chief of the Guardian Angels, who kept watch in Paradise. His disdainful Behaviour on this Occasion is so remarkable a Beauty, that the most ordinary Reader cannot but take Notice of it. Gabriel’s discovering his Approach at a Distance, is drawn with great strength and liveliness of Imagination.

O Friends, I hear the tread of nimble Feet
Hasting this Way, and now by glimps discern
Ithuriel and Zephon through the shade;
And with them comes a third of Regal Port,
But faded splendor wan; who by his gait
And fierce demeanor seems the Prince of Hell;
Not likely to part hence without contest:
Stand firm, for in his look defiance lours.