On hills where flocks are fed, flies toward the springs

Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams;

But in his way lights on the barren plains

Of Sericana, where Chineses drive

With sails and wind their cany waggons light:
So on this windy sea of land, the Fiend
Walk'd up and down alone, bent on his prey:
Alone; for other creature in this place,
Living or lifeless, to be found was none."

Again, when escaped from the Limbo of Vanity, he looks down for the first time through the innumerable hosts of stars and the pure marble air, and beholds the world, suddenly and at once the figure changes,—

"As when a scout

Through dark and desert ways, with peril gone
All night: at last, by break of cheerful dawn
Obtains the brow of some high-climbing hill,
Which, to his eye, discovers unaware
The goodly prospect of some foreign land
First seen, or some renown'd metropolis,
With glist'ring spires and pinnacles adorn'd,
Which now the rising Sun gilds with his beams:
Such wonder seized, though after Heaven seen,
The Spirit malign, but much more envy seized,
At sight of all this world beheld so fair."

Yet again, when he approaches the Garden of Eden, and all the vernal gales blow round him, and odoriferous wings dispense perfumes and balms

"As when to them who sail

Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past

Mozambique, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabean odours from the spicy shore

Of Araby the Blest; with such delay

Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league Cheer'd with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles:

So entertain'd these odorous sweets the Fiend

Who came their bane."

And yet, once more, another figure. When still nearer to the garden he bounded over the enclosure, overleaped the hill and highest wall,

"As when a prowling wolf,

Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey,
Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve,
In hurdled cots amid the field secure,

Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold:
Or as a thief bent to unhoard the cash

Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors,
Cross-barr'd and bolted fast, fear no assault,
In at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles:
So clomb this first grand thief into God's fold;
So since into his church lewd hirelings climb.
Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life,
The middle tree and highest there that grew
Sat like a cormorant."

Now is not each of these citations a separate poem, rich, "simple, sensuous, passionate?" Let the reader not fail to notice how admirably the figure changes to the place and pursuit of the

fiend. Sir Egerton Brydges has said, "Milton possesses too much condensation to be fluent;" this may be remarked to whatever page of his great writings we turn: every phrase contains some new idea, some touch indispensable either to the proper conduct of the story or the figure. We find in every phrase, something which, either by its diction, or its arguments, or its description, is so copious, that it demands, before we go on, a meditation and an expansion. This being, Satan, we are loth to leave: strongly is the sympathy excited for that

"THIRD of regal port,

But faded splendour wan."

Could we, by the most elaborate and copious heaping of language, more clearly have presented to us the princely figure of the lost Archangel?

Do what we will, we cannot but pity; care and woe sit upon that blasted brow, that figure smitten in its pride-faded, wan; not like things that have used all their power, and show how near they are to death, but like a crag thunder-split, and wearing on its height the evidence of its grandeur, in that it could from its elevation, court the bolt and the lightning stroke; an oak, scorched in its manhood; a

stately column left to solitude and loneliness by the flame, before Time had touched it with his finger. These may best illustrate that line; but how proudly, how nobly it stands there by itself; how little the material image helps us in our effort to understand the spiritual pitypity for Satan! How soon that sentiment fades from us as we continue to gaze! It was a sentiment allied to compassion for a fallen monarch-a sentiment similar to that with which you may conceive Milton himself regarding Charles, as he passed from his judgment in Westminster Hall, but that is soon repelled; soon—and in its stead, terror starts up in the soul, when

"Satan alarmed,

Collecting all his might, dilating stood

Like Tenneriffe or Atlas, unremoved;

His stature reached the sky, and on his crest
Sat horror plumed."

There is immense difference in the various presentations of Satan. Some critics have argued, that the grandeur of the character carries too completely the sympathies of the leader with the rebel Archangel; but surely this results from a superficial judgment and perusal of the poem. In truth, this most

majestic of beings is, as he should be, also the meanest. We are in danger when two angels rise in Pandemonium from their consultation, and we hear their rising all at once, as the sound of thunder heard remote, as they, with awful reverence prone, bend towards him as a god. There is danger, lest, before such vehement eloquence, such bold and hazardous daring, such dauntless resolution, we yield too much homage; nor is our admiration much diminished, as we behold him through the vast profound,

"The dark unbottomed infinite abyss,"

like a griffin, half flying, half on foot,

"O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or lare, With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursue his way."

But the poet has, with the touch of genius, contrived to give to the fiend the first appearance of contemptible employment, and when we behold him

"Squat, like a toad, close at the ear of Eve,"

surely this redeems us from our fallen homage. This toad, the prince of many throned powers!