Easing their passage hence, for intercourse, 260 265 Whom thus the meager Shadow answer'd soon. Go whither fate and inclination strong Leads thee; I shall not lag behind, nor err The way, thou leading, such a fent I draw Of carnage, prey innumerable, and taste The favor of Death from all things there that live: Nor shall I to the work thou enterprisest Be wanting, but afford thee equal aid. So saying, with delight he snuff'd the smell Of mortal change on earth. As when a flock Of ravenous fowl, though many a league remote, Latins use umbra. 2 Hen. IV. A&II. I am your shadow, my Lord, I'll 270 Against 263. By this new felt attraction and inftinct.] He uses inflinct here as a substantive, and in other places as a participle, in the same manner and in the same sense as the Latins use instinctus: but instances of his using English words as Latin words are innumerable. 266. -nor err 260. - for intercourse, Or transmigration, as their lot shall lead Intercourse, paffing frequently backward and forward; transmigration, quitting Hell once for all to inhabit the new A remarkable expreffion. creation; they were uncertain which their lot should be. Richardfon. The way,] Nor mistake the way. As when a flock 273. Of ravenous fowl &c] Of Vulturs particularly it is faid by Pliny, 1 VOL. II. that Against the day of battel, to a field, Sagacious of his quarry from so far. Then both from out Hell gates into the waste 279 280 Flew diverse, and with pow'r (their pow'r was great) Hovering upon the waters, what they met 285 Solid diebus ante ea loca circumvolent, in Hanc volucrem narrant luces tres Aldrov. Ornith. Lib. 2. I shall not undertake absolutely to defend Milton's introducing a fabu lous story by way of fimile; yet I think in this place it may be par don'd, since no other illuftration could have been found so pat to the present cafe. 280. Hit : 290 Solid or flimy, as in raging fea murky air,] Et patulis captavit naribus auras. Virg. Georg. I. 376. Murky air, black tainted air. Spenfer has mirksome air. Fairy Queen, B. 1. C. 5. St. 28. 295 Bound 280. His nostril wide into the different parts of Chaos, and driving all the matter they meet with there in shoals towards the mouth of Hell, are compar'd to two polar winds, north and and fouth, blowing adverse upon the Cronian fea, the northern frozen sea, (A Thule unius diei navigatione mare concretum, a nonnullis Cronium appellatur. Through mirksome air her ready Plin. Nat. Hift. Lib. 4. cap 16.) way she makes. and driving together mountains of And the Glossary to Spenfer ex- ice, that ftop th imagin'd way, the plains mirksome by obscure, filthy. I north east passage as it is call'd, find Shakespear too uses the word which so many have attempted to marky. Lady Macbeth says in her Пеер Hell is murky, A&. V. 281. Sagacious] Quick of fent. Sagire enim, sentire acute est; ex quo sagaces dicti canes. Cic. de Divinat. A fit comparison for the chief Hell bound. Hume. 289. As when two polar winds, &c.] Sin and Death, flying into discover, beyond Petfora eastward, the most north-eastern province of Muscovy, to the rich Cathaian coaft, Cathay or Catay, a country of Afia and the northern part of China. 296. As Delos floting once;] An iland in the Archipelago faid to have floted about in the tea, till it became the birth place of Apollo. Q2 Calli 244 Bound with Gorgonian rigor not to move; Of slimy substances, and fixing them rigidâ cum Gorgone Perfeus. In Ruffin. I. 279 Again, the Doctor objects to And with Asphaltic flime, because then the conftruction would be, his look bound it with flime. I agree with him that this could not come from Milton. But then I think the Doctor's change of And into As does for does it not leffen the thought to not sufficiently mend the passage; say, that it was bound with Gerge nian pow'r as with flime? even Afphaltic flime had not that binding power, which fable supposes thr Gorgon's look to have had. Thus I can see that neither the common reading nor the Doctor's are free from great exceptions. There only one way (I think) in which all these difficulties are to be got over, and that is by changing two of the Of length prodigious, joining to the wall points in the passage, and reading chus; -the rest his look Bound with Gorgonian rigor not to move. And with Asphaltic flime, broad as the gate, Deep to the roots of Hell, the ga ther'd beach They faften'd, 305 Xerxes, - the reft his look Bound with Gorgonian rigor not to move; And with Asphaltic slime, broad as the gate, Deep to the roots of Hell &c. The sense is then the very fame as in the foregoing most excellent remark of Dr. Pearce's, and we venture to print it accordingly. We The first part of the passage, end- generally follow carefully Milton's ing at move, I understand as re- own punctuation; but though he lating only to the hardening the was extremely accurate, yet he was foft and flimy substances: and all the not always infallible. A false pointrest seems to relate to the fast'ning ing may now and then escape the the foundation with Asphaltic flime to the roots of Hell. I may be mistaken in my conjecture; but this reading (methinks) bids fairer for the true one, than either of the other two. most correct writer and printer in Pearce. Virgil, Æn. VI. 126. It appears that by the reft we are to understand the flimy parts, as diftinguish'd from the folid or foil: and it would be very absurd to say, that his look bound the flimy parts with Asphaltic flime or as with Afphaltic flime. It is much eafier to suppose with Mr. Richardson that the comma after move and the semicolon after flime have changed places, and that the passage should be read thus - facilis descensus Averni: Or to the paths of wickedness, έσιν ελέθαι Την μεν τοι κακοτητα και έλαδον Prΐδιως ολιγη [λειη] μεν οδο, μαλα δ' έγιθι ναι. Jortin. 306. So Xerxes &c.] This fimile is verv exact and beautiful. As Sin |