His preferring Annihilation to Shame or Misery, is also highly suitable to his Character; as the Comfort he draws from their disturbing the Peace of Heaven, that if it be not Victory it is Revenge, is a Sentiment truly Diabolical, and becoming the Bitterness of this implacable Spirit.

Belial is described in the first Book, as the Idol of the Lewd and Luxurious.  He is in the Second Book, pursuant to that Description, characterised as timorous and slothful; and if we look in the Sixth Book, we find him celebrated in the Battel of Angels for nothing but that scoffing Speech which he makes to Satan, on their supposed Advantage over the Enemy.  As his Appearance is uniform, and of a Piece, in these three several Views, we find his Sentiments in the Infernal Assembly every way conformable to his Character.  Such are his Apprehensions of a second Battel, his Horrors of Annihilation, his preferring to be miserable rather than not to be.  I need not observe, that the Contrast of Thought in this Speech, and that which precedes it, gives an agreeable Variety to the Debate.

Mammon’s Character is so fully drawn in the First Book, that the Poet adds nothing to it in the Second.  We were before told, that he was the first who taught Mankind to ransack the Earth for Gold and Silver, and that he was the Architect of Pandaemonium, or the Infernal Place, where the Evil Spirits were to meet in Council.  His Speech in this Book is every way suitable to so depraved a Character.  How proper is that Reflection, of their being unable to taste the Happiness of Heaven were they actually there, in the Mouth of one, who while he was in Heaven, is said to have had his Mind dazled with the outward Pomps and Glories of the Place, and to have been more intent on the Riches of the Pavement, than on the Beatifick Vision.  I shall also leave the Reader to judge how agreeable the following Sentiments are to the same Character.

 —­This deep World
  Of Darkness do we dread?  How oft amidst
  Thick cloud and dark doth Heavns all-ruling Sire
  Chuse to reside, his Glory umobscured,
  And with the Majesty of Darkness round
  Covers his Throne; from whence deep Thunders roar
  Mustering their Rage, and Heavn resembles Hell? 
  As he our Darkness, cannot we his Light
  Imitate when we please?  This desart Soil
  Wants not her hidden Lustre, Gems and Gold;
  Nor want we Skill or Art, from whence to raise
  Magnificence; and what can Heavn shew more?

Beelzebub, who is reckoned the second in Dignity that fell, and is, in the First Book, the second that awakens out of the Trance, and confers with Satan upon the Situation of their Affairs, maintains his Rank in the Book now before us.  There is a wonderful Majesty described in his rising up to speak.  He acts as a kind of Moderator between the two opposite Parties, and proposes a third Undertaking, which the whole Assembly gives into.  The Motion he makes of detaching one of their Body in search of a new World is grounded upon a Project devised by Satan, and cursorily proposed by him in the following Lines of the first Book.