While thus he spake, th’ Angelic Squadron bright
  Turn’d fiery red, sharpning in mooned Horns
  Their Phalanx, and began to hem him round
  With ported Spears, &c.

 —­On the other side Satan alarm’d,
  Collecting all his might dilated stood
  Like Teneriff, or Atlas, unremov’d. 
  His Stature reached the Sky, and on his Crest
  Sat horror plum’d;—­

I must here take [notice, [6]] that Milton is every where full of Hints and sometimes literal Translations, taken from the greatest of the Greek and Latin Poets.  But this I may reserve for a Discourse by it self, because I would not break the Thread of these Speculations, that are designed for English Readers, with such Reflections as would be of no use but to the Learned.

I must however observe in this Place, that the breaking off the Combat between Gabriel and Satan, by the hanging out of the Golden Scales in Heaven, is a Refinement upon Homers Thought, who tells us, that before the Battle between Hector and Achilles, Jupiter weighed the Event of it in a pair of Scales.  The Reader may see the whole Passage in the 22nd Iliad.

Virgil, before the last decisive Combat, describes Jupiter in the same manner, as weighing the Fates of Turnus and AEneas.  Milton, though he fetched this beautiful Circumstance from the Iliad and AEneid, does not only insert it as a Poetical Embellishment, like the Authors above-mentioned; but makes an artful use of it for the proper carrying on of his Fable, and for the breaking off the Combat between the two Warriors, who were upon the point of engaging. [To this we may further add, that Milton is the more justified in this Passage, as we find the same noble Allegory in Holy Writ, where a wicked Prince, some few Hours before he was assaulted and slain, is said to have been weighed in the Scales, and to have been found wanting.]

I must here take Notice under the Head of the Machines, that Uriel’s gliding down to the Earth upon a Sunbeam, with the Poets Device to make him descend, as well in his return to the Sun, as in his coming from it, is a Prettiness that might have been admired in a little fanciful Poet, but seems below the Genius of Milton.  The Description of the Host of armed Angels walking their nightly Round in Paradise, is of another Spirit.

  So saying, on he led his radiant files,
  Dazling the Moon;—­

as that Account of the Hymns which our first Parents used to hear them sing in these their Midnight Walks, is altogether Divine, and inexpressibly amusing to the Imagination.

We are, in the last place, to consider the Parts which Adam and Eve act in the Fourth Book.  The Description of them as they first appeared to Satan, is exquisitely drawn, and sufficient to make the fallen Angel gaze upon them with all that Astonishment, and those Emotions of Envy, in which he is represented.