Space may produce new Worlds, whereof so rife
  There went a Fame in Heavn, that he erelong
  Intended to create, and therein plant
  A Generation, whom his choice Regard
  Should favour equal to the Sons of Heaven: 
  Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps
  Our first Eruption, thither or elsewhere: 
  For this Infernal Pit shall never hold
  Celestial Spirits in Bondage, nor th’ Abyss
  Long under Darkness cover.  But these Thoughts
  Full Counsel must mature:—­

It is on this Project that Beelzebub grounds his Proposal.

 —­What if we find
  Some easier Enterprise?  There is a Place
  (If ancient and prophetick Fame in Heavn
  Err not) another World, the happy Seat
  Of some new Race call’d MAN, about this Time
  To be created like to us, though less
  In Power and Excellence, but favoured more
  Of him who rules above; so was his Will
  Pronounc’d among the Gods, and by an Oath,
  That shook Heavns whole Circumference, confirm’d.

The Reader may observe how just it was not to omit in the First Book the Project upon which the whole Poem turns:  As also that the Prince of the fallen Angels was the only proper Person to give it Birth, and that the next to him in Dignity was the fittest to second and support it.

There is besides, I think, something wonderfully Beautiful, and very apt to affect the Readers Imagination in this ancient Prophecy or Report in Heaven, concerning the Creation of Man.  Nothing could shew more the Dignity of the Species, than this Tradition which ran of them before their Existence.  They are represented to have been the Talk of Heaven, before they were created.  Virgil, in compliment to the Roman Commonwealth, makes the Heroes of it appear in their State of Pre-existence; but Milton does a far greater Honour to Man-kind in general, as he gives us a Glimpse of them even before they are in Being.

The rising of this great Assembly is described in a very Sublime and Poetical Manner.

  Their rising all at once was as the Sound
  Of Thunder heard remote—­

The Diversions of the fallen Angels, with the particular Account of their Place of Habitation, are described with great Pregnancy of Thought, and Copiousness of Invention.  The Diversions are every way suitable to Beings who had nothing left them but Strength and Knowledge misapplied.  Such are their Contentions at the Race, and in Feats of Arms, with their Entertainment in the following Lines.

  Others with vast Typhaean rage more fell
  Rend up both Rocks and Hills, and ride the Air
  In Whirlwind; Hell scarce holds the wild Uproar.

Their Musick is employed in celebrating their own criminal Exploits, and their Discourse in sounding the unfathomable Depths of Fate, Free-will and Fore-knowledge.

The several Circumstances in the Description of Hell are finely imagined; as the four Rivers which disgorge themselves into the Sea of Fire, the Extreams of Cold and Heat, and the River of Oblivion.  The monstrous Animals produced in that Infernal World are represented by a single Line, which gives us a more horrid Idea of them, than a much longer Description would have done.