So chear’d he his fair Spouse, and she was chear’d,
  But silently a gentle Tear let fall
  From either Eye, and wiped them with her hair;
  Two other precious Drops, that ready stood
  Each in their chrystal Sluice, he ere they fell
  Kiss’d, as the gracious Sign of sweet Remorse
  And pious Awe, that fear’d to have offended.

The Morning Hymn is written in Imitation of one of those Psalms, where, in the overflowings of Gratitude and Praise, the Psalmist calls not only upon the Angels, but upon the most conspicuous Parts of the inanimate Creation, to join with him in extolling their common Maker.  Invocations of this nature fill the Mind with glorious Ideas of Gods Works, and awaken that Divine Enthusiasm, which is so natural to Devotion.  But if this calling upon the dead Parts of Nature, is at all times a proper kind of Worship, it was in a particular manner suitable to our first Parents, who had the Creation fresh upon their Minds, and had not seen the various Dispensations of Providence, nor consequently could be acquainted with those many Topicks of Praise which might afford Matter to the Devotions of their Posterity.  I need not remark the beautiful Spirit of Poetry, which runs through this whole Hymn, nor the Holiness of that Resolution with which it concludes.

Having already mentioned those Speeches which are assigned to the Persons in this Poem, I proceed to the Description which the Poet [gives [2]] of Raphael.  His Departure from before the Throne, and the Flight through the Choirs of Angels, is finely imaged.  As Milton every where fills his Poem with Circumstances that are marvellous and astonishing, he describes the Gate of Heaven as framed after such a manner, that it opened of it self upon the Approach of the Angel who was to pass through it.

  Till at the Gate
  Of Heavn arriv’d, the Gate self-open’d wide,
  On golden Hinges turning, as by Work
  Divine, the Sovereign Architect had framed.

The Poet here seems to have regarded two or three Passages in the 18th Iliad, as that in particular, where speaking of Vulcan, Homer says, that he had made twenty Tripodes running on Golden Wheels; which, upon occasion, might go of themselves to the Assembly of the Gods, and, when there was no more Use for them, return again after the same manner.  Scaliger has rallied Homer very severely upon this Point, as M. Dacier has endeavoured to defend it.  I will not pretend to determine, whether in this particular of Homer the Marvellous does not lose sight of the Probable.  As the miraculous Workmanship of Milton’s Gates is not so extraordinary as this of the Tripodes, so I am persuaded he would not have mentioned it, had not he been supported in it by a Passage in the Scripture, which speaks of Wheels in Heaven that had Life in them, and moved of themselves, or stood still, in conformity with the Cherubims, whom they accompanied.

There is no question but Milton had this Circumstance in his Thoughts, because in the following Book he describes the Chariot of the Messiah with living Wheels, according to the Plan in Ezekiel’s Vision.