Than from the giant Angels: Thee that day 605 Who can impair thee, Mighty King, or bound Ver. 605. the giant Angels:] Dr. Bentley reads "the rebel Angels," thinking that the word giant infinuates as if this was as fabulous as that of Jove. But the word infinuates no fuch thing: It is ufed, not to exprefs the ftature and fize of the Angels, but that difpofition of mind, which is always afcribed to giants, namely, a proud, fierce, and afpiring, temper. And this the Hebrew word gibbor fignifies, which is rendered a giant in Scripture. PEARCE. Dr. Pearce's conftruction of the word giant, as if it meant only fierce, proud, and afpiring, is, in my opinion, a little forced : Nor yet do I think that there is any reason to change it into rebel, as Dr. Bentley would have it. Milton, I doubt not, intended to allude to Hefiod's giant war; but I do not fee with Dr. Bentley, that therefore he muft infinuate that this relation is as fabulous as that. He probably defigned, by this expreffion, to hint his opinion, that the fictions of the Greek poets owed their rife to fome uncertain clouded tradition of this real event, and their giants were, if they had understood the story right, his fallen Angels. THYER. I do not agree, that Dr. Pearce's conftruction of the word giant is forced. For thus, in Shakspear's K. Hen. viii. A. i. S. ii. Buckingham is called "a giant traitor," that is, as he is afterwards called," a traitor to the height," a most aspiring traitor. But Milton's reading may be alfo defended and explained by the expreffion, which almoft immediately follows; "the proud attempt "Of Spirits apoftate," apoflate being the marginal reading in the Latin verfion of the Bible, for the term giants, Gen. vi, 4. TODD. Thou haft repell'd; while impiously they thought Of amplitude almost immenfe, with stars 620 625 And fons of Men, whom God hath thus advanc'd! Created in his image, there to dwell Ver. 619. On the clear hyaline,] This word is expreffed from the Greek van, and is immediately tranflated the glassy fea. For Milton, when he ufes Greek words, fometimes gives the English with them, as in fpeaking of the rivers of Hell, B. ii. 577, &c. And fo the galaxy he immediately tranflates that milky way. The glaffy fea is the fame as the crystalline ocean, v. 271. See Rev. iv. 6. NEWTON. Ver. 624. Earth, with her nether ocean] To distinguish it from the cryftalline ocean, the waters above the firmament. Ver, 628. NEWTON. and in reward to rule &c.] See Over his works, on earth, in fea, or air, 630 So fung they, and the empyréan rung Inform'd by thee, might know: If else thou Aught, not surpaffing human measure, fay. 640 Pfalm viii. 6, 7, 8. "Thou madeft him to have dominion over the works of thy hands, &c." Ver. 631. GILLIES. Thrice happy, if they know "O fortunatos nimium, fua fi bona norint! NEWTON. THE END OF THE SEVENTH BOOK. He also Mr. Keightley, in his Mythology of Grecce, at. 2. pose 40, says "that our great Poet was, as any one who reads with attention the speech of the Angel (book VII. 469--505) will see, a materialist, and in him certainly materialism has proved compatible witte picty & purity of heart." obsones, with regard to the cosmology of Par. L., "one is apt to be struck with the definite material native of heaven and its inhabitints." See also what Milton says of Angels & Spirits, a their real eating & drinking a digesting nor seemingly " " Of Theologians; but wists keen dispatch of real hunger. b.v. 455. In his work, De Doctrina Christiana, cap. vii. p. 135, he states man to be (according to Scriptore & not heathen doctrine) "animal per se ac, aut separabile, aut ex duabus naturis inter se specie diversis atque distinctis, anima hampe proprie unum at individuum, non duplex et corpore, ut vulgo statuunt, conflatum atque compositum; sed totum hominem asse quimam, et animam hominem," J. Doctr. Christ. p. 136. "Separari autem spiritum hominis a corpore, ita ut alicubi seirsim integer et intelligens existat, nec in scriptura sacra usquam legitin, et nature ac rationi plane repugnet." So also. cap. xiii. p. 1992 "chors corporalis, quæ dicitur, est privatio vita tive extinctiv. Nam separatio anima et corporis, quemadmodum vulgo mors definisitir, nullo modo mors esse potest" de... |