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 Poet's 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