—No, let us rather chuse,
Arm'd with Hell flames and fury, all at once
O'er Heavens high tow'rs to force resistless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms
Against the Torturer; when to meet the Noise
Of his almighty Engine he shall hear
Infernal Thunder, and for Lightning see
Black fire and horror shot with equal rage
Among his Angels; and his throne it self
Mixt with Tartarean Sulphur, and strange Fire,
His own invented Torments—
His preferring Annihilation to Shame or Misery, is also highly suitable to his Character; as the Comfort he draws from their disturbing the Peace of Heaven, that if it be not Victory it is Revenge, is a Sentiment truly Diabolical, and becoming the Bitterness of this implacable Spirit.
Belial is described in the first Book, as the Idol of the Lewd and Luxurious. He is in the Second Book, pursuant to that Description, characterised as timorous and slothful; and if we look in the Sixth Book, we find him celebrated in the Battel of Angels for nothing but that scoffing Speech which he makes to Satan, on their supposed Advantage over the Enemy. As his Appearance is uniform, and of a Piece, in these three several Views, we find his Sentiments in the Infernal Assembly every way conformable to his Character. Such are his Apprehensions of a second Battel, his Horrors of Annihilation, his preferring to be miserable rather than not to be. I need not observe, that the Contrast of Thought in this Speech, and that which precedes it, gives an agreeable Variety to the Debate.
Mammon's Character is so fully drawn in the First Book, that the Poet adds nothing to it in the Second. We were before told, that he was the first who taught Mankind to ransack the Earth for Gold and Silver, and that he was the Architect of Pandæmonium, or the Infernal Place, where the Evil Spirits were to meet in Council. His Speech in this Book is every way suitable to so depraved a Character. How proper is that Reflection, of their being unable to taste the Happiness of Heaven were they actually there, in the Mouth of one, who while he was in Heaven, is said to have had his Mind dazled with the outward Pomps and Glories of the Place, and to have been more intent on the Riches of the Pavement, than on the Beatifick Vision. I shall also leave the Reader to judge how agreeable the following Sentiments are to the same Character.
—This deep World
Of Darkness do we dread? How oft amidst
Thick cloud and dark doth Heav'ns all-ruling Sire
Chuse to reside, his Glory unobscured,
And with the Majesty of Darkness round
Covers his Throne; from whence deep Thunders roar
Mustering their Rage, and Heav'n resembles Hell?
As he our Darkness, cannot we his Light
Imitate when we please? This desart Soil
Wants not her hidden Lustre, Gems and Gold;
Nor want we Skill or Art, from whence to raise
Magnificence; and what can Heav'n shew more?
Beelzebub, who is reckoned the second in Dignity that fell, and is, in the First Book, the second that awakens out of the Trance, and confers with Satan upon the Situation of their Affairs, maintains his Rank in the Book now before us. There is a wonderful Majesty described in his rising up to speak. He acts as a kind of Moderator between the two opposite Parties, and proposes a third Undertaking, which the whole Assembly gives into. The Motion he makes of detaching one of their Body in search of a new World is grounded upon a Project devised by Satan, and cursorily proposed by him in the following Lines of the first Book.
Space may produce new Worlds, whereof so rife
There went a Fame in Heav'n, 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 Heav'n
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 Heav'n's 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.