Not of the prime, yet such as in his face
Youth smiled celestial, and to every limb
Suitable grace diffus’d, so well he feign’d:
Under a coronet his flowing hair
In curls on either cheek play’d; wings he wore
Of many a colour’d plume sprinkled with gold,
His habit fit for speed succinct, and held
Before his decent steps a silver wand.’
The figures introduced here have all the elegance and precision of a Greek statue; glossy and impurpled, tinged with golden light, and musical as the strings of Memnon’s harp!
Again, nothing can be more magnificent than the portrait of Beelzebub: