hus he spake, th' Angelic Squadron bright
Turn'd fiery red, sharpning in mooned Horns
Their Phalanx, and began to hem him round
With ported Spears, &c.

--On the other side Satan alarm'd,
Collecting all his might dilated stood
Like Teneriff, or Atlas, unremov'd.
His Stature reached the Sky, and on his Crest
Sat horror plum'd;--

I must here take [notice, [6]] that Milton is every where full of Hints
and sometimes literal Translations, taken from the greatest of the Greek
and Latin Poets. But this I may reserve for a Discourse by it self,
because I would not break the Thread of these Speculations, that are
designed for English Readers, with such Reflections as would be of no
use but to the Learned.

I must however observe in this Place, that the breaking off the Combat
between Gabriel and Satan, by the hanging out of the Golden Scales in
Heaven, is a Refinement upon Homers Thought, who tells us, that before
the Battle between Hector and Achilles, Jupiter weighed the Event of it
in a pair of Scales. The Reader may see the whole Passage in the 22nd
Iliad.

Virgil, before the last decisive Combat, describes Jupiter in the same
manner, as weighing the Fates of Turnus and AEneas. Milton, though he
fetched this beautiful Circumstance from the Iliad and AEneid, does not
only insert it as a Poetical Embellishment, like the Authors
above-mentioned; but makes an artful use of it for the proper carrying
on of his Fable, and for the breaking off the Combat between the two
Warriors, who were upon the point of engaging. [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 Poets 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,