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.

There is besides, I think, something wonderfully Beautiful, and very apt
to affect the Readers Imagination in this ancient Prophecy or Report in
Heaven, concerning the Creation of Man. Nothing could shew more the
Dignity of the Species, than this Tradition which ran of them before
their Existence. They are represented to have been the Talk of Heaven,
before they were created. Virgil, in compliment to the Roman
Commonwealth, makes the Heroes of it appear in their State of
Pre-existence; but Milton does a far greater Honour to Man-kind in
general, as he gives us a Glimpse of them even before they are in Being.

The rising of this great Assembly is described in a very Sublime and
Poetical Manner.

Their rising all at once was as the Sound
Of Thunder heard remote--

The Diversions of the fallen Angels, with the particular Account of
their Place of Habitation, are described with great Pregnancy of
Thought, and Copiousness of Invention. The Diversions are every way
suitable to Beings who had nothing left them but Strength and Knowledge
misapplied. Such are their Contentions at the Race, and in Feats of
Arms, with their Entertainment in the following Lines.

Others with vast Typhaean rage more fell
Rend up both Rocks and Hills, and ride the Air
In Whirlwind; Hell scarce holds the wild Uproar.

Their Musick is employed in celebrating their own criminal Exploits, and
their Discourse in sounding the unfathomable Depths of Fate, Free-will
and Fore-knowledge.

The several Circumstances in the Description of Hell are finely
imagined; as the four Rivers which disgorge themselves into the Sea of
Fire, the Extreams of Cold and Heat, and the River of Oblivion. The
monstrous Animals produced in that Infernal World are represented by a
single Line, which gives us a more horrid Idea of them, than a much
longer Description would have done.

--Nature breeds,
Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious Things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse
Than Fables yet have feign'd, or Fear conceiv'd,
Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire.

This Episode of the fallen Spirits, and their Place of Habitation, comes
in very happily to unbend the Mind o