the Tragedy proceeded upon Adventures they were never
engaged in, on purpose to make the Subject more Credible. In a Word,
besides the hidden Meaning of an Epic Allegory, the plain litteral Sense
ought to appear Probable. The Story should be such as an ordinary Reader
may acquiesce in, whatever Natural, Moral, or Political Truth may be
discovered in it by Men of greater Penetration.

Satan, after having long wandered upon the Surface, or outmost Wall of
the Universe, discovers at last a wide Gap in it, which led into the
Creation, and is described as the Opening through which the Angels pass
to and fro into the lower World, upon their Errands to Mankind. His
Sitting upon the Brink of this Passage, and taking a Survey of the whole
Face of Nature that appeared to him new and fresh in all its Beauties,
with the Simile illustrating this Circumstance, fills the Mind of the
Reader with as surprizing and glorious an Idea as any that arises in the
whole Poem. He looks down into that vast Hollow of the Universe with the
Eye, or (as Milton calls it in his first Book) with the Kenn of an
Angel. He surveys all the Wonders in this immense Amphitheatre that lye
between both the Poles of Heaven, and takes in at one View the whole
Round of the Creation.

His Flight between the several Worlds that shined on every side of him,
with the particular Description of the Sun, are set forth in all the
Wantonness of a luxuriant Imagination. His Shape, Speech and Behaviour
upon his transforming himself into an Angel of Light, are touched with
exquisite Beauty. The Poets Thought of directing Satan to the Sun,
which in the vulgar Opinion of Mankind is the most conspicuous Part of
the Creation, and the placing in it an Angel, is a Circumstance very
finely contrived, and the more adjusted to a Poetical Probability, as it
was a received Doctrine among the most famous Philosophers, that every
Orb had its Intelligence; and as an Apostle in Sacred Writ is said to
have seen such an Angel in the Sun. In the Answer which this Angel
returns to the disguised evil Spirit, there is such a becoming Majesty
as is altogether suitable to a Superior Being. The Part of it in which
he represents himself as present at the Creation, is very noble in it
self, and not only proper where it is introduced, but requisite to
prepare the Reader for what follows in the Seventh Book.

I saw when at his Word the formless Mass,
This Worlds material Mould, came to a Heap: