nsequently could be
acquainted with those many Topicks of Praise which might afford Matter
to the Devotions of their Posterity. I need not remark the beautiful
Spirit of Poetry, which runs through this whole Hymn, nor the Holiness
of that Resolution with which it concludes.

Having already mentioned those Speeches which are assigned to the
Persons in this Poem, I proceed to the Description which the Poet [gives
[2]] of Raphael. His Departure from before the Throne, and the Flight
through the Choirs of Angels, is finely imaged. As Milton every where
fills his Poem with Circumstances that are marvellous and astonishing,
he describes the Gate of Heaven as framed after such a manner, that it
opened of it self upon the Approach of the Angel who was to pass through
it.

Till at the Gate
Of Heavn arriv'd, the Gate self-open'd wide,
On golden Hinges turning, as by Work
Divine, the Sovereign Architect had framed.

The Poet here seems to have regarded two or three Passages in the 18th
Iliad, as that in particular, where speaking of Vulcan, Homer says, that
he had made twenty Tripodes running on Golden Wheels; which, upon
occasion, might go of themselves to the Assembly of the Gods, and, when
there was no more Use for them, return again after the same manner.
Scaliger has rallied Homer very severely upon this Point, as M. Dacier
has endeavoured to defend it. I will not pretend to determine, whether
in this particular of Homer the Marvellous does not lose sight of the
Probable. As the miraculous Workmanship of Milton's Gates is not so
extraordinary as this of the Tripodes, so I am persuaded he would not
have mentioned it, had not he been supported in it by a Passage in the
Scripture, which speaks of Wheels in Heaven that had Life in them, and
moved of themselves, or stood still, in conformity with the Cherubims,
whom they accompanied.

There is no question but Milton had this Circumstance in his Thoughts,
because in the following Book he describes the Chariot of the Messiah
with living Wheels, according to the Plan in Ezekiel's Vision.

--Forth rush'd with Whirlwind sound
The Chariot of paternal Deity
Flashing thick flames?, Wheel within Wheel undrawn,
Itself instinct with Spirit--

I question not but Bossu, and the two Daciers, who are for vindicating
every thing that is censured in Homer, by something parallel in Holy
Writ, would have been very well pleased had they thought of confronting
Vulcan's Tripode