on Ruin, Rout on Rout,
Confusion worse confounded; and Heavns Gates
Pour'd out by Millions her victorious Bands
Pursuing--

It requir'd great Pregnancy of Invention, and Strength of Imagination,
to fill this Battel with such Circumstances as should raise and astonish
the Mind of the Reader; and at the same time an Exactness of Judgment,
to avoid every thing that might appear light or trivial. Those who look
into Homer, are surprized to find his Battels still rising one above
another, and improving in Horrour, to the Conclusion of the Iliad.
Milton's Fight of Angels is wrought up with the same Beauty. It is
usher'd in with such Signs of Wrath as are suitable to Omnipotence
incensed. The first Engagement is carry'd on under a Cope of Fire,
occasion'd by the Flights of innumerable burning Darts and Arrows, which
are discharged from either Host. The second Onset is still more
terrible, as it is filled with those artificial Thunders, which seem to
make the Victory doubtful, and produce a kind of Consternation even in
the good Angels. This is follow'd by the tearing up of Mountains and
Promontories; till, in the last place, the Messiah comes forth in the
Fulness of Majesty and Terror, The Pomp of his Appearance amidst the
Roarings of his Thunders, the Flashes of his Lightnings, and the Noise
of his Chariot-Wheels, is described with the utmost Flights of Human
Imagination.

There is nothing in the first and last Days Engagement which does not
appear natural, and agreeable enough to the Ideas most Readers would
conceive of a Fight between two Armies of Angels.

The second Days Engagement is apt to startle an Imagination, which has
not been raised and qualify'd for such a Description, by the reading of
the ancient Poets, and of Homer in particular. It was certainly a very
bold Thought in our Author, to ascribe the first Use of Artillery to the
Rebel Angels. But as such a pernicious Invention may be well supposed to
have proceeded from such Authors, so it entered very properly into the
Thoughts of that Being, who is all along describ'd as aspiring to the
Majesty of his Maker. Such Engines were the only Instruments he could
have made use of to imitate those Thunders, that in all Poetry, both
sacred and profane, are represented as the Arms of the Almighty. The
tearing up the Hills, was not altogether so daring a Thought as the
former. We are, in some measure, prepared for such an Incident by the
Description of the Giants