in my Remarks of such as are of a
Poetical Nature, and which are woven with great Beauty into the Body of
this Fable. Of this kind is that Passage in the present Book, where
describing Sin and Death as marching thro the Works of Nature he adds,

--Behind her Death
Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet
On his pale Horse--

Which alludes to that Passage in Scripture, so wonderfully poetical, and
terrifying to the Imagination. And I look'd, and behold a pale Horse,
and his Name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him: and
Power was given unto them over the fourth Part of the Earth, to kill
with Sword, and with Hunger, and with Sickness, and with the Beasts of
the Earth. [1] Under this first Head of Celestial Persons we must
likewise take notice of the Command which the Angels receiv'd, to
produce the several Changes in Nature, and sully the Beauty of the
Creation. Accordingly they are represented as infecting the Stars and
Planets with malignant Influences, weakning the Light of the Sun,
bringing down the Winter into the milder Regions of Nature, planting
Winds and Storms in several Quarters of the Sky, storing the Clouds with
Thunder, and in short, perverting the Whole Frame of the Universe to the
Condition of its criminal Inhabitants. As this is a noble Incident in
the Poem, the following Lines, in which we see the Angels heaving up the
Earth, and placing it in a different Posture to the Sun from what it had
before the Fall of Man, is conceived with that sublime Imagination which
was so peculiar to this great Author.

Some say he bid his Angels turn ascanse
The Poles of Earth twice ten Degrees and more
From the Suns Axle; they with Labour push'd
Oblique the Centrick Globe--

We are in the second place to consider the Infernal Agents under the
view which Milton has given us of them in this Book. It is observed by
those who would set forth the Greatness of Virgil's Plan, that he
conducts his Reader thro all the Parts of the Earth which were
discover'd in his time. Asia, Africk, and Europe are the several Scenes
of his Fable. The Plan of Milton's Poem is of an infinitely greater
Extent, and fills the Mind with many more astonishing Circumstances.
Satan, having surrounded the Earth seven times, departs at length from
Paradise. We then see him steering his Course among the Constellations,
and after having traversed the whole Creation, pursuing his Voyage thro
the Chaos, and entring in