f Sophocles, where
OEdipus, after having put out his own Eyes, instead of breaking his Neck
from the Palace-Battlements (which furnishes so elegant an Entertainment
for our English Audience) desires that he may be conducted to Mount
Cithoeron, in order to end his Life in that very Place where he was
exposed in his Infancy, and where he should then have died, had the Will
of his Parents been executed.]

As the Author never fails to give a poetical Turn to his Sentiments, he
describes in the Beginning of this Book the Acceptance which these their
Prayers met with, in a short Allegory, formd upon that beautiful Passage
in holy Writ: And another Angel came and stood at the Altar, having a
golden Censer; and there was given unto him much Incense, that he should
offer it with the Prayers of all Saints upon the Golden Altar, which was
before the Throne: And the Smoak of the Incense which came with the
Prayers of the Saints, ascended up before God.

--To Heavn their Prayers
Flew up, nor miss'd the Way, by envious Winds
Blown vagabond or frustrate: in they passd
Dimensionless through heavnly Doors, then clad
With Incense, where the Golden Altar fumed,
By their great Intercessor, came in sight
Before the Father's Throne--

We have the same Thought expressed a second time in the Intercession of
the Messiah, which is conceived in very Emphatick Sentiments and
Expressions.

Among the Poetical Parts of Scripture, which Milton has so finely
wrought into this Part of his Narration, I must not omit that wherein
Ezekiel speaking of the Angels who appeared to him in a Vision, adds,
that every one had four Faces, and that their whole Bodies, and their
Backs, and their Hands, and their Wings, were full of Eyes round about.

--The Cohort bright
Of watchful Cherubims, four Faces each
Had like a double Janus, all their Shape
Spangled with Eyes--

The Assembling of all the Angels of Heaven to hear the solemn Decree
passed upon Man, is represented in very lively Ideas. The Almighty is
here describd as remembring Mercy in the midst of Judgment, and
commanding Michael to deliver his Message in the mildest Terms, lest the
Spirit of Man, which was already broken with the Sense of his Guilt and
Misery, should fail before him.

--Yet lest they faint
At the sad Sentence rigorously urg'd,
For I behold them softned, and with Tears
Bewailing their Excess, all Terror hide,

The Conference of Adam and Eve is full of