Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/566

560  of two such magnificent princes. First Lucifer swung high his battle-axe with intent to fell God's banner, on which the mystic name of the Creator stood blazoned in crystalline splendor. But Michael shouted to him to beware and to yield — to lead off his godless rout, or else prepare to suffer the worst pangs of punishment. But the maddened archangel strove all the more to cleave the diamonds that formed the sacred name, but the moment he touched them the blade of his battle-axe sprang to atoms. Then Michael grasped his lightning sword, and cleft the arch-enemy of the blessed through helmet and head. He fell heavily out of his chariot. Then Apollyon felt the flaming sword of Uriel. Belzebub still raged, Belial still defied the hosts of God but the fall of the stadholder had fully broken the half-moon of the rebel onset, although the giant Orion attempted to lead a return charge. Uriel compares the appearance of the fallen archangel to that of an ass, a rhinoceros, and an ape, such an uncouth monster did he seem lying prone on the battle-field. Apollyon fled and soon he and all the rest were driven thunderstruck before the sword of Michael till they came to the abyss that gaped to receive them, and were hurried down, roaring and yelping, into the jaws of hell itself, while Michael, returning, was greeted with cymbals, shawms, and tambours.

The remarkable points of resemblance between this long and spirited description of the fall of the rebel angels and that given in the sixth book of "Paradise Lost" are, of course, far too close and too numerous to be mere coincidences. There can be no doubt whatever that the deep impression made on Milton's imagination by the battle in the "Lucifer" remained vividly before him when he came to deal with the same branch of his subject. In some respects the earlier poet has distinctly the advantage. He gives but one fight while Milton, for no intelligible reason, divides the action between three days. The addition of the gunpowder and the ridiculous tossing about of mountains torn up from their bases are certainly no improvements upon the simpler, more human description of Vondel, In volume of melody and in the beauty of individual passages the English poet, of course far exceeds the Dutch.

Uriel ceases his discourse as Michael and the victorious chorus enter. They sing this ode, curious for its variations of metre and the eccentric distribution of its rhymes: —

Michael, in a triumphal harangue, proclaims the victory of the loyal cause, and points to the hosts of the fallen angels, ever sinking dizzily downwards, writhing, accursed, misshapen. It is at this minute that Gabriel hastily enters, bearing most startling tidings.

Lucifer has gathered together the remnants of his army in the bowels of hell, and, to hide them from God's eye, has concealed them in a cloud, a dark cavern of murder. Seated in the midst of them, in hellish council, he addresses them, precisely as in Milton, and proposes to them to attack man by forge or subtlety the seduction of the human race is agreed upon. Lucifer gloats over the future misery of man, fallen like themselves, and rejoices to imagine that this will complete their revenge on God, and ensure the defeat of his purposes. Belial is then deputed to make his way up from hell to the terrene paradise, and, having accomplished the journey, he tempts Eve exactly as recounted in Genesis, and she falling is the cause of the fall of Adam. How Eve gives her husband the apple, and how they awake in dolorous plight from their state of happy innocence, is pathetically told. God thunders among the trees of the 