DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES.


PLATE I r—{F'ron tispiece.)

SATAN APPROACHING THE CONFINES OE THE EARTH.
The subject of this singularly fine illustration is from Miltons “Paradise Lost.” After the
colloquy between the Father and the Son, at the commencement of Book III., occasioned by
the sight of Satan flying towards this world, then newly created, the poet describes with
great particularity the wanderings of the Fiend. He first alights upon the bare convex of the
Earth’s outermost orb, and strays for some time in a wild, dark, tempestuous region, not yet
reclaimed from Chaos, and utterly uninhabited—a region known in later ages, Milton tells us,
as the Limbo of Vanity, or Paradise of Fools, to which are consigned “all the unaccom-
plished works of Nature’s hand”—abortions, embryos, idiots, and the souls of those who, in
dying, have sought to enter Heaven by wearing a friar’s habit, or by reliance on relics, beads,
and Papal dispensations. At length Satan sees a vast, radiant flight of steps, ascending to the
golden and jewelled gate of Heaven ; and, standing on the lowest of these steps, he beholds a
wide passage down to “the blissful seat of Paradise.” Being, however, as yet ignorant of the
abode of man, he throws himself into the starry Armament, and ultimately lands on the
luminous body of the Sun, where he encounters Uriel, and, transforming himself into the
semblance of a youthful angel, inquires of him in which of the orbs visible from the solar globe
the dwelling-place of man is to be found. Uriel replies —
“ ‘ Look downward on that globe, whose hither side
With light from hence, though but reflected, shines.
That place is Earth, the seat of man; that light
His day, which else, as the other hemisphere,
Night would invade 3 but there the neighbouring Moon
(So call that opposite fair star) her aid
Timely interposes, and, her monthly round
Still ending, still renewing, through mid-heaven
With borrow’d light her countenance triform
Hence fills, and empties to enlighten the Earth,
And in her pale dominion checks the night.
That spot to which I point is Paradise,
Adam’s abode ; those lofty shades, his bower:
Thy way thou canst not miss; me mine requires.’

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