The harangue of Satan to his legions by the Saxon monk cannot fail to remind us of the first grand scene in the "Paradise Lost," however these creations of the two poets be distinct. "The swart hell--a land void of light, and full of flame," is like Milton's-- ----yet from these flames No light, but rather darkness visible. The locality is not unlike, "There they have at even, immeasurably long, each of all the fiends a renewal of fire, with sulphur charged; but cometh ere dawn the eastern wind frost, bitter-cold, ever fire or dart." This torment we find in the hell of Milton-- The bitter change Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce, From beds of raging _fire_ to starve in _ice_. The parching air _Burns frore_, and _cold performs the effect of fire_.[6] The "Inferno" of Dante has also "its eternal darkness for the dwellers in fierce _heat_ and in _ice_."[7] It is evident that the Saxon, the Italian, and the Briton had drawn from the same source. The Satan of Cædmon in "the torture-house" is represented as in "the dungeon of perdition." He lies in chains, his feet bound, his hands manacled, his neck fastened by iron bonds; Satan and his crew the monk has degraded into Saxon convicts. Milton indeed has his Adamantine chains and penal fire, and A dungeon horrible on all sides round. But as Satan was to be the great actor, Milton was soon compelled to find some excuse for freeing the evil spirit from the chains which Heaven had forged, and this he does-- Chain'd on the burning lake, _nor ever thence Had ris'n or heaved his head, but that the will And high permission of all-ruling Heaven Left him at large to his own dark designs_, That with reiterated crimes he might Heap on himself damnation, while he sought Evil to others. The Saxon monk had not the dexterity to elude the difficult position in which the arch-fiend was for ever fixed; he was indissolubly chained, and yet much was required to be done. It is not, therefore, Satan himself who goes on the subdolous design of wreaking his revenge on the innocent pair in Paradise; for this he despatches one of his associates, who is thus described: "Prompt in arms, he had a crafty soul; this chief set his helmet on his head; he many speeches knew of guileful words: wheeled up from thence, he _departed through the doors of hell_." We are reminded of The infernal doors, that on their hinges grate Harsh thunder. The emissary of Satan in Cædmon had "a strong mind, lion-like in air, _in hostile mood he dashed the fire aside with a fiend's power_."[8] That demon flings aside the flames of hell with the bravery of his sovereign, as we see in Milton-- Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool His mighty stature; _on each hand the flames Driv'n backward, slope their pointing spires, and roll'd In billows_, leave in the midst a horrid vale.[9]