Accordingly, in this great poem, the name Heaven continually meets us as designating the blissful abode where the Omnipresent God is imagined as from eternity locally dwelling in light uncreated—the unapproachable splendour of his own effulgence. There, the Assessor of his throne, the Divine Son, sits “in bliss embosomed.” And there, created inhabitants, are the innumerable host of happy Angels. At first, all—whilst all stand upright—and until the sin of Satan casts out one third part of the number. The Imagination of the poet supposes a resemblance to Earth; for beauty and delight—hills, rocks, vales, rivers and fountains, trees and Elysian flowers. Although he endeavours to dilate the fancy of his reader in speaking of Heaven with conceptions of immense extent, it is a limited, not a boundless, Heaven; for it is conceived as resting upon a base or firmament, and as being enclosed with crystalline walls. Palaces and towers, which the angels have built, are spoken of in Heaven. The course of the Poem sometimes leads us into CHAOS. We are to imagine an infinite abyss of darkness, in which the formless embryons and elements of things toss and war in everlasting uproar. A Ruler and other spirits of darkness will be found dwelling there. Here height, breadth, and time and place are lost. But the tremendous gulf is permeable to the wings of angels. A more important seat of the transaction to which we shall be introduced is, “the place of evil,” made, after the rebellion of the Angels, their habitation and place of punishment—“the house of wo and pain”—HELL. It is described as having various regions—fiery and frozen; hideous mountains, valleys, and caves. Five rivers, named and characterised from those that flow through the Hell of classical antiquity—and, in particular, a boiling Ocean, into which the rebel Angels are supposed to fall. Notwithstanding the flames, a heavy gloom prevails throughout. It is immensely extended, but has a solid ground—“a dungeon horrible,” walled and overvaulted. The whole of the Fallen Angels are at first imprisoned in Hell. But they escape. Hell has Gates kept by Sin and her Son Death. The Fallen Angels build in Hell a palace and city called Pandemonium. Hell is situated in the lowest depth of Chaos, out of which it has been taken.