The treason that is smouldering in his heart at length finds vent in a soliloquy of ambitious and self-proud thought, ending in a muttered resolve:

No longer will I be His vassal-slave."

The Omnipresent One, knowing the innermost thought of the apostate Archangel, hurls the Fiend from his Empyrean throne, down the burning gulf to Hell. For three long days and three successive nights, are the Apostate and his guilty followers falling through Chaos, ere they reach the prisonhouse prepared by God as their place of exile. Here, amid the fiery torments of God's great torture-house, the traitor-angels lie stunned and prostrate in the deep, infernal gloom; till at length, aroused from their stupor, and seeing far off, through the gloom of Chaos, the distant glories of their former Seats, the supreme folly of the act their pride had allured them to perpetrate stands bare before them and, for a time, they resign themselves to the keen gnawings of relentless remorse.

In a sense, it is perfectly true, that the events related in this section are a recapitulation of the opening or introductory section of the poem; but a careful examination of the structure of the epic will show conclusively that Cædmon, far from evincing the crudeness of a tyro in his art, handles

the materials at his disposition in a most masterly way, adopting the skilful device of announcing his theme in brief, at the outset, and subsequently filling in the colouring of the picture when the outline has been sufficiently perfected.

But to proceed. In the next section, having recovered from their stupor,-the result of their three days' fall through Chaos,-the Apostates hold a plenary Council in Hell. Satan, though manacled and foot-bound with twisted iron bands, is the first to break the horrid silence of the fiery concave, and in an impassioned speech,—one of the most dramatic and effective portions of the poem,-gives utterance to his already well-matured scheme of revenge. Fettered in his iron Throne in deepest Hell, prostrate and powerless to rise, the fallen Archangel first pours forth, in blasphemous apostrophe, his bitter wrath against the Almighty and against the unequal and unmerited punishment of his rebel Angels; and, as a climax to this part of his unholy tirade, he discloses his gigantic scheme of becoming a Devil; living, henceforth, the life of a fiendish iconoclast, frustrating when possible the grand designs of the Deity and shattering the highest ideals of divine love and workmanship. In vivid terms, he tells of a fair World beneath the Empyrean, decreed of old, though designed and created only in

later days, where the Almighty had already formed the first of a new-born race of beings, akin in beauty of form to the Angels, but of inferior intelligence, with whom doubtless He intended to repeople the Northern palaces of Heaven left vacant by the fall of himself and his once princely retainers. To effect the ruin of this earth-born Man, by whatever means (so urges the Fiend), would foil the plans of the Deity and ensure substantial revenge.

Having thus disclosed his scheme, and having outlined his own ideal demon-course for the future life of his compeers, Satan suggests that they proceed to discuss the best plan for the successful issue of the proposed campaign.

As the inception of the idea of revenge, and the determination of the most vulnerable point of attack, are due to the arch-intelligence and brilliant brain of Satan, and to him alone, it is not surprising that in the peroration of his speech, when urging the importance of a well-defined plan of attack, he should give, (as he does), a hint as to his own fully matured views on the matter, and endeavour, in every possible way, to attain the object that he has in view. He accordingly appeals to the false fidelity and false loyalty of his followers in the past, and to his own lavish munificence; and declares that in no way can they repay his former regal generosity, now that he

is fetter-bound in Hell, than by efficient aid in carrying out his cherished scheme and effecting the eternal ruin of Man. Then, as though to inflame their drooping ambition, he holds forth the dazzling promise, sealed by his sovereign oath, that the daring one who should first proclaim the Fall of Man, seduced by devil-craft, should be rewarded with the gift of the second throne in Hell's dominion and be his (Satan's) sole Vicegerent.

At this point in the manuscript there are three leaves wanting, which doubtless contained the account of the deliberations of the Council in Hell. Still, although the original lines in this part of the poem are lost to us, yet we can easily and surely surmise, from the sequel, what the result of these deliberations, (according to Cædmon), must have

been.

The continuation of the narrative shows that the scheme proposed by Satan met with the approval of the assembled fiends, and that one more crafty and more daring than his fellows was chosen to undertake the perilous adventure.

We next find the apostate Angel, warrior-armed for the desperate enterprise, with every clasp fast and secure. This done, he urges his way, by strength of wing and limb, upwards to Hell's Gates. Passing this barrier, he speeds, like a spiral column, onwards

and upwards through the dark desolations of Chaos, till at length he descries far off the faint, soft light of the Starry Universe of which he is in search; and, entering at the zenith, or open point nearest the Empyrean, and passing downwards through the encircling Spheres, alights at length on the convex of Man's earthly Paradise.

With the opening of the fourth section of the poem, Satan's dark emissary, having reached the goal of his arduous journey, searches amid the luxuriant foliage of the Garden, for the newly Godcreated pair; and finally discovers them, reclining beneath the shade of two wide-spreading trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Death. With devilcraft he takes the body of a worm; entwines himself around the Tree of Death; and with the luring fruit of the tree in hand, addresses his first sin-fraught word to Adam.

It is, at this point, that the clever subtlety or "devil-craft," as the poet calls it, of Hell's delegate first appears. He does not approach the Man as his Maker's foe, but as an angelic messenger from Heaven, charged with a commission from the Highest to bid Adam eat of the fruit of the Tree of Death; and, this behest fulfilled, to return to the Empyrean bearing the prayers of God's favoured child for any boon, whatsoever, that he might desire.