Equall'd in all their glories, to enshrine
Belus or Serapis their gods, or seat

720

Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove.
In wealth and luxury. The ascending pile..
Stood fix'd her stately highth: and straight the doors,
Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide
Within, her ample spaces, o'er the smooth
And level pavement; from the arched roof
Pendent by subtle magic, many a row
Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed

725

the ancient Memphis, and therefore might consider it as one and the same city.' MASSEY.

720. Belus, the son of Nimrod, second king of Babylon, and the first man worshipped for a god, by the Chaldæans styled Bel, by the Phoenicians Baal.' N.

Serdpis. Bentley objects to the prosody, because the second syllable is long in Martial Epigr. ix. 30. • Vincebat nec quæ turba Serapin amat.' But Bp. Pearce has shown that Milton may be defended by the following authorities: Prudentius (adv. Symm. ii. 531.) 'Nil potuit Serapis deus, et latrator Anubis.' Martian Capella (1. 2. p. 43.) Te Serapim Nilus, Memphis veneratur Osirim.'

723. Stood fix'd her stately highth. Cowper considers it an elliptical expression, for: stood fixed (through all) her stately highth. It is probably a Grecism; stood fixed (as to) her stately highth or an ablative absolute; her stately highth being fixed: or stood fixed (in) her stately highth; the prep. being omitted: as in 282. fallen such pernicious highth.'

725. within. An adverb here and not a preposition and therefore Milton puts a comma after it, that it may not be joined in construction with her ample spaces. So Virg. Æn. ii. 483. ' Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patescunt.'' N.

726. Virg. Æn. i. 726. 'dependent lychni laquearibus aureis Incensi, et noctem flammis funalia vincunt.'' N.

728. cressets. Fr. croisette, because beacons had crosses anciently on their tops. A great light set upon a beacon, light-house, or watch-tower. Shakspeare, Hen. IV. Act III.

at my nativity

The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets.'' JOHNSON.

With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky. The hasty multitude

Admiring enter'd; and the work some praise,
And some the architect: his hand was known
In heaven by many a tower'd-structure high,
Where scepter'd angels held their residence,
Aud sat as princes; whom the supreme King
Exalted to such power, and gave to rule,
Each in his hierarchy, the orders bright.
Nor was his name unheard or unadored
In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land
Men call'd him Mulciber; and how he fell
From heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove

730

735

740

729. naphtha. An inflammable mineral substance of the bituminous kind, of a light brown or yellowish color, sharp taste, and incapable of decomposition. By long keeping it hardens into a substance resembling vegetable resin, and becomes black. It is as inflammable as ether. It is said to issue from the earth at Baku, in Persia, and to be received into cisterns.' WEBSTER. 'Strabo represents it as a liquation of bitumen. It swims on the top of the water of wells and springs. That found about Babylon is in some springs whitish, though it be generally black, and differs little from petroleum.' WOODWARD, in Johnson's Dict.

asphaltus. A solid, brittle, black, bituminous, inflammable substance, resembling pitch, and chiefly found swimming on the surface of the Lacus Asphaltites, or Dead Sea, where anciently stood the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is cast up in the nature of liquid pitch from the bottom of the sea; and, being thrown upon the water, swims like other fat bodies, and condenses gradually.' JOHNSON.

735. supreme: the same accentuation occurs in ii. 210.

740. The poet has his choice of three names to tell us what they called him in the classic world, Hephastos, Vulcanus, Mulciber; the last only of which designing the office of a founder, he has very judiciously chosen that.' WARBURTON. Festus Mulciber, Vulcanus, à molliendo scilicet ferro dictus; mulcere enim mollire, sive lenire est.'

741. Hom. Il. i. 598.

:

745

Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day; and with the setting sun
Dropt from the zenith like a falling star,
On Lemnos th' Egean isle: thus they relate,
Erring; for he with this rebellious rout
Fell long before; nor aught avail'd him now
To have built in heaven high towers; nor did he

'scape

By all his engines, but was headlong sent

750

Ηδη γάρ με καὶ ἄλλοτ ̓ ἀλεξέμεναι μεμαώτα Ῥίψε, ποδὸς τεταγὼν, ἀπὸ βηλοῦ θεσπεσίοιο Πᾶν δ ̓ ἦμαρ φερόμην, ἅμα δ' ηελίῳ καταδύντι Κάππεσον ἐν Λήμνῳ· ὀλίγος δ ̓ ἔτι θυμὸς ἐνῆεν· Ενθα με Σίντιες ἄνδρες ἄφαρ κομίσαντο πεσόντα. 742. sheer: clean, quick, [quite?] at once. Not now in use, except in low language.' JOHNSON.

743. It is worth observing, how Milton lengthens out the time of Vulcan's fall. He not only says with Homer, that it was all day long, but we are led through the parts of the day, from morn to noon, from noon to evening, and this a summer's day. There is a similar passage in the Odyssey, where Ulysses describes his sleeping twenty-four hours together, and to make the time seem the longer, divides it into several parts, and points them out distinctly to us: vii. 288.

Εἶδον παννύχιος, καὶ ἐπ ̓ ἦῶ, καὶ μέσον ἦμαρ,

Δύσετό τ' ἠέλιος, καί με γλυκὺς ὕπνος ἀνῆκεν.” Ν.

745. zenith: that point in the visible celestial hemisphere which is vertical to the spectator. It is opposed to nadir.

746. th' 'gean isle, for Ægéan: Milton in the same manner pronounces Thy éstean for Thyesteán, x. 688.' PEARCE.

747. rout: rabble: vii. 34. the race Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard.'

Αλλ ̓ οὔ οἱ τότε γε χραῖσμ' "Αρτεμις ἰοχέαιρα,

Οὐδὲ ἑκηβολίαι.

Virg. Æn. xi. 843. Nec tibi desertæ in dumis coluisse Dianam Profuit.' N.

With his industrious crew to build in hell.

Meanwhile, the winged heralds, by command
Of sovran power, with awful ceremony

And trumpet's sound, throughout the host proclaim
A solemn council, forthwith to be held
At Pandemonium, the high capital

Of Satan and his peers: their summons call'd
From every band and squared regiment

755

By place or choice the worthiest; they anon,
With hundreds and with thousands trooping came 760
Attended: all access was thronged: the gates
And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall
(Though like a cover'd field, where champions bold
Wont ride in arm'd, and at the soldan's chair
Defied the best of Panim chivalry

To mortal combat, or career with lance),

Thick swarm'd, both on the ground and in the air
Brush'd with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees

765

756. Pandemonium: fr. râv and daiμóviov: the rendezvous of all the devils. Beloe on Herod. vi. 7. suggests that it probably occurred to Milton from the Panionium, or council of Ionians.

763. ' Cover'd here signifies enclosed; champ clos; the field for combat, the lists. The hall of Pandemonium, one room only, is like a field for martial exercises on horseback.' RICHARDSON. 765. Punim: or Puinim, Pagan or heathen: fr. the Fr. pais, the country.

766. career, Fr. carrière: onset.

768. An imitation of Homer, Il. B. 87.

ἤΰτε ἔθνεα εἶσι μελισσάων ἀδινάων,

πέτρης ἐκ γλαφυρῆς αἰεὶ νέον ἐρχομενάων, βοτρυδὸν δὲ πέτονται ἐπ ̓ ἄνθεσιν εἰαρινοῖσιν, αἱ μέν τ' ἔνθα ἅλις πεποτήαται, αἱ δέ τε ἔνθα. Virg. Æn. i. 430. 'Qualis apes æstate novâ per florea rura Exercet sub sole labor; cum gentis adultos Educunt fœtus,' &c.

770

In spring-time, when the sun with Taurus rides,
Pour forth their populous youth about the hive
In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers
Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank,
The suburb of their straw-built citadel,
New rubb'd with balm, expatiate and confer
Their state affairs: so thick the aery crowd
Swarm'd and were straiten'd; till, the signal given,
Behold a wonder! They but now who seem'd
In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons,
Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room
Throng numberless, like that pygmean race

775

780

and again vi. 707.

'Ac veluti in pratis, ubi apes æstate serenâ
Floribus insidunt variis,' &c.' N.

769. Virg. G. i. 217.

'Candidus auratis aperit cum cornibus annum
Taurus.' HUME.

When the Sun is in that sign of the zodiac, from the 19th of April

to the 20th of May.

770. Virg. G. iv. 21.

cum prima novi ducent examina reges

Vere suo, Judetque favis emissa juventus." N.

774. expatiate: traverse to and fro.

confer (about) their state affairs: as above, 661. For who can think submission?'

777. Milton had already assigned this property to the fallen spirits of contracting or enlarging their dimensions in v. 429. in what shape they choose, Dilated or condensed,' &c. Voltaire and others censure this artifice as absurd and extravagant. Cowper thus vindicates Milton: All that we know of invisible agents, whether good or evil, we learn from Scripture, which tells us that a single demoniac was possessed by a legion. Scripture, therefore, ascribes to the devils this power of self-contraction; and if Scripture gives it them, it would be difficult to assign a good reason why Milton should not have imagined them to employ it on this occa

sion.'

780. pygmean race: " a nation of dwarfs in the extremest parts