Nor did they not perceive the evil plight

In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;
Yet to their general's voice they soon obeyed
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,

Waved round the coast, up called a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung,
Like night, and darkened all the land of Nile:
So numberless were those bad Angels seen,
Hovering on wing, under the cope of Hell,
"Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;
Till, at a signal given, the up-lifted spear
Of their great Sultan waving to direct
Their course, in even balance down they light
On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain;
A multitude, like which the populous north

335-336. Nor did they not perceive.] Here we have a double instance of what is called the double negative. It is equivalent to saying "they perceived well the evil plight in which they were, and felt keenly the fierce pains to which they were now subjected. The word plight is from a Saxon word signifying to pledge; and as that which is pledged or plighted, or staked as security, is put in a state of risk or hazard, so plight comes to be synonymous with danger.

338. As when the potent rod of Amram's son, &c.] "As words convey but a faint and obscure notion of great numbers, a poet, to give a lively notion of the object he describes with regard to number, does well to compare it to what is familiar and commonly known. Thus Homer compares the Grecian army in point of number to a swarm of bees: in another passage he compares it to that profusion of leaves and flowers which appear in the spring, or of insects in a summer's evening: and Milton,

"As when the potent rod

Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,' &c. &c. Such comparisons have, by some writers, been condemned for the lowness of the images introduced; but surely without reason; for, with regard

to numbers, they put the principal subject in a strong light."-HOME'S Elements of Criticism.

341. Warping on the eastern wind.] To warp is originally a sea phrase, meaning to move crookedly, and hence to work forward with difficulty and by slow degrees. Thomson has used the same word in a similar case—

"For oft engendered by the hazy North, Myriads on myriads, insect armies warp Keen in the poisoned breeze."

343. The land of Nile.] Egypt is properly so called, as without the Nile the country would be a desert.

348. Their great Sultan.] Sultan is a Turkish title from an Arabic word signifying mighty. Various Mohammedan princes receive the title of Sultan, but the grand or great Sultan is the ruler of Turkey. The title is here unceremoniously transferred to Satan. 351-355. A multitude, like which, fc.] The influence of association on our notions concerning language is still more strongly exemplified in poetry than in prose. As it is one great object of the poet, in his serious productions, to elevate the imagination of his readers above the grossness of sensible objects, and the vulgarity of common life, it becomes peculiarly

Poured never from her frozen loins, to pass
Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons
Came like a deluge on the south, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.
Forthwith from every squadron and each band
The heads and leaders thither haste where stood
Their great commander: Godlike shapes and forms
Excelling human, princely Dignities,

355

And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones;
Though of their names in heavenly records now
Be no memorial, blotted out and rased

360

By their rebellion from the book of life.

Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve

Got them new names; till, wand'ring o'er the earth,

365

Through God's high sufferance for the trial of man,
By falsities and lies the greatest part

Of mankind they corrupted to forsake
God their Creator, and the invisible
Glory of him that made them to transform
Oft to the image of a brute, adorned

With gay religions, full of pomp and gold,
And Devils to adore for Deities:

370

Then were they known to men by various names,
And various idols through the Heathen world.

necessary for him to reject the use of
all words and phrases which are trivial
and hackneyed. Among those which
are equally pure and equally perspicu-
ous, he, in general, finds it expedient to
adopt that which is the least common.
Milton prefers the words Rhene and
Danaw, to the more common words
Rhine and Danube.

"A multitude, like which the populous North Poured never from her frozen loins, to pass Rhene or the Danaw."

In the following line

"Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme"how much more suitable to the poetical style does the expression appear, than if the author had said

"Things unattempted yet in prose or verse." In another passage, where, for the sake of variety, he has made use of the last phrase, he adds an epithet, to remove it a little from the familiarity of ordinary discourse, "in prose or numerous verse." -STEWART'S Elements, &c.

375

I have already referred to HUME'S Essays on the "populousness of ancient nations;" but the student will also find some remarks on the subject in ROBERTson's Progress of Society in Europe, and in GIBBON's Decline and Fall. works more likely to fall in his way.

355. Libya is the ancient name of Africa, more especially of the north coast between the Mediterranean and the Sahara, north and south, and Egypt and the Gulf of Sidra, east and west. Gibraltar derives its name (Gib-elTarik, mountain of Tarik) from its Moorish founder, Tarik or Tarif, who lived early in the 8th century.

360. Erst.] "Ere" is a Saxon particle, signifying "before," and its superlative is er-est, contracted erst, first, at first, formerly. The word is obsolete except in poetry.

363. The book of life.] There is a difference of opinion as to whether the correct reading here is "book"

380

Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last,
Roused from the slumber, on that fiery couch,
At their great emperor's call, as next in worth
Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,
While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof.
The chief were those who, from the pit of Hell
Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix
Their seats long after next the seat of God,
Their altars by his altar; Gods adored
Among the nations round; and durst abide
Jehovah thund'ring out of Sion, throned
Between the Cherubim: yea, often placed
Within his sanctuary itself their shrines,
Abominations; and with cursed things
His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned,
And with their darkness durst affront his light.
First Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;

or "books." Mr. Stebbing, following
Newton, prefers books, " to answer better,
as he says, to the plural records,
used before, and to the immense num-
ber of angels." This seems a very
small counting-house view of the
matter. The singular is much more
appropriate and dignified. Besides, in
Rev. iii. 5., we read, "I will not blot
his name out of the book of life ;" and
it is not Milton's way to depart from
the text of Scripture, unless there be
some weighty reason for the change.

376. Say, Muse, their names then known, &c.] "The subject of Paradise Lost was the origin of evil-an era in existence an event more than all others dividing past from future time -an isthmus in the ocean of eternity. The theme was in its nature connected with everything important in the circumstances of human history; and amidst these circumstances, Milton saw that the fables of Paganism were too important and poetical to be omitted. As a Christian, he was entitled wholly to neglect them; but as a poet, he chose to treat them, not as dreams of the human mind, but as the delusions of infernal existences. Thus anticipating a beautiful propriety for all

385

390

classical allusions, thus connecting and reconciling the co-existence of fable and of truth, and thus identifying the fallen angels with the deities of " gay religions, full of pomp and gold," he yoked the heathen mythology in triumph to his subject, and clothed himself in the spoils of superstition." -CAMPBELL'S Essay on Eng. Poetry.

385. Abide.] i. e. stand in the face of, and bear up against. "The day of the Lord is great and very terrible; and who can abide it."-Joel ii. 11.

391. Affront.] i. e. to stand front to front, so as to oppose, like two hostile armies. "Abide," in 1. 385., has much the same meaning as affront" here. See Ezek. xliii. 7, 8.

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392. Moloch, or "Melech, is chiefly found in the Old Testament as the national god of the Ammonites, to whom children were sacrificed by fire. There is some difficulty in ascertaining at what period the Israelites became acquainted with this idolatry, yet it is probable that it was before the time of Solomon, the date usually assigned for its introduction. It is, however, for the first time directly stated that Solomon created a high-place for Molech on the Mount of Olives (1 Kings, xi. 7.); and

Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud

Their children's cries unheard, that passed through fire 395
To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite
Worshipped in Rabba and her wat❜ry plain,
In Argob and in Basan, to the stream

Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such
Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build
His temple right against the temple of God,
On that opprobrious hill; and made his grove,
The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence
And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.
Next Chemos, th' obscene dread of Moab's sons,
From Aroer to Nebo, and the wild
Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon
And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond
The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines,
And Elëalé to th' Asphaltic pool.

from that period his worship continued uninterruptedly there, or in Tophet, in the valley of Hinnom, until Josiah defiled both places (2 Kings, xxiii. 10. 13.). Jehoahaz, however, the son and successor of Josiah, again did evil in the sight of Jehovah, according to all that his fathers had done' (2 Kings, xxiii. 32.). The same broad condemnation is made against the succeeding kings, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah; and Ezekiel, writing during the Captivity, says: Do you, by offering your gifts, and by making your sons pass through the fire, pollute yourselves with all your idols until this day, and shall I be inquired of by you?' (xx. 31.). After the restoration, all traces of this idolatry disappear."-See KITTO's Cyclopædia.

394. For the noise.] i.e. on account of the noise.

404-405. Tophet (Jer. vii. 31.) was a place in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, below Jerusalem, and a little south-east of the city, in which the Canaanites, and afterwards the Israelites, offered their children to Moloch. Josiah defiled this place, to prevent the use of it for such abominations.

400

405

410

A perpetual fire is supposed to have been kept there to consume the refuse materials gathered from the city, the bodies of such animals as died, and other decaying substances; hence, under the name of Gehenna, it became a fit emblem of hell. Tophet and Gehenna are frequently mentioned in the Scriptures, with various references to the abominations perpetrated there. HUGHES' Scripture Geography.

406. Chemos, or Chemosh, is the name of a national god of the Moabites (1 Kings, xi. 7.; 2 Kings, xxiii. 13.; Jer. xlviii. 7.), who are for this reason called the "people of Chemosh" (in Num. xxi. 29.); and of the Ammonites (Judg. xi. 24.), whose worship was introduced by Solomon among the Israelites (1 Kings, xi. 7.). No etymology of the name which has been proposed, and no attempt which has been made to identify this god with others whose attributes are better known, are sufficiently plausible to deserve particular notice.

411. Elëalé, or Elealeh, is a town of the Reubenites, east of the Jordan (Num. xxxii. 3. 37.); but which is named by the prophets as a city of the

Peor his other name, when he enticed

Israel in Sittim on their march from Nile

To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.
Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged
Ev'n to that hill of scandal, by the grove
Of Moloch homicide; lust hard by hate;
Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell.

415

With these came they, who, from the bord'ring flood
Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts

420

Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names
Of Baälim and Ashtaroth; those male,

These feminine. For Spirits when they please
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft
And uncompounded is their essence pure;
Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,

Moabites (Isa. xv. 4.; xvi. 9.; Jer.
xlviii. 34.). It is usually mentioned
along with Heshbon; and, accordingly,
travellers find in the neighbourhood of
that city a ruined place, bearing the
name of El Aal, which, doubtless, repre-
sents Elealeh. It stands upon the
summit of a hill, and takes its name
from its situation, Aal meaning "high."
It commands the whole plain, and the
view from it is very extensive. It is
about a mile and a quarter north-east
of Heshbon. "The Asphaltic pool" is
the Dead Sea, one of its names being
Asphaltites, from the asphaltum or
bituminous matter that it produces.

414. Which cost them woe.] The Israelites worshipped Chemos in Sittim, and committed whoredom with the daughters of Moab; for which there died of the plague (Numb. xxv. 9.) "twenty and four thousand - the His high places were adjoining those of Moloch on the Mount of Olives, here called the hill of scandal, as before (1.403.) that opprobrious hill. Solomon built "an high place" for Chemos and Moloch, but the good Josiah brake their images in pieces.

woe here referred to.

415. Orgies.] Properly the frantic rites of Bacchus, and hence nocturnal rites or revelry of any sort. Facciolati gives three or four probable derivations of the word, but the ety

425

mology most generally received is the
Greek word opyn, anger or fury, from
the rage which the devotees either felt
or feigned, in the performance of their
peculiar ceremonies.
The word cere-
monia, by the way, is the Latin term
corresponding to the Greek ŏpyia.

417. Lust hard by hate.] Let no one suppose that this is said for the mere purpose of poetic effect. It conresponds with a well-known fact in human nature. All the lower feelings of the mind sympathise with, i.e. act and react on each other. From the phrenologists we learn that the organ which in its abuse brings forth "lust," underlies a whole group-combativeness, destructiveness, and secretiveness of organs, that issue out in envy, hatred, and malice," if not duly restrained. The moral fact is certain; let the physiological theory stand as it may.

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420. Of old Euphrates, &c.] The Euphrates is undoubtedly one of the rivers that have been longest known, and therefore properly called "old." It is mentioned in the second chapter of Genesis. The brook referred to is probably Besora winter stream that flows into the Mediterranean, to the south of Gaza.

426. Manacles are chains for the hands; fetters, for the feet.