Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and call'd
His legions, angel forms, who lay intranced,
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
High overarch'd imbower; or scatter'd sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd

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Hath vex'd the Red-sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,

1

While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcases
And broken chariot-wheels: so thick bestrown,
Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of hell resounded: " Princes, potentates,

Warriors, the flower of heaven, once yours, now lost,
If such astonishment as this can seize

Eternal spirits or have ye chosen this place

After the toil of battel to repose

Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find

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To slumber here, as in the vales of heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn

• Thick as autumnal leaves.

Here we see the impression of scenery made upon Milton's mind in his youth, when he was at Florence. This is a favourite passage with all readers of descriptive poetry. The account of Vallombrosa may be found in the volumes of numerous travellers.

P With fierce winds Orion arm'd.

Orion is a constellation represented in the figure of an armed man, and supposed to be attended with stormy weather:-" Assurgens fluctu nimbosus Orion." Virg. Æn. i. 539.-NEWTON.

Here the poet again introduces his learned historical allusions with a magnificent picture.

q Hath vex'd the Red-sea coast.

The Red-sea abounds so much with sedge, that in the Hebrew scriptures it is called the "Sedgy Sea." And Milton says "Hath vex'd the Red-sea coast," particularly because the wind usually drives the sedge in great quantities towards the shore.NEWTON.

Because Pharaoh, after leave given to the Israelites to depart, followed after them as fugitives.-HUME.

t From the safe shore.

Much has been said of the long similitudes of Homer, Virgil, and Milton, wherein they fetch a compass, as it were, to draw in new images, besides those in which the direct point of likeness consists. I think they have been sufficiently justified in the general; but in this before us, while the poet is digressing, he raises a new similitude from the floating carcases of the Egyptians.-HEYLIN.

This magnificent call of Satan to his prostrate host could have been written by nobody but Milton.

To adore the Conqueror? who now beholds
Cherub and seraph rolling in the flood,
With scatter'd arms and ensigns, till anon
His swift pursuers from heaven gates discern
The advantage, and descending tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf.
Awake, arise; or be for ever fallen!

They heard, and were abash'd, and up they sprung
Upon the wing; as when men wont to watch
On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread,
Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.

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 obey'd,
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,
Waved round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like night, and darken'd 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, as a signal given, the uplifted 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
Pour'd never from her frozen loins, to pass

▾ Darken'd all the land of Nile.

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The devils, at the command of their infernal monarch, flying abroad over the world to injure the Christian cause, are similarly compared by Tasso to black storms obscuring the face of day (Gier. Lib. iv. 18). And, where they are all driven back by Michael, it is said, ix. 66:

Liberato di lor quella si negra

Faccia depone il mondo.

A multitude, like which the populous north

Pour'd never.

DUNSTER.

This comparison doth not fall below the rest, as some have imagined. They were thick as the leaves, and numberless as the locusts; but such a multitude the north Berer poured forth. The subject of this comparison rises very much above the others, -the leaves and locusts. The northern parts of the world are observed to be more fruitful of people than the hotter countries: hence "the populous north," which Sir William Temple calls "the northern hive."-NEWTON.

Dr. Newton does not seem to be aware that the three comparisons which he refers to, relate to the three different states in which these fallen angels are represented. When abject they lie supine on the lake, they are in the situation compared, in point of number, to vast heaps of leaves which in autumn the poet himself had observed to bestrew the water-courses and bottoms of Vallombrosa. When roused by their great leader's objurgatory summons, and on wing, they are in this second situation again compared, in point of number, to the locusts which were sent as a divine vengeance or plague on the land of Egypt, when Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites depart: these two similes are admirable, and in their place could not, I believe, well be surpassed. That of the locusts, independently of its being taken from Scripture, far surpasses in every respect

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,

And powers, that erst in heaven sat on thrones;
Though of their names in heavenly records now
Be no memorial, blotted out and razed

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By their rebellion from the Book of Life.
Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve

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

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Through God's high sufferance for the trial of man, f
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, adorn'd

With gay religions full of pomp and gold,
And devils to adore for deities:b

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

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that of the birds of passage in Virgil and Tasso, which both poets have joined to that of leaves falling, to represent the numerous ghosts crowding on the banks of Styx, and the multitude of devils driven back by Michael to the inferual regions. The object of the third comparison is to illustrate the number of the fallen angels, when alighted on the firm brimstone; and, like soldiers, forming into bands under their respective leaders. In this situation, I doubt if he could well have found anything so proper to compare them with, as the most numerous of troops which history records ever to have marched out upon any military expedition. But it must be allowed that the comparing one band of troops to another, where, though different in their nature, the description of them when embodied is so nearly similar, is rather an exemplification than a simile. Besides, comparing the numerous infernal legions to a circumstance of real undecorated history, is no very lucid or poetical illustration; and in this respect I much prefer the reference to the legends of romance and the fabulous ages, ver. 576, &c.— DUNSTER.

When her barbarous sons.

They were truly barbarous; for besides exercising several cruelties, they destroyed all the monuments of learning and politeness wherever they came. They were the Goths, and Huns, and Vandals, who overran all the southern provinces of Europe; and, crossing the Mediterranean beneath Gibraltar, landed in Africa, and spread themselves as far as Libya. Beneath Gibraltar means, more southward, the north being uppermost in the globe.-NEWTON.

Though of their names.

Psalm ix. 5, 6:-"Thou hast put out their name for ever and ever: their memorial is perished with them." And Rev. iii. 5.-"I will not blot his name out of the book of life."-GILLIES.

z By falsities and lies.

That is, as Mr. Upton observes, by false idols, under a corporeal representation belying the true God. The poet plainly alludes to Rom. i. 22.-NEWTON.

a And the invisible

Glory of him that made them to transform, &c.

Alluding to Rom. i. 23.-NEWTON.

And devils to adore for deities.

Levit. xvii. 7:-"They shall no more offer their sacrifices unto devils." And see also Ps. cvi. 37.-TODD.

Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last,
Roused from the slumber on that fiery couch
At their great emperour'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 thundering 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, besmear'd with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;

d

Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud

e Say, Muse, their names then known.

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For the enumeration of the Syrian and Arabian deities, it may be observed, that Milton has comprised in one hundred and thirty very beautiful lines, the two learned syntagmas, which Selden had composed on that abstruse subject.-Gibbon, Rom. Emp. vol. i. p. 539 note, 4to. edit. The exordium to this enumeration, "who first, who last," is from Homer, Il. v. 703:

Ενθα τίνα πρῶτον, τίνα δ ̓ ὕστατον.

d First Moloch, horrid king.

TODD.

First, after Satan and Beelzebub. Moloch signifies king, and he is called “horrid king," because of the human sacrifices which were made to him: the expression, "passed through fire," is taken from Leviticus, xviii. 21; or 2 Kings, xxiii. 10. His idol was of brass, sitting on a throne, and wearing a crown; having the head of a calf, and his arms extended to receive the miserable victims which were to be sacrificed; and therefore it is here probably styled "his grim idol." He was the God of the Ammonites, 1 Kings, xi. 7, and was worshipped in Rabba, their capital city, called the "city of waters," 2 Sam. xi. 27; and in the neighbouring countries as far as to the river Arnon, the boundary of their country on the south.-NEWton.

Dr. Newton also says that Moloch was supposed to be the same as Saturn: but Milton did not suppose it, or at least did not attend to the supposition; as Saturn himself is afterwards mentioned, verse 519. But Moloch has also been supposed to be Mars; with a view to which, Milton seems to have drawn his character in the second book. That the planet Mars was named Moloch by the Egyptians is mentioned by Beyer, in his "Additamenta to Selden's Syntagma de Diis Syr."-DUNSTER.

The part of Moloch is, in all its circumstances, full of that fire and fury which distinguish this spirit from the rest of the fallen angels. He is described in the first book as besmeared with the blood of human sacrifices, and delighted with the tears of parents and the cries of children: in the second book, he is marked out as the fiercest spirit that fought in heaven: and if we consider the figure which he makes in the sixth book, where the battle of the angels is described, we find it every way answerable to the same furious, enraged character.

It may be worth while to observe, that Milton has represented this violent impetuous spirit, who is hurried on by such precipitate passions, as the first that rises in that assembly to give his opinion on their present posture of affairs; accordingly, he declares himself abruptly for war; and appears incensed at his companions for losing so much time as even to deliberate upon it. All his sentiments are rash, audacious, and desperate: such is that of arming themselves with their tortures, and turning their punishments upon him who inflicted them. His preferring annihilation to shame or misery is also highly suitable to his character; as the comfort he draws from disturbing the peace of heaven, that, if it be not victory, it is revenge, is a sentiment truly diabolical, and becoming the bitterness of this implacable spirit.-ADDISON.

Their children's cries unheard, that pass'd through fire

e

To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite
Worshipp'd in Rabba and her watery 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 call'd, the type of hell.
Next Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's sons,
From Aroer to Nebo, and the wild

Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon
And Horonáim, Seon's realm, beyond

The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines,
And Elealé to the asphaltic pool:

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.

h

With these came they, who, from the bordering flood
Of old Euphrates' to the brook that parts
Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names
Of Baalim and Ashtaroth, those male,

e The wisest heart

Of Solomon he led.

Solomon built a temple to Moloch on the Mount of Olives, 1 Kings, xi. 7, which is therefore called "that opprobrious hill."-NEWTON.

The pleasant valley of Hinnom.

See Jer. vii. 31. It was called also Tophet, from the Hebrew toph, a drum; drums and such like noisy instruments being used to drown the cries of the miserable children who were offered to this idol: and Gehenna, or the valley of Hinnom, is in several places of the New Testament, and by our Saviour himself, made the name and type of hell.-NEWTON.

Next Chemos.

Moloch and Chemos are joined together, 1 Kings, xi. 7. And it was a natural transition from the god of the Ammonites to the god of their neighbours of the Moabites. See a long geographical note by NEWTON.

h Lust hard by hate.

What a fine moral sentiment has Milton here introduced and couched in half a verse! He might perhaps have in view Spenser's "Mask of Cupid," where anger, strife, &c., åre represented as immediately following Cupid in the procession.-THYER.

The poet's moral is exactly verified in the incestuous and cruel conduct of Amnon towards Tamar, 2 Sam. xiii. 15:-" Then Amnon hated her exceedingly; so that the hatred, wherewith he hated her, was greater than the love, wherewith he had loved her." The hemistich is a fine commentary on the passage.-Todd.

i Old Euphrates.

Gen. ii. 14. It bordered eastward on the Promised Land. See NEWTON.

Bäalam and Ashtaroth.

They are frequently named together in Scripture. They were the general names of