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something wonderfully beautiful, and very apt to affect the reader's imagination, in this ancient prophecy or report in heaven concerning the creation of man. Nothing could show more the dignity of the species than this tradition, which ran of them before their existence: they are represented to have been the talk of heaven before they were created. Virgil, in compliment to the Roman commonwealth, makes the heroes of it appear in their state of preexistence; but Milton does a far greater honour to mankind in general, as he gives us a glimpse of them even before they are in being.-ADDISON.

97 Ver. 665.

Far round illumined hell. Another true Miltonic picture.

and signifies riches. mon," Matth. vi. 24. be the god of riches,

The sudden blaze

98 Ver. 678. Mammon led them on. This name is Syriac, "Ye cannot serve God and MamMammon is by some supposed to and is accordingly personified by Milton, and had been before by Spenser; whose description of Mammon and his cave, Milton seems to have had his eye upon in several places.-NEWTON.

99 Ver. 699. And hands innumerable scarce perform. There were 360,000 men employed for near twenty years upon one of the Pyramids, according to Diodorus Siculus, lib. i., and Pliny, lib. xxxvi. 12.—Newton.

100 Ver. 708. As in an organ. This simile is as exact as it is new and we may observe, that Milton frequently fetches his images from music, more than any other English poet; as he was very fond of it, and was himself a performer upon the organ and other instruments.-NEWTON.

101 Ver. 711. Rose, like an exhalation. Peck supposes that

this hint is taken from some of the moving scenes and machines invented by Inigo Jones, for Charles the First's

masques.

102 Ver. 740.

From heaven, &c.

And how he fell

Alluding to Homer, Il. i. 590, &c. 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. See also Odyss. vii. 288.-NEWTON.

103 Ver. 766. To mortal combat, or career with lance. Milton has carefully distinguished the two different methods of combat in the champ clos.—CALLANDER.

104 Ver. 768. As bees. An imitation of Homer, who compares the Grecians crowding, to a swarm of bees, Il. ii. 87. There are such similes also in Virg. Æn. i. 430. vi. 707. But Milton carries the similitude farther than either of his great masters; and mentions the bees "conferring their state affairs," as he is going to give an account of the consultations of the devils.-NEWTON.

If we look into the conduct of Homer, Virgil, and Milton; as the great fable is the soul of each poem, so, to give their works an agreeable variety, their episodes are as so many short fables, and their similes so many short episodes; to which you may add, if you please, that their metaphors are so many short similes. If the reader considers the comparisons in the first book of Milton,—of the sun in an eclipse, of the sleeping leviathan,—of the bees swarming about their hive,-of the fairy dance,-in the view wherein I have here placed them, he will easily discover the great beauties that are in each of those passages:-ADDISON.

105 Ver. 771. They among fresh dews and flowers. It is not necessary to enlarge upon the poetry of this beautiful passage.

106 Ver. 779. Now less than smallest dwarfs. As soon as the infernal palace is finished, we are told, the multitude and rabble of spirits immediately shrunk themselves into a small compass, that there might be room for such a numberless assembly in this capacious hall: but it is the poet's refinement upon this thought which I most admire, and which is indeed very noble in itself; for he tells us, that notwithstanding the vulgar, among the fallen spirits, contracted their forms, those of the first rank and dignity still preserved their natural dimensions.-ADDISON.

107 Ver. 782. Whose midnight revels. Olaus Magnus, treating of the night-dances of the fairies and ghosts, relates that travellers in the night, and such as watch the flocks and herds, are wont to be compassed about with many strange apparitions of this kind. See b. III. ch. x. Engl. ed. fol. 1658.-TODD.

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From Apollonius Rhodius, one of his favourite authors, Argonaut. iv. 1479.- TODD.

109 Ver. 785. Sits arbitress. Witness, spectatress. So Horace, Epod. v. 49:—

O, rebus meis

Non infideles arbitra

Nox et Diana.-HEYLIN.

110 Ibid. Nearer to the earth. This is said in allusion to the superstitious notion of witches and faeries having great power over the moon. Virg. Eclog. viii. 69:—

Carmina vel cœlo possunt deducere lunam.-NEWTON.

111 Ver. 786. Intent.

They, on their mirth and dance

One of those picturesque pastoral passages, with which Milton's early poetry so abounds.

112 Ver. 795. Secret conclave sat. An evident allusion to the conclaves of the cardinals on the death of a pope.

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