Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf.

Awake, arise, or be for ever fall'n.'

330

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,

335

Waved round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud 340
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, at a signal given, the uplifted spear

'Illum expirantem transfixo pectore flammam
Turbine corripuit, scopuloque infixit acuto.'' N.

345

335. Nor did they not perceive a Latinism: Virg. G. ii. 449 'Nec tiliæ leves, aut torno rasile buxum Non formam accipiunt.' Or a Grecism: as in Homer, oùd' àπíenσe.

337. Yet to their general's voice they soon obey'd. Addison has mentioned this as one of Milton's Latinisms; but it is frequent in old writers; when we borrowed the French word, we borrowed the syntax, obéir au roi. Rom. vi. 16. His servants ye are, to whom ye obey." JOHNSON's Dict.

339. Moses, the son of Amram and Jochebed. Exod. vi. 20. x. 13.

341. warping, 'working themselves forward: a sea term.' HUME. To fly with a bending or waving motion; to turn and wave, like a flock of birds or insects.' WEBSTER.

345. cope, the arch or concave, vault.

347. So Joshua stretched out his spear as a signal to the Israel

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
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,

350

355

And powers that erst in heaven sat on thrones; 360

ites to rise from their ambuscade at the taking of Ai. Joshua viii. 18.

348. Sultan: in 1. 764. Soldan. Sultan, soultan, souldan, and with the article assultan, is the name of supreme honor amongst the Arabians, and seems to be as much as imperator was amongst the Romans.' TODD's Johnson. It is the usual appellation of the Grand Seignior, or Emperor of the Turks; and began first to be in use in the tenth century.' MASSEY.

351. The populous north; as the northern parts of the world are observed to be more fruitful of people than the hotter countries. Poured never, a very proper word to express the inundations of these northern nations. [See below 1. 770. London doth pour out her citizens.' Shaksp.] From her frozen loins is the Scripture expression of children and descendants coming out of the loins, as Gen. xxxv. 11. 'Kings shall come out of thy loins.' Rhene or the Danaw, for the Rhine and the Danube, the one from the Latin, the other from the German. Her barbarous sons, truly so; for besides exercising several cruelties, they destroyed all the monuments of learning and politeness wherever they came. They were the Goths, the Huns, and Vandals, who overrun all the southern provinces of Europe, and, crossing the Mediterranean beneath Gibraltar, landed in Africa, and spread themselves as far as the sandy country of Libya. Beneath Gibraltar, i. e. more southerly, the north being uppermost in the globe.' N.

Though of their names in heavenly records now
Be no memorial, blotted out and rased

By their rebellion from the books of life.

Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve

364

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

370

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

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

375

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,

363. book of life, Bentley: as in Revel. xx. 12.

370. Rom. i. 23. 'Changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.'

372. religions, religious rites: as in Latin: Cic. de Leg. i. 15. 'Non solum in homines obsequia, sed etiam in deos cæremoniæ religionesque tolluntur.'

376. their names then known: not being those which they had in their state of innocence. Milton had doubtless in view Homer's catalogue of ships, and Virgil's list of warriors. (En. vii. 37. 641.)' ADDISON.

who first, who last: Hom. Il. E. 703. ἔνθα τίνα πρῶτον, τίνα δ' vσTEρov ¿evάρike "EKтwρ; II. 692. Virg. Æn. xi. 664. Quem telo primum, quem postremum, aspera virgo, Dejicis?'

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;
Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud

380

385

390

384. This expression alludes to Ezekiel xliii. 8. 'In their setting of their threshold by my thresholds, and their post by my poststhey have even defiled my holy name,' &c.' CowPER.

386. The ark was placed between two golden cherubim : 1 Kings vi. 23. 2 Kings xix. 15. O Lord God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubim.' See also Exod. xxv. 22.

388. This is complained of by the prophet Jeremiah, vii. 30. For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the Lord; they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.' And we read of Manasseh, 2 Kings xxi. 4. 5. that, He built altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord said, In Jerusalem will I put my name: And he built altars for all the host of Heaven, in the two courts of the house of the Lord.' See also Ezek. vii. 20. viii. 5. 6.

391. affront: from the Italian affrontare, to meet face to face, an impudent braving.' RICHARDSON.

392. Moloch, or Molech, or Milcom, is called the abomination of the children of Ammon,' 1 Kings xi. 7. 2 Kings xxiii. 13. See also Levit. xviii. 21. xx. 2. Deut. xviii. 10. Jerem. xxxii. 35. Amos v. 25. The Hebrew word is of nearly the same import as that of Baal, implying dominion and kingly superiority. This idol is supposed by some to be the same as Saturn, to whom the heathens sacrificed their children, and by others to be the Sun.' N.

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

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

396

400

405

397. Rabba, Rabbah, or Rabbath, the capital city of the Ammonites, taken by David, and styled the city of waters,' 2 Sam. xii. 27. Deut. iii. 11. It was situated on the river Jabbok.

398. Argob and Basan, or Bashan, neighbouring countries, and subject to the Ammonites, whose boundary to the south was Arnon. Deut. iii. 12.

401. Solomon built a temple to Moloch on the Mount of Olives, 1 Kings xi. 7. therefore called that opprobrious hill; and high places and sacrifices were made to him in the pleasant valley of Hinnom, Jer. vii. 31., which lay south-east of Jerusalem, and was called likewise Tophet, 2 Kings xxiii. 10. from the Hebrew Toph, a drum; druins 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 (Mark ix. 45.), made the name and type of Hell, by reason of the fire that was kept up there to Moloch, and of the horrid groans and outcries of human sacrifices.' N.

406. Chemos, or Chemosh, the idol of the Moabites: Numb. xxi. 29. Judges xi. 24. 'Some interpreters take Chemosh for the Sun; others for Bacchus; others for Thammuz, or the Adonis of the Assyrians; by which, Macrobius says, is meant the Sun.' MASSEY. 407. Aroer, a city upon the river Arnon, the boundary of the Moabites to the north, afterwards belonging to the tribe of Gad.