Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,

Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they choose,
Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,

Can execute their airy purposes,

And works of love or enmity fulfil.

For those the race of Israel oft forsook

430

Their living strength, and unfrequented left
His righteous altar, bowing lowly down

To bestial Gods; for which their heads as low
Bowed down in battle, sunk before the spear
Of despicable foes. With these in troop
Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians called
Astarte, queen of Heaven, with crescent horns;
To whose bright image nightly by the moon
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs,
In Sion also not unsung, where stood

430. Can execute their airy purposes.] Observe the lightness of this line, as compared with three or four that go before it. The word airy has much the same effect in lightening the verse in 1. 741. Book III. These two lines, 430-431., smack very much of our sage and serious poet Spenser." 433. Their living strength.] To forsake is to cease to seek. "Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his face evermore."-Psalm cv. 4.

46

435-437. For which their heads as low.] This is a favourite doctrine with Milton, and not without reason. He has given it with poetic glow in one of the most interesting of his prose works. "Know that to be free, is the same thing as to be pious, to be wise, to be temperate and just, to be frugal and abstinent, and lastly, to be magnanimous and brave; so, to be the opposite of all these, is the same as to be a slave; and it usually happens, by the appointment, and, as it were, retributive justice of the Deity, that the people which cannot govern themselves and moderate their passions, but crouch under the slavery of their lusts, should be delivered up to the sway of those whom they abhor, and made to submit to an involuntary servitude."-Second Defence of the People of England.

438. Ashtaroth, or Astoreth, is the

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name of a goddess of the Sidonians (1 Kings, xi. 5. 33.), and also of the Philistines (1 Sam. xxxi. 10.), whose worship was introduced among the Israelites during the period of the judges (Judg. ii. 13.; 1 Sam. vii. 4.), was celebrated by Solomon himself (1 Kings, xi. 5.), and was finally put down by Josiah (2 Kings, xxiii. 13.). She is frequently mentioned in connection with Baal, as the corresponding female divinity (Judg. ii. 13.); and from the addition of the words " and all the host of heaven," in 2 Kings, xxiii. 4., it is probable that she represented one of the celestial bodies. There is also reason to believe that she is meant by the "queen of heaven," in Jer. vii. 18.; xliv. 17., whose worship is there said to have been solemnised by burning incense, pouring libations, and offering cakes. Further, by comparing the two passages, 2 Kings, xxiii. 4., and Jer. viii. 2., which last speaks of the "sun and moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they served," we may conclude that the moon was worshipped under the names of queen of heaven and of Ashtoreth, provided the connection between these titles is established. This constitutes nearly the sum of all the indications in the Old Testament concerning Ashtoreth. -KITTO's Cyclopædia.

Her temple on th' offensive mountain, built

By that uxorious king, whose heart, though large,
Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell

To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind,

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer's day,
While smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale
Infected Sion's daughters with like heat;
Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch
Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led,
His eye surveyed the dark idolatries
Of alienated Judah. Next came one

Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark
Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopt off
In his own temple, on the grunsel edge,
Where he fell flat, and shamed his worshippers;
Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man
And downward fish: yet had his temple high

Sil

446-457. Thammuz, or Tammuz, a Syrian deity, for whom the Hebrew idolatresses were accustomed to hold an annual lamentation (Ezek. viii. 14.). This idol was the same with the Phoenician Adon or Adonis, and the feast itself such as they celebrated. vestre de Sacy thinks that the name Tammuz was of foreign origin, and probably Egyptian, as well as the god by whom it was borne. In fact, it would probably not be difficult to identify him with Osiris, from whose worship his differed only in accessories. The feast held in honour of Tammuz was solstitial, and commenced with the new moon of July, in the month also called Tammuz. It consisted of two parts, the one consecrated to lamentation, and the other to joy. In the days of grief, they mourned the disappearance of the god, and the days of gladness celebrated his discovery and return. Thammuz, or Adonis, is also the name of a river in Phoenicia, on the banks of which the youth is supposed to have been killed. At certain

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460

seasons of the year the river acquires a red colour by the rains washing up particles of red earth. This was supposed to be in sympathy for the death of Adonis, and the season was observed as a festival.--See KITTO and BRANDE.

460. Grunsel edge.] i. e. groundsel edge-the threshold of the gate of the temple.

462. Dagon is the name of the national god of the Philistines, at Gaza and Ashdod. The idol appears to have had the body of a fish, with the head and hands of a man. "The origin, attributes, and even the sex of this divinity, are all wrapt in the most profound obscurity; but the sacred writers agree in assigning to him such a degree of authority as must place him on a level with the Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans. The reverence in which he was held by the Philistines, and the remarkable circumstances attending his downfall, will be found fully detailed in Judges, chap. xvi., and 1 Samuel, chap. v."-BRANDE's Dictionary, &c.

Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast
Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon,
And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds.
Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat
Was fair Damascus on the fertile banks
Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams.
He also against the house of God was bold:
A leper once he lost, and gained a king,
Ahaz, his sottish conqueror, whom he drew
God's altar to disparage, and displace
For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn
His odious offerings, and adore the Gods

464. Azotus is the Ashdod of Scripture. The city was assigned to the tribe of Judah in the division of the Promised Land, but occupied by the Philistines, and reckoned as one of their five principal cities, where was the chief seat of the worship of Dagon. Gath, another of the same, not far from Azotus. Gaza is celebrated for the exploit recorded of Samson (Judg. xvi. 1-3.), "who took the doors of the gate and the two posts, and went away with them, bar and all, and carried them up to the top of a hill that is before Hebron." The Philistines afterwards took Samson, and put out his eyes, and brought him to Gaza, and bound him with fetters of brass, and he did grind in the prison-house; he, however, pulled down the temple of Dagon, god of the Philistines, and slew, together with himself, "all the lords of the Philistines," besides men and women. -KITTO. It is on this subject that Milton has founded his noble tragedy of Samson Agonistes one of his latest productions, but still characterised by the fervour of his genius. The other cities, Ascalon and Accaron, or Ekron, are all in the same district, and need not be here more particularly described.

467. Whose delightful seat was fair Damascus, &c.] Damascus (the Dammesek of Scripture) is at the foot of the range of Anti-Libanus, in a beautiful and extensive plain, watered by the Bardines, or Chrysorrhoas, and its branches. This river is thought to

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475

Da

Da

be the Parphar of the Bible.
mascus is one of the most ancient
cities in the world, and existed as early
as the days of Abraham; and though
often taken and devastated, it has
always risen again and flourished.
Under Diocletian, several manufac-
tories of arms were established here;
and it probable that the high repu-
tation to which it afterwards attained
for its sword-blades may have had its
first foundations laid in this arrange-
ment of the Roman emperor.
mascus was also made at this time a
general depôt for munitions of war, and
a military post against the inroads of
the eastern nations. Under Julian it
became a magnificent city; and in the
seventh century it was for some time
the seat of the caliphs. All modern
travellers speak of its delightful situa-
tion. The natives call it Es-Sham,
or Syria, according to the practice of
designating the chief town by the
name of the country itself.-HUGHES'S
Scripture Geography.

"Milton's learning has all the effect of intuition. He describes objects of which he could only have read in books with the vividness of actual observation. His imagination has the force of nature. He makes words tell as pictures.

'Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat
Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks
Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams.'
The word lucid here gives to the idea
all the sparkling effect of the most
perfect landscape."- HAZLITT'S Lec-
tures on the English Poets.

Whom he had vanquished. After these appeared

A crew, who, under names of old renown,

Osiris, Iris, Orus, and their train,

With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused
Fanatic Egypt and her priests, to seek

480

Their wand'ring Gods, disguised in brutish forms
Rather than human. Nor did Israel 'scape

Th' infection, when their borrowed gold composed
The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king
Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan,
Likening his Maker to the grazéd ox,
Jehovah, who in one night, when he passed
From Egypt marching, equalled with one stroke
Both her first-born and all her bleating Gods.
Belial came last, than whom a Spirit more lewd
Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love

478. Osiris was the great Egyptian divinity, and husband of Isis. He was venerated under the forms of the sacred bulls, Apis and Mnevis, or as a human figure with a bull's head, distinguished by the name of Apis-Osiris. Isis was the goddess of the earth, which the Egyptians called their mother, and she and Osiris were the only divinities that were worshipped by all the Egyptians. Orus, or Horus, the son of these two, was another of the gods of Egypt; and from the great number of them, and their horrid figures, Milton applies the term "fanatic" to Egypt the word, coming from fanum, a temple, means one who frequents temples unnecessarily. Facciolati, under the word fanaticus, says, "Proprie dicebatur de iis, qui circa fana bacchari et vaticinari solent."

490. Belial came last.] In processions the last place is the place of honour, and Belial's rank among the fallen angels, as well as his pre-eminence in wickedness, he loved vice for itself,-entitles him to occupy it. Belial is formed from two Hebrew words, meaning nothingness or not, and utility or advantage. Hence Belial means a wicked, worthless, and unprofitable fellow. A man of Belial, or a son of Belial, a daughter of Belial, means, in the Bible, a wicked person,

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490

and is so used by Milton in 1. 501 Belial, if emphatically used, means the worst of spirits. Thus, in that passage, "What concord hath Christ with Belial?"-2 Cor. vi. 15.

Than whom.] "Than" is generally a conjunction, and in this case it will take a nominative or objective after it indifferently, but with a difference of meaning, as in the sentences, "The king loves him better than me," and "the king loves him better than I." But unless "than" be allowed to be a preposition here, I know not how whom can be accounted for. Shakspeare is indefensibly wrong in his use of "than" with an objective after it, in the following passage:"Know you before whom you are, Sir?" “Ay, better than him I am before, knows me."

Lewd.] "That lewd' which meant, at one time, no more than 'lay' or unlearned,- the lewd people, the unlearned people,-should signify the sinful, the vicious, is not a little worthy of note. How forcibly are we reminded here of that saying of the Pharisees of old: "This people which knoweth not the law, is accursed." How much of their spirit must have been at work before the word could have acquired this secondary meaning!"-TRENCH's Study of Words.

Vice for itselt: to him no temple stood,
Or altar smoked; yet who more oft than he
In temples and at altars, when the priest
Turns atheist, as did Eli's sons, who filled
With lust and violence the house of God?
In courts and palaces he also reigns,
And in luxurious cities, where the noise
Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers,
And injury and outrage; and, when night
Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons
Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.
Witness the streets of Sodom, and that night
In Gibeah, when the hospitable door
Exposed a matron to avoid worse rape.
These were the prime in order and in might;
The rest were long to tell, though far renowned;
Th' Ionian Gods, of Javan's issue held
Gods, yet confessed later than Heaven and Earth,
Their boasted parents: Titan, Heaven's first-born,
With his enormous brood, and birthright seized
By younger Saturn; he from mightier Jove
His own and Rhea's son like measure found;
So Jove usurping reigned: these first in Crete
And Ida known, thence on the snowy top

493. Yet who more oft than he.] i. e. yet who is more oft than he in, &c. 501. Then wander forth the sons of Belial.] To understand this allusion, and the few following lines, let the student read the 19th and 20th chaps. of Judges. They display a fearful state of society, and cannot be read without a feeling of horror.

502. Flown with insolence and wine.] "Flown

seems here to be used in the sense of "flushed" or "overflowing," or "having too much of;" and "insolence" in its Latin sense of lust or carnal desire, as opposed to "continentia," the proper restraint of one's passions.

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508-521. The Ionian Gods, &c.] Javan, the fourth son of Japhet and grandson of Noah (Gen. x.), is supposed to have settled in the south-west part of Asia Minor, about Ionia. His descendants were the Ionians and Grecians, and the principal of their gods were Heaven and Earth: Titan was their eldest son; he was father of

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515

the Giants, and his empire was seized by his younger brother Saturn, as Saturn's was by Jupiter, son of Saturn and Rhea. These first were known in the island Crete, now Candia, in which is Mount Ida, where Jupiter is said to have been born; thence passed over into Greece, and resided on Mount Olympus, in Thessaly, which mountain afterwards became the name of Heaven among their worshippers; or on the Delphian cliff, Parnassus, whereon was seated the city Delphi, famous for the temple and oracle of Apollo; or in Dodona, a city and wood (in Epirus) sacred to Jupiter; and through all the bounds of Doric land, i.e. of Greece, of which Doris was a part; or fled over Adria, the Adriatic, to the Hesperian fields, to Italy; and o'er the Celtic, France, and the other countries overrun by the Celts; roamed the utmost isles, Great Britain, Ireland, the Orkneys, Thule or Iceland, ultima Thule, as it is called, the utmost boundary of the world."-NEWTON.