466 Betwixt the angelical and human kind. 470 Ver. 463. Hither of ill-join'd fons &c.] He means the fons of God ill-join'd with the daughters of men, alluding to that text of Scripture, Gen. vi. 4. "There were giants in the earth in those days, and alfo after that, when the fons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them; the fame became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown:" where by the fons of God, fome Fathers and Commentators have understood Angels, as if the Angels had been enamoured and married to women: but the true meaning is, that the pofterity of Seth and other patriarchs, who were worshippers of the true God, and therefore called the Sons of God, intermarried with the idolatrous pofterity of wicked Cain. NEWTON. Ver. 467. Of Sennaar,] Or Shinar; for they are both the fame name for this province of Babylonia. But Milton follows the Vulgate, as he frequently does in the names of places. NEWTON. Ver. 471. Empedocles ;] The fcholar of Pythagoras, a poet and philofopher of Sicily, who, ftealing one night from his followers, threw himself into Etna; that, being no where to be found, he might be esteemed to be a god, and to be taken up into heaven; but his iron pattens, being thrown out by the fury of the burning mountain, discovered his defeated ambition, and ridiculed his folly. HUME. Empedocles occurs, among other Sages, in Dante's Limbo, Inf. C. iv. 138, which probably Milton here remembered. TODD. 474 Plato's Elyfium, leap'd into the sea, Cleombrotus; and many more too long, Embryos, and idiots, eremites, and friars White, black, and gray, with all their trumpery. Here pilgrims roam, that stray'd fo far to feek In Golgotha him dead, who lives in Heaven; Ver. 473. Cleombrotus;] A youth of Ambracia, a city of Epirus in Greece, who, having read over Plato's book of the foul's immortality and happiness in another life, was fo ravished with the account of it, that he leaped from a high wall into the fea, that he might immediately enjoy it. NEWTON. Ibid. and many more too long,] It seems as if a line were, by mistake of the printer, left out here; for, as Dr. Bentley obferves, this phrafe is deficiently expreffed. Besides Milton had been mentioning those who came fingle; and therefore he could not fall upon the mention of embryos, idiots, eremites, and friars, without fome other verfe interpofed, which should finish the account of thofe who came fingle, and contain a verb for the nominative cafes embryos, and idiots; which at prefent is wanting. PEARCE. A very ingenious perfon questions whether Milton, by this appearance of inaccuracy and negligence, did not defign to exprefs his contempt of their trumpery, as he calls it, by hustling it all together in this disorder and confufion. There is the fame artful negligence in Par. Reg. B. ii. 182, &c. NEWTON. However deficiently or contemptuously the phrafe may be thought to be expreffed, it bears a refemblance to that of Ovid, Faft. iv. 95. "Illa deos omnes (longum enumerare) creavit." TODD. Ver. 475. White, black, and gray,] The Carmelites, Dominicans, and Francifcans, who are thus diftinguished by Ariofto, Orl. Fur, c. xiv. ft. 68. "Frati, bianchi, neri, e bigi." See alfo C. xliii. ft. 175. "i bigi, i bianchi, i neri frati." TODD. 480 And they, who to be fure of Paradise, "So Ver. 478. This verse and the two following allude to a ridiculous opinion, that obtained in the dark ages of Popery; that, at the time of death, to be clothed in a friar's habit, was an infallible road to heaven. This fact is taken notice of by the anonymous author of Pafquine in a Traunce, 1584, fol. 15. grew in the mindes of the filly fimple foules, this wicked opinion of thefe monftrous-marked friers, that to weare their weede, or to go clothed in that colour, was good against the quartane ague, and other diseases; and (that worse is) that, to be buried in that habit, was the very right way to go to heaven." We further meet with a piece of history in Weever's Discourse of Funeral Monuments, 1621, p. 158, which fets this fact in a very clear light. "They [the friars] were wondrously enriched by the burials of great perfonages; for, in regard of burial, Abbeyes were most commonly preferred before other Churches whatsoever: And he that was buried therein in a frier's habite, if you will believe it, never came into hell." Buchanan, in his Francifcanus, expofes this fact in a pleasing fatire. And Dante places, in his Inferno, the Conte da Monte feltro, notwithstanding his having taken the habit of a Francifcan. BowLE. This ridiculous indulgence, which the Orders only of St. Dominick and St. Francis difpenfe, is alfo well expofed in Brevint's "Saul and Samuel at Endor," 1674, chap. xiv. TODD. Ver. 482. And that cryftalline Sphere &c.] He speaks here according to the ancient aftronomy, adopted and improved by Ptolemy. They pass the planets feven, our planetary or folar fyftem, and beyond this pafs the fir'd, the firmament or sphere of the fix'd ftars, and beyond this that cryftalline fphere, the cryftalline Heaven, clear as crystal, to which the Ptolemaicks attributed a fort of libration or fhaking (the trepidation fo much talked of) to account for certain irregularities in the motion of the stars, The trepidation talk'd, and that first moy'd; And now Saint Peter at Heaven's wicket seems To wait them with his keys, and now at foot 485 Of Heaven's afcent they lift their feet, when lo A violent crofs wind from either coast Blows them tranfverfe, ten thousand leagues awry and beyond this that first mov'd, the primum mobile, the sphere which was both the first moved and the first mover, communicating its motion to all the lower fpheres; and beyond this was the empyrean Heaven, the feat of God and the Angels. This paffage may receive fome further light and illustration from another of the fame nature in Taffo, where he defcribes the defcent of the Arch-Angel Michael from Heaven, and mentions this crystalline and all the other fpheres, but only inverting the order, as there the motion is downwards, and here it is upwards, Cant. ix. ft. 60, 61. Fairfax's tranflation: "Paffa il foco, e la luce, &c. 60. "He pafs'd the light, and shining fire affign'd "The glorious feat of his selected crew, "The mover firft, and circle cryftalline, "The firmament where fixed stars all shine. 61. "Unlike in working then in shape and show, "Since he errs not who them doth guide and move." And when our poet mentions St. Peter at Heaven's wicket with his keys, he certainly intends (as Mr. Thyer obferves) to ridicule the fond conceit of the Romanifts, that St. Peter and his fucceffours are in a particular manner entrusted with the keys of Heaven. And he makes ufe of the low phrafe of Heaven's wicket, the better to expose the notions of those whom he places here in the Paradife of Fools. NEWTON. Into the devious air: Then might ye fee The sport of winds: All these, upwhirl'd aloft, Ver. 489. Then might ye fee] Then might ye jee, is no more than "Then might be feen." It is very common among poets to talk thus to their readers. See Virgil, Æn, viii. 676. PEARCE. So Spenfer, Faer. Qu. iv. iv. 38. "There might ye fee loofe fteeds at random run." BOWLE. Ver. 493. The fport of winds:] Virgil, En. vi. 75. dibria ventis." HUME. "Lu Ver. 495. Into a Limbo large and broad,] The Limbus patrum, as it is called, is a place that the Schoolmen fuppofed to be in the neighbourhood of Hell, where the fouls of the patriarchs were detained, and those good men who died before our Saviour's refurrection. Our author gives the fame name to his Paradise of Fools, and more rationally places it beyond the buckfide of the world. NEWTON. Ver. 501. His travell'd steps :] His tired fteps, from the Italian travagliato. RICHARDSON. So, in his Tractate of Education, 1673, p. 113. "The interim of unfweating themfelves regularly, and convenient reft before meat, may, both with profit and delight, be taken up in re |