Rofe like an exhalation, with the found
Of dulcet fymphonies and voices fweet,
Built like a temple, where pilafters round
Were fet, and Dorick pillars overlaid
With golden architrave; nor did there want 715
Cornice or freeze, with boffy sculptures graven :

Ver. 711. Rofe like an exhalation,] The fudden rifing of Pandemonium is fuppofed, and with great probability, by Peck, to be a hint taken from fome of the moving fcenes, and machines, invented for the ftage by the famous Inigo Jones. In one of Charles the firft's Sunday Masks, I find a representation of the kind which here deferves to be cited: "In the further part of the scene, the earth open'd; and there ROSE UP a richlyadorned PALLACE, feeming all of goldfmiths-work, with porticos vaulted, on pillasters of ruftick work; their bases and capitels of gold.-Above these ran an architrave freese, and coronis of the fame; the freefe enrich'd with jewels.-When this pallace was arriv'd to the hight, the whole fcene was chang'd into a periftilium of two orders, Dorick and Ionick, &c." The Mafk, in which this machinery was difplayed, was acted at Whitehall on the Sunday after Twelfth-night in 1637. See The Stage Condemn'd, 8vo. Lond. 1698, pp. 12, 25. TODD.

Ver. 712. Of dulcet Symphonies and voices fweet,] Dulcet and Sweet, though fynonimous, are thus employed together by Spenfer, Faer. Qu. iii. i. 40.

"And all the while fweet birdes thereto applide
"Their daintie lays and dulcet melody." TODD.

Ver. 713.

—where pilafters round &c.] See the note on ver, 711. And thus Spenfer, defcribing the bridge that leads to the temple of Venus, Faer. Qu. iv. x. 6.

"And, arched all with porches, did arize

"On ftately pillars fram'd after the Doricke guize."

And Shakspeare, Cymbeline, A. ii. S. iv.

"the roof o' the chamber

"With golden cherubim is fretted." TODD

720

The roof was fretted gold. Not Babylon,
Nor great Alcairo, fuch magnificence
Equall'd in all their glories, to enshrine
Belus or Sérapis, their Gods; or feat
Their kings, when Egypt with Affyria ftrove
In wealth and luxury. The afcending pile
Stood fix'd her stately highth: and straight the
doors,

Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide
Within, her ample spaces, o'er the smooth 725

Ver. 717.

Not Babylon, &c.] He had challenged Babylon and Memphis, v. 694; and now, as quite forgetful, he reiterates it, Babylon and Alcairo: This latter the worse; because Alcairo is a modern name, and not fit to join with Belus or Serapis. BENTLEY.

Ver. 720. Belus or Sérapis,] There are authorities, which may ferve to juftify in Milton this departure from the claffical accent upon the fecond fyllable of Serápis ; for we read in Martianus Capella,

"Te Serăpin Nilus &c."

And, in Prudentius,

"Ifis enim et Serăpis, &c." PEARCE.

Ver. 723. Stood fix'd her ftately highth:] This is a Greek conftruction. The meaning is, that the building ftood firm along the whole of its height, or it stood now firm and complete in all its parts. CALLANDER.

Ver. 725. Within,] An adverb here, and not a prepofition; and therefore Milton puts a comma after it, that it may not be joined in conftruction with her ample spaces. So Virgil, En. ii, 483. "Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patefcunt."

NEWTON.

Ibid. ample Spaces,] A beautiful Latinifm, Sa Seneca, defcribing the defcent of Hercules into Hell, Herc. Fur, iii. 673.

"Hinc ampla vacuis Spatia laxantur locis." THYER.

730

And level pavement: from the arched roof
Pendant by fubtle magick many a row
Of starry lamps and blazing creffets, fed
With Naphtha and Asphaltus, yielded light
As from a fky. The hafty multitude
Admiring enter'd; and the work fome praise,
And fome the architect: his hand was known
In Heaven by many a tower'd structure high,
Where fcepter'd Angels held their refidence,
And fat as princes; whom the fupreme King 735
Exalted to fuch power, and gave to rule,
Each in his hierarchy, the orders bright.

Ver. 728.

With

and blazing creffets, fed Naphtha &c.] A creffet is any great blazing Naphtha is of fo unctuous and fiery a nature, that it kindles at approaching the fire, or the fun-beams. Afphaltus or bitumen, another pitchy fubftance. RICHARDSON.

light, as a beacon.

Shakspeare also uses the word cresset, Hen. iv. Part i. A. iii. Glendower fpeaks:

"At my nativity

"The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,

"Of burning creffets." NEWTON.

The word is derived from the French croiffette, according to Sir Thomas Hanmer; becaufe the beacons, anciently had crosses on the top of them. In Sylvefter's Du Bartas, 1621, p. 74, the ftars are called "the heaven's bright creffets." In Golding's tranflation of Ovid's Metamorphofes, 1575, Shakspeare's combination occurs in the fourth book: "A burning creffet steept in blood." But there a creffet is a torch. TODD.

Ver. 737. Hierarchy,] This word fignifies facred principality: According to the writer of the book concerning the celestial hierarchy, falfely attributed to Dionyfius the Areopagite, the angelick world is divided into three orders. The first contains, Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; the next order is made up

Nor was his name unheard, or unador'd,

In ancient Greece; and in Aufonian land
Men call'd him Mulciber; and how he fell 740
From Heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn

of Dominations, (Avάus) Princedoms, (Kuples) Powers, (a.) Under the third, and loweft order are ranged, Principalities, (apxas) Archangels, and Angels. It would feem evident, that Milton had fome view to this arrangement, in his dif tinction of the orders of angels through all his work. Dionyf. Areop. Пp pav. papx. cap. vi. et vii. CALLAnder.

Ver. 738. Nor was his name unheard,] Dr. Bentley fays, "This is carelefly expreffed. Why does he not tell his name in Greece, as well as his Latin name? and Mulciber was not fo common a name as Vulcan." I think it is very exactly expreffed. Milton is here speaking of a Devil exercising the founder's art ; and fays he was not unknown in Greece and Italy. The poet has his choice of three names to tell us what they called him in the claffick world, Hephæftos, Vulcan, and Mulciber, the last only of which defigning the office of a founder, he has very judiciously WARBURTON.

chofen that.

From Heaven, &c.] Alluding to Homer, Iliad i. 590, &c. It is worth obferving how Milton lengthens out the time of Vulcan's fall. He not only fays 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 fummer's day. There is a fimilar paffage in the Odyffry, where Ulyffes defcribes. his fleeping twenty-four hours together, and, to make the time feem the longer, divides it into feveral parts, and points them out diftinctly to us, Odyf. vii. 288.

Εἶδον παννύχιος, καὶ ἐπ ̓ ἐῶ, καὶ μέσον ἦμαρ,

Δύσελο τ' ηέλιος, και με γλυκὺς ὕπνος ἀνήκεν. NEWTON.

Ver. 742. "The cryftall battlements of heauen," is a phrafe in R. Niccols's "England's Eliza," Mir. for Mag. 1610, p. 835; as alfo in the Mirour, p. 688. TODD.

745

To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A fummer's day; and with the fetting fun
Dropt from the zenith like a falling star,
On Lemnos the Ægean ifle: thus they relate,
Erring; for he with this rebellious rout
Fell long before; nor aught avail'd him now
To have built in Heaven high towers; nor did
he 'scape

750

By all his engines, but was headlong sent
With his induftrious crew to build in Hell.
Mean while the winged heralds, by command

Ver. 745. The fimile is probably adopted from Theocritus, Idyll. xiii. 49.

κατήριπε δ' ἐς μέλαν ὕδωρ

̓Αθρόος, ὡς ὅτι πυρος ἀπ ̓ οὐρανοῦ ἤριπεν ἀτὴς

̓Αθρόος ἐς πόντον. TODD.

Ver. 746. On Lemnos the

'gean ile:]

So he pronounces

Egean in Par. Reg. B. iv. 238. Fairfax led the way to this manner of pronouncing the word, or rather to this poetical liberty; for in his translation of Tasso, C. i. 60, he says,

"O'er Ægean feas, through many a Greekish hold."

Again, c. xii. ft. 63.

"As Egean feas, &c. PEARCE.

"'Gainft him yet vain did all her engins prove." BOWLE. Ver. 752. Mean while the winged heralds,] Haralds, in Milton's own cditions; which he fpells, according to Richardson,