Rofe like an exhalation, with the found
Of dulcet fymphonies and voices sweet,
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 fculptures 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 stage by the famous Inigo Jones. In one of Charles the firft's Sunday Mafks, I find a reprefentation of the kind which here deferves to be cited: "In the further part of the fcene, the earth open'd; and there ROSE UP a richlyadorned PALLACE, feeming all of goldfmiths-work, with porticos vaulted, on pillafters of ruftick work; their bafes 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 Mask, 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 fweet, 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

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 strove
In wealth and luxury. The afcending pile
Stood fix'd her stately highth: and straight the
doors,

720

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 worfe; because Alcairo is a modern name, and not fit to join with Belus or Serapis. BENTLEY.

And, in Prudentius,

Ver. 720. Belus or Sérapis,] There are authorities, which may serve 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."

"Ifis enim et Serăpis, &c." PEARCE.

Ver. 723. Stood fix'd her fately highth:] This is a Greek conftruction. The meaning is, that the building stood 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 construction with her ample spaces. 483. "Apparet domus intus, et atria longa patefcunt."

So Virgil, Æn. ii.

NEWTON.

Ibid.

ample Spaces,] A beautiful Latinism, Sa Seneca, defcribing the descent 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 subtle 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.

and blazing creffets, fed

With Naphtha &c.] A cresset is any great blazing light, as a beacon. 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.

Ver. 728.

Shakspeare alfo ufes the word creffet, 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 cresset 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 cryftal battlements: from morn

of Dominations, (Avá) Princedoms, (Kupiors) 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 fpeaking 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, Hephaftos, Vulcan, and Mulciber, the laft only of which defigning the office of a founder, he has very judiciously chofen that. WARBURTON.

Ver. 740.

and how he fell

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 Odyssey, where Ulyffes describes 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,

Ver. 742.

Δύσε]ο τὸ ἠέλιος, καὶ με γλυκὺς ὕπνος ἀνήκει. NEWTON. “The cryftall battlements of heauen," is a phrase 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 setting fun
Dropt from the zenith like a falling star,
On Lemnos the 'gean 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

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

κατήριπε δ ̓ ἐς μέλαν ὕδως

̓Αθόος, ὡς ὅτε πυῤῥος ἀπ ̓ οὐρανοῦ ἤριπεν ἀτὴς
̓Αθρόος ἐς πόντον. Topp.

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

Ver. 746. On Lemnos the E'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 tranflation 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.

Ver. 748.

Iliad v. 53.

750

̓Αλλ ̓ ἔ οἱ τότε γὲ χραῖσμο ̓́Αρλεμις ἰοχέαιρα,
Οὐδὲ ἑκηβολίας.

PEARCE.

nor aught avail'd him now &c.] Homer,

And fee Virgil, En. xi. 843. NEWTON.

Ver. 750. engines,] Devices, contrivances; as in Fairfax's Taffo, B. v. ft. 15.

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