Exod. xx. 18, and 1 Thess. iv. 16.

74-76. "heard in Oreb," &c. (Hume.)

84-98. "O Sons," &c. In this speech Milton has in view Gen. iii.

22-24.

86. "defended": forbidden, as in French, défendu.

91-93. "longer than they move, his heart I know," &c. The meaning is, " Except while these motions of mine move him, I know how variable and vain his heart is, being then self-left.”

99. "Michael," &c. Bishop Newton has pointed out that there is a poetical fitness in the selection of Michael for this errand-first, because Michael was the Archangel of Severity, who had already been sent to execute similar justice on the rebel Angels; and, secondly, because less has been heard hitherto of this Archangel, in the main story of the poem, than of Uriel, Gabriel, and Raphael.

128-133.

"Four faces each," &c. Ezek. x. 12-14. The "Arcadian pipe" is the shepherd's pipe with which Hermes, or Mercury, charmed to sleep the hundred-eyed Argus, employed by Juno to watch Io; the "opiate rod" is the caduceus or wand of Mercury, which had the power of sending to sleep.

133-135. "Meanwhile," &c. Here begins the last day of the action of the poem.

135. "Leucothea": the "Bright Goddess" of the Greeks, identified by the Romans with their Matuta, the Morning-goddess.

157, 158. "the bitterness of death is past." 1 Sam. xv. 32. (Newton.) 159. "Eve rightly called," &c. Gen. iii. 20. Bishop Newton's note on the passage is, "He called her before Ishah, Woman, because she was taken out of Ish, Man (VIII. 496); but he now denominates her Eve or Havah, from a Hebrew word which signifies to live." But she has already been called Eve in the poem by Milton himself.

185-189. "The bird of Fove," the Eagle, "stooped"-a term of falconry, thus explained: "stooping is when a hawk, being upon her wings at the highest of her pitch, bendeth violently down to strike the fowl." -"Tour," either for "tower" or in our present sense of "wheeling motion."—"the beast that reigns in woods": the lion.-Milton, in introducing these omens, has imitated Virgil and other classical poets; but it may be noted how exactly he has made the omens chosen foreshow what is to follow. The "two birds" of line 186, and the "gentle brace, hart and hind," of lines 188, 189, typify the human pair.

193. "further;" spelt "furder" in the original editions.

205. "yon western cloud." This implies that Michael approaches Paradise on its western side; which, as Mr. Keightley notes, is the more fit because he had to expel Adam and Eve on the eastern side.

210. "halt" again spelt "alt" in the original text, as at VI. 532. 213-215. "Not that. in Mahanaim," &c. Gen. xxxii. 1—2. 216-220. Nor that. in Dothan," &c. 2 Kings vi. 13-17.

.

231, 232. "Potentate, or of the Thrones" i.e. either one of those high Spirits who sit on Thrones in Heaven, or perhaps even a Potentate among these.

242, 243. "Melibaan," from Melibœa, a city in Thessaly.-"grain of Sarra": the purple of Tyre, named Sar after the name of the shell-fish from which the dye was procured. See note, V. 285.-" Sarrano indormiat ostro" is a phrase of Virgil's (Georg. II. 506), quoted by

Hume.

259-262. "But longer," &c. Observe that Michael, in delivering his message, repeats the exact words of the Almighty-(see antè, lines 48 and 97, 98). This is in accordance with the well-known practice in Homer.

264. "Heart-strook." See note, II. 165.

270. "native soil." Eve may say so, Hume notes, as having been created in Paradise; but Adam was created outside of Paradise, and brought into it.

280. "Thee, lastly, nuptial bower." Suggested, Todd thinks, by the passage in the Alcestis of Euripides (249 et seq.) where Alcestis, from the palace platform, looks her last on the scenes around her

Γαϊά τε, καὶ μελάθρων στέγαι,
Νυμφίδιαί τε κοῖται

Πατρίας Ιωλκοῦ.

:

296, 297. "Thrones," &c.
"Thrones," &c. See lines 231, 232, and note.

316. "from his face I shall be hid." Gen. iv. 14. (Gillies.)

324. "turf;" spelt "terfe" in the original text.

66

325, 326. in memory or monument to ages." Bentley asks "What's the difference of memorial and monument, that or must separate them?" and he proposes to read a for or; but by "memory" Adam may mean a mark by which he himself may remember.

332, 333. "skirts of glory." Exod. xxxiii. 22, 23. (Newton.)

336. "Not this," &c. This line is peculiar, as having a distinct syllable of over-measure.

66

356-358. "I am sent," &c. Dan. x. 14. (Todd.)

369. "slept'st;" in the original " slepst."

385-411. "His eye... El Dorado." In this splendid geographical survey there is a certain order :-(1) Lines 387-395, the eye sweeps

It begins

eastward in a wide circuit over what is in the main ASIA. with the vast central region, from the Arctic sea southwards to the confines of China and the heart of Asia, known in Milton's time as Tartary (now divided between the Chinese and Russian Empires), and there singles out the sites of two future cities-Genghis Khan's reputed great capital of Cambalu, in the province of Cathay, to the west of the great Chinese wall, and Tamerlane's original tent of Samarcand, much more to the west, in the heart of what is now Independent Tartary, and considerably to the north of the river Oxus. Thence it stretches to China in the extreme east, represented by its capital Paquin or Pekin. Thence it returns by the Indian countries in the south of Asia, singling out as representative sites there Agra and Lahore, in northern Hindostan, both celebrated cities of the Mogul monarchs, and glancing at the still more eastern Indies as far as the golden Chersonese, or the peninsula of Malacca. It concludes the circuit with a glance at the more western dominions of Asia-Persia, with its successive capitals of Ecbatana and Ispahan, Russia or Moscovia, with its capital Moscow (considered as belonging to Asia in the early part of the seventeenth century, and so included in the maps of Asia of that period), and Turkey, with its capital Byzantium or Constantinople. (2) Next, AFRICA comes into view, lines 396-404. Here first appears Abyssinia, the Emperor of which is called Negus' in the native Ethiopic language, and the northernmost port of which on the Red sea is Ercoco (Arkecko in modern maps). Then are seen the "less maritime," i.e. smaller maritime, kingdoms of the east coast-Mombaza, Quiloa, Melinda (names still in our maps, north and south of Zanzibar), and Sofala (still farther south, in the Mozambique channel, and thought by some to be the Ophir whence Solomon fetched his gold). So round the Cape to the states of Congo and Angola on the opposite coast of the Continent, Angola being the southernmost of these two; and finally thence, by the Niger, to the Atlas mountains, with the Barbary States on the northern margin of Africa, once included in the vast dominions of Al-Mansur (the second of the Abbaside Khalifs)-towns or divisions of which, taken indiscriminately, are Fez, Sus (Susa or Tunis), Morocco, Algiers, and Tremisen (Tlemsin in West Algeria ?) (3) EUROPE is then merely glanced at, lines 405, 406, as concentrated all in all in Rome. (4) But perhaps it was given to Adam, in spirit, to see not only the hemisphere of the Earth on which he was, but also AMERICA beyond the Atlantic, lines 406-411. If so, his eye would rest chiefly on-Mexico, the capital of the native Mexican Emperor Montezuma, whom Cortes conquered; Cusco, the capital of Peru, whose last native ruler, Atabalipa, was conquered by Pizarro; and the great country of Guiana in the north of South America, as yet uninvaded by Geryon's sons (the Spaniards, so called from Geryon, a fabulous early King of Spain) in their persevering quest after its inland city of supposed infinite wealth, which they called El Dorado.--In this whole passage, as in others, Milton shows not only his geographical

knowledge-remarkably accurate for one who had to depend only on his recollection of maps-but also his delight in what may be called the poetry of proper names. Most great poets have had the same delight in such strings of proper names, selected partly for their historical and poetical associations, and partly for the music of their sound; but Milton had it pre-eminently.

411. "to," for "in order to."

412. "Michael from Adam's eyes the film removed." So, as Hume noted, in the Iliad (v. 127) Minerva clears the sight of Diomede, and in the Encid (II. 604) Venus that of Æneas. In Tasso's Ger. Lib. (XVIII. 93), as Newton noted, the Archangel Michael does the same for Godfrey, to enable him to see the Angelic army aiding him,

414. "euphrasy and rue." Euphrasy, popularly called "eye-bright," was supposed to have a specific effect in clearing the sight; and among the medicinal virtues attributed to rue-which was called "herb of grace" (Richard II., III. 4, and Hamlet, IV. 5) was also that of strengthening the eyes. Both were used for the purpose, either internally or as local applications; and Milton may have had experience of them in his own case. Shenstone celebrates Euphrasy in his Schoolmistress:

"Yet Euphrasy may not be left unsung,

That gives dim eyes to wander leagues around."

416. "the well of life." Ps. xxxvi. 9. (Gillies.)

432. "I' the midst." Printed "I'th'midst" in the original editions. 433. "sord." So spelt in the original-sward, or turf. The spelling is found in other poets. The word sward, now meaning the grassy surface of the earth, meant originally the thick hard skin of the pig, or other such animal (A.-S. sweard); and "sword of bacon" was a common old phrase. Hence "greensward" for the green skin of the earth; and hence, by the omission of "green," our present simple word.

433-447. "Thither anon," &c. In this account of the murder of Abel by Cain, Milton has followed Gen. iv. 2-8, but has adopted some of the additions made by commentators in their interpretations of that passage.

447. "Groaned out his soul," &c. Hume quotes Æn. IX. 349 :— Purpuream vomit ille animam."

and x. 908 :

66

66

Undantique animam diffundit in arma cruore."

467-469. "many shapes of Death, and many are the ways," &c. Newton compares Seneca, Phænissæ, 1. 131:—

66

In

477-493. "Immediately a place before his eyes appeared," &c. this passage we see Milton remembering his intention as far back as the year 1640 or 1641, when he wrote out his fourth sketch of his projected Tragedy on the subject of Paradise Lost (see Introd. p. 46). The Angel is sent to banish them out of Paradise; but, before, causes to pass before his [Adam's] eyes, in shapes, a masque of all the evils of this life and world :" such is one part of the old sketch.-The commentators have compared Milton's splendid poetical enumeration of diseases here with similar enumerations in older poets. Warton, in his account of the Piers Plowman poems in his Hist. of English Poetry, associates this very passage of Milton with a striking one in Langland, where Kind or Nature, at the bidding of Conscience, sends forth a train of Diseases, with Age and Death, from the planets; and Dunster refers to a briefer passage in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, 739 et seq. Perhaps the longest enumeration of diseases in English metre is in Sylvester's Du Bartas (3rd Part of the 1st Day of the 2nd Week), where they are divided into four Regiments, and the names and descriptions of them fill seven quarto pages.

479. "lazar-house," hospital. Lazar meant "a beggar," and was derived from Lazarus, the beggar in the Parable, who was covered with sores. 485-487.

"Demoniac phrenzy, moping melancholy,
And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,
Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence."

These three lines do not occur in the First Edition, but are inserted in the Second, where "moon-struck" is so spelt, and not "moon-strook" (see note, II. 165).—“ Marasmus" is consumption (μaparμós).

494. "deform." This word (from the Latin deformis) is repeated from II. 706. (Keightley.)

495-497.

"Adam could not, but wept,

Though not of woman born: compassion quelled
His best of man, and gave him up to tears."

An interesting example, as Dunster pointed out, of Milton's recollections of Shakespeare :

"I bear a charmed life, which must not yield

To one of woman born.

Macd.

Despair thy charm;