And level pavement. From the arched roof
Pendent, by subtle magic, many a row
Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed
With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky. The hasty multitude
Admiring entered, and the work some praise
And some the architect. His hand was known
In Heaven by many a towered structure high,
Where sceptred Angels held their residence,
And sat as princes, whom the supreme King
Exalted to such power, and gave to rule,
Each in his hierarchy, the orders bright:
Nor was his name unheard or unadored

727. Pendent. This belongs to many a row.

730

728. cressets. This word is perhaps used improperly here, for it is said to be a beacon light. Hanmer derives it from croisette, Fr., because the beacons anciently had crosses on them. Mr. P. Collier says it was so named because the fire was placed on a little cross. Milton was probably led to use the word by Shakespeare.

"At my nativity

The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes

Of burning cressets." 1 Hen. IV. iii. 1.

Golding uses a burning cresset' to translate facem in Ovid, Met. iv. 481, and jubar, id. ib. xv. 841; so that the above derivations are very dubious.

729. With naphtha and asphaltus. The former is the liquid, the latter the solid substance.

732. His hand, i.e. for his hand: see on v. 691.

736. gave to rule. He here, and elsewhere (iii. 243; ix. 818), uses the inf. as a subst., in imitation of the classic languages. The same is to be found in the Italian and some other modern languages. He may have had in view "Et mulcere dedit fluctus." Virg. Æn. i. 65.

738. his name, i.e. himself: comp. ii. 964. A Latinism. "Silvius, Albanum nomen." En. vi. 763. Καὶ ἀπεκτάνθησαν ἐν τῷ σεισμῷ ὀνόματα ἀνθρώπων Xiλiádes éπtá. Apoc. xi. 13.-N. The Greeks knew nothing of the name Mammon; their term was Hephæstos.

725. "Hinc ampla vacuis spatia laxantur locis."

726.

Sen. Her. Fur. iii. 673.-Th.
Vocemque per ampla volutant
Atria; dependent lychni laquearibus aureis
Incensi, et noctem flammis funalia vincunt."

740. "Qualis in Ægæam proles Junonia Lemnon

Virg. En. i. 725.-K.

Deturbata sacro cecidit de limine cœli." Nat. Non Pati, Sen. 23.—W.

In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land
Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell
From Heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements; from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day; and with the setting sun
Dropt from the zenith, like a falling star,

On Lemnos, the Ægæan isle. Thus they relate,
Erring; for he with this rebellious rout

740

Fell long before: nor aught availed him now
To have built in Heaven high towers, nor did he 'scape
By all his engines, but was headlong sent

With his industrious crew to build in Hell.

Meanwhile the winged haralds, by command

Of sovran power, with awful ceremony

And trumpet's sound, throughout the host proclaim
A solemn council forthwith to be held

At Pandemonium, the high capital

Of Satan and his peers. Their summons called,
From every band and squared regiment,

By place or choice the worthiest; they anon

751

742. from morn, etc. Newton justly observes how Milton lengthens out the whole day of Homer.

746. Egaan: see Life of Milton, p. 449. "For in those days might only shall be admired" (xi. 689), forms a perfect parallel in scansion.

750. engines, i.e. devices, contrivances, ingenia.

"'Gainst him yet vain did all her engines prove."

Fairfax, Godf. of Bul. v. 15.-B.

753. the winged haralds, i.e. the Angelic heralds; for they were all winged. In the first and second editions the word is haralds, which we have retained, as we think it likely that Milton directed it to be so spelt, wishing in this, as in sovran, to imitate the orthography of his favourite Italian.

756. Pandemonium. He formed this word in imitation of Panionion and others, which however were used of assemblies, not of places.

759. By place or choice, etc. He may have had in his mind the Officers and the Agitators of the Parliamentary army, of whom the latter were chosen by the soldiers.

742.

Εἶδον παννύχιος, καὶ ἐπ ̓ ἐῶ, καὶ μέσον ἦμαρ,

745,

Δύσετό τ' ήέλιος, καί με γλύκυς ὕπνος ἀνῆκεν. Od. vii. 288.-Ν.
Οἷον δ ̓ ἀστέρα ἧκε Κρόνου παῖς ἀγκυλομήτεω

Τῷ εἰκυῖ ̓ ἤιξεν ἐπὶ χθόνα Παλλὰς Αθήνη. Il. iv. 75. — Κ.

With hundreds and with thousands trooping came
Attended. All access was thronged, the gates
And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall-
Though like a covered field, where champions bold
Wont ride in armed, and, at the Soldan's chair,
Defied the best of Panim chivalry

To mortal combat, or career with lance-
Thick swarmed, both on the ground and in the air,
Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees,
In spring-time when the sun with Taurus rides,
Pour forth their populous youth about the hive
In clusters; they, among fresh dews and flowers,
Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank,

760

770

760. hundreds. In the Errata to the first edit., hunderds is given as a correction of this word. Such then was probably Milton's own mode of spelling it; but we see no necessity for adhering to it.

761. All access, i.e. every place of entrance, namely, 'the gates and porches wide.' We have followed the punctuation of the poet's own editions. There ought perhaps to be a semicolon at 'wide.'

763. Though, etc. We think, with Richardson, that 'covered field' is a rendering (though an incorrect one) of champ-clos, the lists in which tournaments were held in the presence of kings and nobles. We do not recollect, in the Italian romances, any instance of the custom here alluded to.

764. Soldan, i.q. Sultan; Soldano, It.-Panim, i.q. Pagan. Both these words had long been in use.

766. To mortal, etc., i.e. to the combat à l'outrance, or to the more gentle passage-of-arms, in which no lives were lost.

769. when the sun, etc. Bentley, who would read in Taurus,' asks "Does Taurus ride too? a constellation fixed;" to which we might reply, Certainly, for, according to the Ptolemaic system, he goes, with the rest of the celestial bodies, round the earth. The word 'ride,' however, belongs only to the sun, and was suggested by the classic idea of his chariot and horses.—with is apud.

767 seq.

"Ac velut in pratis, ubi apes æstate serena
Floribus insidunt variis, et candida circum
Lilia funduntur, strepit omnis murmure campus."

Virg. En. vi. 707.-W.

"Qualis apes æstate nova per florea rura

Exercet sub sole labor, cum gentis adultos

Educunt fœtus." Id. ib. i. 430.-N.

Ηΰτε ἔθνεα εἶσι μελισσάων αδινάων,

Πέτρης ἐκ γλαφυρῆς αἰεὶ νέον ἐρχομενάων·

Βοτρυδὸν δὲ πέτονται ἐπ ̓ ἄνθεσιν εἰαρινοῖσιν,

Αἱ μὲν τ' ἔνθα ἅλις πεποτήεται, αἱ δέ τε ἔνθα. Il. ii. 87. Ν.

The suburb of their straw-built citadel,

New rubbed with balm, expatiate and confer
Their state-affairs: so thick the aery crowd
Swarmed and were straitened; till, the signal given,
Behold a wonder! They but now who seemed
In bigness to surpass earth's giant-sons,
Now less than smallest dwarfs in narrow room
Throng numberless, like that pygmean race
Beyond the Indian mount, or faery elves,
Whose midnight revels, by a forest-side
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon
Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth

780

Wheels her pale course; they, on their mirth and dance
Intent, with jocund music charm his ear:

At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.

Thus incorporeal Spirits to smallest forms

Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large,
Though without number still, amidst the hall
Of that infernal court. But far within,
And in their own dimensions like themselves,
The great Seraphic Lords and Cherubim

790

774. expatiate, etc., sc. on. See Life of Milton, p. 437. We would not, with Callander, take it in the physical sense of walk about, spatior.

781. faery elves. This term had been used by Golding in his translation of Ovid: see Fairy Mythology, p. 11.

785. nearer to the earth, etc. By this he perhaps means that she was at the full, when she appears to be nearer to the earth. He says she 'sits arbitress,' i.e. as judge, a kind of president of their games.-course, i.e. progress, cursus. "The stars in their courses fought against Sisera." Judges v. 20.

788. rebounds. The Italian balza.

795. conclave. It is not unlikely that, as Newton observes, he may have had the Roman Conclave in his mind.

780. "Supra hos [gentem circa fontem Gangis] extrema in parte montium Trispithami Pygmæique narrantur." Plin. Nat. Hist. vii. 2, 26.-T.

783.

784.

Ως τίς τε νέῳ ἐνὶ ἤματι μήνην

Η ἴδεν ἢ ἐδόκησεν ἐπαχλύουσαν ἴδεσθαι. Αpoll. Rh. iv. 1479.-Τ. "Jam Cytherea choros ducit Venus, imminente luna, Junctæque Nymphis Gratiæ decentes

Alterno terram quatiunt pede." Hor. Carm. i. 4, 5.—K.

In close recess and secret conclave sat,
A thousand demi-gods on golden seats,
Frequent and full. After short silence then
And summons read the great consult began.

NOTE I., ON v. 303.

Vallombrosa is the site of a celebrated convent, built in a recess on the side of a mountain, about eighteen miles east of Florence, from which city it is visible. If we recollect right, our guide informed us that the name Vallombrosa is restricted to the recess in which the convent stands, where there certainly are no brooks, and no trees but firs and pines. But Milton probably meant the subjacent valley, through which runs a stream named the Viamo, and where there is abundance of chestnuts and other deciduous trees. Miss Seward, in a letter quoted by Southey in his Ballads, says, "I have heard my father say that when he was in Italy with Lord Charles Fitzroy, they travelled through [visited?] Vallombrosa in autumn, after the leaves had begun to fall, and that their guide was obliged to try what was land and what water, by pushing a long pole before him, which he carried in his hand, the vale being so very irriguous, and the leaves so totally covering the stream." Judging by the appearance of the valley when we saw it, in the month of June, we are inclined to suspect some exaggeration in this account. Milton probably witnessed the autumnal aspect of the valley, for he was in Florence in September, 1638 (see our Life, etc. p. 20). As to the tradition of his having dwelt there for some days as a recluse, noticed in the following lines by Wordsworth, we cannot give it any credence, it is so totally out of harmony with Milton's character and his religious ideas.

"Near that Cell, yon sequestered Retreat high in air,
Where our Milton was wont lonely vigils to keep,

For converse with God, sought through study and prayer.

At Vallombrosa.”

With respect to Vallombrosa, Mr. Todd is, in our opinion, quite wrong in saying, "It is thus sweetly described by Ariosto, Orl. Fur. xxii. 36:

It must surely have

'Così fu nominata una badia
Ricca e bella, nè men religiosa,

E cortese a chiunque vi venia.""

been a convent in France that the poet meant; for he would never have sent Ruggiero all the way to Tuscany for baptism, when that rite could have been as well performed anywhere else.

Rogers, in his poem of Jacqueline, speaks of a place in Provence named Valombrè; but he says nothing of a monastery.