Learn how ineir greatest monuments of fame,
And strength, and art, are easily outdone
By spirits reprobate, and in an hour
What in an age they, with incessant toil
And hands innumerable, scarce perform.
Nigh on the plain, in many cells prepared,
That underneath had veins of liquid fire
Sluiced from the lake, a second multitude
With wondrous art founded the massy ore

Severing each kind, and scummed the bullion dross.

A third as soon had formed within the ground

705

A various mould, and from the boiling cells

By strange conveyance filled each hollow nook;
As in an organ, from one blast of wind,

To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes.
Anon out of the carth a fabric huge

Rose like an exhalation, with the sound.

Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet,
Built like a temple, where pilasters round

710

696. Strength = of strength? or how their strength ?698-9. Age innumerable. It took 360,000 men nigh 20 years to build one pyramid. 700. Cells that were prepared by them for this purpose. -702. Sluiced, conducted in flumes?-703. Founded, melted (Lat. fundere, to pour; Fr. fondre, to melt). - 704. Bullion (Fr. bouillir, to boil), boiling. Keightley makes bullion metallic. Others make it fr. Lat. bulla, a knob, seal, or stamp, and bullion dross, the uncoined ball or mass of gold.' 706. Various, variously wrought? Note the different bands of workmen simultaneously engaged.709. Sound-board, a long box above the wind-chest, divided by thin partitions into grooves that run from the front to the back, conveying the wind to the different rows of pipes. The great temple is now finished, but is wholly underground! —710. Anon, etc. These gigantic beings lift the shining structure to its place! In 1637 Milton may have witnessed, in a court-masque in London, the following scene: "The earth opened, and there rose up a richly-adorned palace, seeming all of goldsmith's work, with porticos vaulted on pilasters . . . above these ran an architrave, frieze, and cornice . . a peristylium of two orders, Doric and Ionic." The Stage Condemned, 1698, quoted by Todd. --711. Exhalation. Points of resemblance?-713. Temple. Prof. Himes well points out the wonderful similarity to the Pantheon. See in our Introduction the extract from Himes's Study of

Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid

With golden architrave; nor did there want
Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven :
The roof was fretted gold. Not Babylon
Nor great Alcairo such magnificence,
Equalled in all their glories, to enshrine
Belus or Serapis their gods, or seat

715

720

Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove
In wealth and luxury. The ascending pile

Stood fixed her stately highth; and straight the doors,
Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide

Within, her ample spaces, o'er the smooth

725

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

730

Paradise Lost; see also our representation of the Pantheon. Pilasters, square columns usually set in a wall with a fourth or fifth of the diameter projecting. -714. Doric. The Pantheon has Corinthian pillars? Doric are more suitable for a council hall?-715. Architrave, the great beam resting on the pillars. - 716. Cornice, the moulded projection above the frieze, which last is just above the architrave. See illustrations of architecture in the books. Bossy, in relief. - 717. Fretted (A. S. fraetwian, to adorn; or Ital. fratto, broken, or ferrata, window-grating). - 718. Great Alcairo, Memphis.720. Serapis, a god typifying the Nile and fertility, by some identified with Osiris. See note on 1. 478.723. Her stately highth being fixed? Some explain by saying fixed as to her stately height. See 1. 92. — 724. Folds (= Lat. valve, leaves or folds of a door). Discover, etc. Disclose ample spaces within? 725. Within, adverb modified by wide? -- 727. Pendent row of lamps. -728. Cressets, open vessels, jars, or cages, in which tarred ropes, etc., are burnt for beacon lights; hence such lights themselves; any great lights. Fr. croisette?-729. Naphtha, a limpid, bituminous, highly inflammable liquid. Asphaltus, native bitumen, compact, brittle, combustible. -- 730. As from a sky. The Pantheon is lighted from the sky by a round opening 26 feet in diameter in the centre of the roof.-732. Architect. Does Milton identify Mammon with Mulciber? Masson and nearly or quite all the critics but Professor Himes

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
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,

735

740

745

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

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 trumpets' sound, throughout the host proclaim

750

say yes. 736. Gave, permitted. Perhaps 'gave to rule' is a Latinism.737. Hierarchy (Gr. íepós, sacred; ȧpxý, rule), sacred rank? sacred principality?-739. Ausonian, poetic for Italian.-740. Mulciber (Lat. mulcère, to soften. Because fire softens metals? or softens human hardships?), Vulcan, god of fire, worker in metals for the gods. See Class. Dict. Fell. Having tried to loosen the iron anvils fastened to his mother Juno's feet by Jupiter, he was seized by the foot and flung from heaven! Iliad, I. 591, etc.742. Sheer (A. S. sceoran, to separate; scir, clear, clean-cut. Wedgewood says, "The fundamental signification seems to be shining, then clear, bright, pure, clean"), completely. From morn, etc. Note how beautifully the time is lengthened out.-746. Lemnos, etc. The metre, with the stress on 2d syl. of Ægaan, represents the concussion? in the Archipelago. Lemnos is volcanic? They, the old Rout, rabble, gang; originally the noise of such mob. (Lat. ingenia, inventiveness), contrivances, instrumentalit alds. Milton's spelling. Sovran (It. sovrano), sovereign.

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
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 smoothèd plank,
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,

755

760

765

770

775

--756. Pandemonium (Gr. πâv, pan, all; daíuwv, daimon, demon), hall of all the demons, as Pantheon is hall of all the gods? Milton either coined the word or gave it currency. -758. Squared regiment (Lat. quatuor, four; ex, out; quadra, square; Fr. escadron, squadron of cavalry), squadron, regiment in orderly array. - 763. Covered field. The hall, vast as it was, was covered like a tilt-yard. Storr. Milton does not quite compare the hall to an enclosed field' (champ clos). It is too vast for that! Yet it is covered. Let us rise to Milton's conception; not imagine for a moment that he blundered on the meaning of champ clos. — 764. Wont, were accustomed to. Soldan's (It. Soldano), Sultan's. —765. Panim (Lat. pagus, country district; Fr. pais, pays), pagan. - 766. Mortal, etc.; i. e. either a combat à l'outrance, to the death; or career (carrière) etc., merely breaking a lance.' — 767. Swarmed, i. e. gates, porches, hall. —768. As bees, etc. Beautifully expanded from Homer and Virgil, Il. II. 87, etc., En. I. 430, etc.. Georg. IV. 21.769. With Taurus rides. For a month his chariot is passing through that constellation?-774. Expatiate, walk about engaged in conversation. Confer, discuss. 776. Straitened. Origin

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,

780

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

785

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

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.

795

Sees, etc. Aut videt aut
Æneid, VI. 453. — 785.

and meaning?-780. Pygmean. See 1. 575.-781. Indian mount, the Himalayas? Faery elves, elves of fairy land.'-783-4. vidisse putat, either sees or thinks he has seen. Arbitress, witness and umpire. Nearer. The old belief was that incantations could draw the moon down from the sky. So stated in Virg. Ecl. vIII. 69; Horace Epod. V., etc. — 790. Reduced. Those who accept the Scriptures (as Mark v., Luke xi. 26, etc.) need no argument to make them admit the possibility of this. 795. Conclave (Lat. con, together; clavis, key), alluding, possibly, to the Roman conclave of cardinals sitting in privacy to elect a pope? Recess, retreat. - 796. Frequent and full. Close-packed and all occupied or, numerous seats all filled?-798. Consult. Usually supposed to be accented here on the last syllable. Dryden so uses and accents 'consults' as a noun.