Of Sennaar, and still with vain design

New Babels, had they wherewithal, would build :
Others came fingle; he who to be deem'd

A God, leap'd fondly into Ætna flames,
Empedocles; and he who to enjoy
Plato's Elyfium, leap'd into the fea,
Cleombrotus; and

and many more too long,

frequently does in the names of places.

471. Empedocles;] The fcholar of Pythagoras, a philofopher and poet, born at Agrigentum in Sicily: he wrote of the nature of things in Greek, as Lucretius did in Latin verfe. He ftealing one night from his followers threw himself into the flaming Ætna, that being no where to be found, he might be esteemed to be a God, and to be taken up into Heaven; but his iron pattens, being thrown out by the fury of the burning mountain, difcover'd his defeated ambition, and ridiculed his folly. Hor. de Art. Poet. 464.

Deus immortalis haberi Dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Ætnam

Infiluit. Hume.

473. Cleombrotus;] The name is rightly placed the last word in the fentence, as Empedocles was before. He was called Ambraciota of Ambracia, a city of Epirus in Greece. Having read over Plato's book of the Soul's immortality and happi

470

Embryo's

nefs in another life, he was fo ra-
vish'd with the account of it, that
he leap'd from a high wall into
the fea, that he might immediately
enjoy it. His death is celebrated
by Callimachus in one of his epi-
grams, Ep. 29. which we will fub-
join with Frifchlinus his tranfla-
tion.

Είπας ήλιο χαιρο, Κλεόμβροτα
ο 'μβρακιώτης,
Ἡλατ' αφ' ύψηλο τείχεσεις
dav•

Aoy dev_idov davate nanov,

αλλα Πλατων G

Εν το περι ψυχης γραμμ' ανα
λεξαμίνα.

Phoebe vale dicens, de
brotus alta

rupe Cleom

Embryo's and idiots, eremites and friers

White, black, and gray, with all their trumpery.
Here pilgrims roam, that stray'd fo far to feek
In Golgotha him dead, who lives in Heaven;
And they who to be sure of Paradise

Dying put on the weeds of Dominic,
Or in Franciscan think to pass disguis'd;
They pass the planets fev'n, and pass the fix'd,
And that crystallin sphere whose balance weighs
The trepidation talk'd, and that first mov'd;

only placing them there, but making them the principal figures. 476. Here pilgrims &c.] Thofe who had gone upon pilgrimages to the Holy Land, to vifit our Lord's fepulchre: but to fuch perfons that may be faid, which was to the women after his refurrection, Luke XXIV. 5, 6. Why feek ye the living among the dead? He is not here but is rifen; to which text our author feems to allude in this paffage.

482. And that cryftallin fphere &c.] He speaks here according to the ancient aftronomy, adopted and improv'd by Ptolomy. They pass the planets fev'n, our planetary or folar fyftem, and beyond this pass the fix'd, the firmament or sphere of the fix'd ftars, and beyond this that cryftallin fphere, the cryftallin Heaven, clear as cryftal, to which the Ptolemaics attributed a fort of libration or shaking (the trepidation fo much talk'd of) to account for certain irregularities in the motion of the ftars, and beyond this that first mov'd, the primum mobile, the fphere which was both the first mov'd and the first mover, communicating its motions to all the lower spheres; and beyond this was the empyrean Heaven, the

480

And

feat of God and the Angels. This paffage may receive fome farther light and illuftration from another of the fame nature in Taffo, where he defcribes the defcent of the Arch-Angel Michael from Heaven, and mentions this cryftallin and all the other fpheres but only inverting the order, as there the motion is downwards, and here it is upwards, Cant. 9. St. 60, 61.

Paffa il foco, e la luce &c.

He pafs'd the light, and thining fire affign'd

The glorious feat of his felected

And now Saint Peter at Heav'n's wicket feems

To wait them with his keys, and now at foot 485
Of Heav'n's afcent they lift their feet, when lo
A violent cross wind from either coast

Blows them transverse ten thousand leagues awry
Into the devious air; then might ye fee
Cowls, hoods, and habits with their wearers toft 490
And flutter'd into rags, then reliques, beads,
Indulgences, difpenfes, pardons, bulls,

The fport of winds: all these upwhirl'd aloft
Fly o'er the backfide of the world far off
Into a Limbo large and broad, fince call'd

495 The

there as an inhabitant, and another as a fpectator. Milton means if any body was prefent there fo as to be able to fee what pafs'd, he would fee couls, hoods, &c. It is very common among poets to talk thus to their readers; Then might ye fee is no more than Then might be feen. See Virgil, Æn. VIII. 676.

Pearce.

This manner of fpeaking, which puts the fecond perfon indefinitely, is very frequent among the poets, as Virgil Æn. IV. 401.

Migrantes cernas

upon which Servius fays, Honefta figura fi rem tertiæ perfonæ in fecundam transferas. Mugire videbis An. IV. 499. that is, videbit

aut

The Paradife of Fools, to few unknown
Long after, now unpeopled, and untrod.
All this dark globe the Fiend found as he pafs'd,
And long he wander'd, till at last a gleam
Of dawning light turn'd thither-ward in hafte
His travel'd steps: far diftant he defcries
Afcending by degrees magnificent

500

Up to the wall of Heav'n a structure high;
At top whereof, but far more rich appear'd
The work as of a kingly palace gate,

505

With frontispiece of diamond and gold.

Embellish'd; thick with sparkling orient gems

aut poterit videre aliquis. Æn. VIII. 691.

-pelago credas innare revulfas Cycladas; that is Credat quis. See Cowley's Davideis II. Note 17. 493. The sport of winds :] Ludibria ventis. Virg. Æn. VI. 75.

495. Into a Limbo large and broad,] The Limbus patrum as it is call'd, is a place that the Schoolmen fuppofed to be in the neighbourhood

of Hell, where the fouls of the patriarchs were detain'd, and those good men who died before our Saviour's refurrection. Our author gives the fame name to his Paradife of Fools, and more rationally places it beyond the backfide of the

world.