With flower-inwoven tresses torn

The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets

mourn.

In consecrated earth,

And on the holy hearth,

XXI.

190

The Lars and Lemures moan with midnight plaint;

In urns, and altars round,

A drear and dying sound

Affrights the Flamens at their service quaint;

And the chill marble seems to sweat,

195

While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat.

"And now the axe rag'd in the forrest wilde,
"The Eccho sighed in the groves unseene,

"The weeping Nymphs fled from their bowers exilde."

TODD.

Ver. 191. The Lars] Mr. Dunster objects to the sound of the word Lars, and wishes that it could have been Lares. But Lars, I conceive, was not an uncommon expression in our old poetry. Massinger, in the opening of his Great Duke of Florence which was licensed for acting in 1627, and published in 1636, thus writes:

"As dear to me as the old Romans held
"Their household Lars, whom they believ'd had
"To bless and guard their families." TODD.

Ver. 195.

power

the chill marble seems to sweat,] Among the prodigia at the death of Julius Cæsar, Virgil notices, "mæstum illacrymat templis ebur, æraque sudant," Georg. i. 480.

DUNSTER.

Ver. 196. While each peculiar Power foregoes his wonted seat.] Virgil, Æn. ii. 351.

"Excessêre omnes, adytis arisque relictis,
RICHARDSON.

66 Dii," &c.

XXII.

Peor and Baälim

Forsake their temples dim,

With that twice-batter'd God of Palestine ; And mooned Ashtaroth,

Heaven's queen and mother both,

Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Libyck Hammon shrinks his horn,

200

In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz

mourn.

XXIII.

And sullen Moloch, fled,

Hath left in shadows dread

205

Ver. 200. And mooned Ashtaroth,] So, in Par, Lost, B. vi. 978. "Sharpening in mooned horns;" in imitation of the Latin lunatus, whence also the Italian lunato. Milton added this word to our language; yet it was overpassed by Dr. Johnson in his Dictionary. But Mr. Dunster notices the adjective moony in Sylvester, Du Bart. 1621, p. 29. "Moony standards.” TODD.

Ver. 201. Heaven's queen and mother both,] She was called regina cœli and mater Deûm. See Selden. NEWTON.

Ver. 202. Shine is a substantive in Harrington's Ariosto, c. xxxvii. st. 15. "The shine of armour bright." And in Jonson's Panegyre, 1603. Works, edit. 1616. p. 868.

"When like an April-Iris flew her shine

"About the streets."

And Drummond, Sonnets, edit. 1616.

"Faire moon, who with thy cold and siluer shine."

And in other places. But see Observat. on Spenser's Faer. Qu. vol. ii. p. 181. T. WARTON.

His burning idol all of blackest hue;

In vain with cymbals' ring

They call the grisly king,

His burning idol all of blackest hue;

In vain with cymbals' ring

They call the grisly king,

In dismal dance about the furnace blue:] A book, popular in Milton's time, thus describes the dreadful sacrifices of the worship of the idol Moloch. "Wherein [the valley of Tophet] the Hebrews sacrificed their children to Moloch; an idol of brass, having the head of a calf, the rest of a kingly figure with arms extended to receive the miserable sacrifice, seared to death with his burning embracements. For the idol was hollow within, and filled with fire. And lest their lamentable shrieks should sad the hearts of their parents, the priests of Moloch did deaf their ears with the continual clangs of trumpets and timbrels." Sandys's Travels, p. 186. edit. 1615. fol. This imagery, but with less effect, was afterwards transferred into the Parad. Lost, B. i. 392.

"First, Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood
"Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;
"Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,
"Their children's cries unheard that pass'd through fire
"To his grim idol."

These dreadful circumstances, of themselves sufficiently striking to the imagination, are here only related: In our Ode, they are endued with life and action, they are put in motion before our eyes, and made subservient to a new purpose of the poet by the superinduction of a poetical fiction, to which they give occasion. "The sullen Spirit is fled of a sudden, and has left his black burning image in darkness and solitude. The priests, dancing in horrid gesticulations about the blue furnace from which his idol was fed with fire, in vain attempt to call back their grisly king with the din of cymbals, with which they once used to overwhelm the shrieks of the sacrificed infants." A new use is made of the cymbals of the disappointed priests. He does not say, "Moloch's idol was removed, to which infants were sacrificed;

In dismal dance about the furnace blue:

210

The brutish gods of Nile as fast,

Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis, haste.

XXIV.

Nor is Osiris seen

In Memphian grove or green,

214

Trampling the unshower'd grass with lowings loud:

Nor can he be at rest

Within his sacred chest ;

Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud; In vain with timbrell'd anthems dark

The sable-stoled sorcerers bear his worshipt ark. 220

while their cries were suppressed by the sound of cymbals." In Burnet's treatise De statu mortuorum et resurgentium, there is a fine picture of the rites of Moloch.

Milton, like a true poet, in describing the Syrian superstitions, selects such as were most susceptible of poetical enlargement; and which, from the wildness of their ceremonies, were most interesting to the fancy. T. WARTON.

Ver. 210. In dismal dance about the furnace blue :] So in Macbeth, as Mr. Steevens has observed to me :

"And round about the cauldron sing." T. WArton.

Ver. 212. viii. 698.

and the dog Anubis,] Virgil, Æn.

"Omnigenumque deûm monstra, et latrator Anubis."

TODD.

Ver. 215. Trampling the unshower'd grass] There being no rain in Egypt, but the country made fruitful with the overflowings of the Nile. RICHARDSON.

Ver. 220.sable-stoled] He changed this fine compound

into "sable-vested," Par. Lost, B. ii. 962. TODD.

XXV.

He feels from Juda's land

The dreaded Infant's hand,

The rays of Bethlehem blind his dusky eyn; Nor all the gods beside

Longer dare abide,

Not Typhon huge ending in snaky twine: Our Babe, to show his Godhead true,

225

Can in his swaddling bands controul the damned crew.

XXVI.

So, when the sun in bed,

Curtain'd with cloudy red,

Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,

Ver. 221. He feels from Juda's land

230

The dreaded Infant's hand, &c.] At our Lord's first arrival in Egypt, as may be collected from Eusebius and Athanasius, he was by design, or Providence, carried into a temple at Hermopolis, in the province of Thebais, at whose presence the idol gods fell down, like Dagon before the ark, and suffered their timely and just dissolution; which remarkably verified a prophecy of Isaiah, Chap. xix. 1. "That the Lord should come into Egypt, and the idols of Egypt should be moved at his presence." See Echard's Eccl. Hist. p. 36.-Indeed I am persuaded that the young poet had here, and in the three preceding stanzas, paid particular attention to Athanasius's discourse Περὶ τῆς ἐνανθρωπήσεως τοῦ Λόγου. Compare Athanasii Opp. ed. Paris. fol. 1627, p. 100-103. TODD.

Ver. 230. Curtain'd with cloudy red,] Crashaw thus describes the sun, Sac. Poems, p. 17, edit. Paris, 1652.

"All the purple pride that laces

"The crimson curtains of thy bed." TODD.

Ver. 231. Pillows his chin upon an orient wave,] The words pillows and chin, throw an air of burlesque and familiarity over a comparison most exquisitely conceived and adapted.

T. WARTON.