Those argent fields more likely habitants, Tranflated Saints, or middle Spirits hold 460 Hither of ill-join'd fons and daughters born The courtier's promises, and fick man's pray'rs, The fmiles of harlots, and the tears of heirs, Cages for gnats, and chains to yoke a flea, Dry'd butterflies, and tomes of cafuifry. 460. Thofe argent fields &c.] There is no queftion I believe now among philofophers, that the moon is inhabited; but it is greatly to be queftion'd whether this notion of our author be true, that the inhabitants there are tranflated Saints or Spirits of a middle nature between Angels and Men; for as the moon 466 Of is certainly lefs confiderable in itfelf than our earth, it is not likely that its inhabitants should be fo much more confiderable. 463. Hither of ill-join'd fons and daughters born &c.] He means the fons of God ill-join'd with the daughters of men, alluding to that text of Scripture, Gen. VI. 4. There were giants in the earth in those days; and alfo after that, when the fons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the fame became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown: where by the fons of God fome Fathers and Commentators have understood Angels, as if the Angels had been enamour'd and married to women; but the true meaning is that the pofterity of Seth and other patriarchs, who were worfhippers of the true God, and therefore call'd the fons of God, intermarried with the idolatrous po fterity of wicked Cain. 467. Of Sennaar, ] Or Shinar, for they are both the fame name of this province of Babylonia. But Milton follows the Vulgate as he frequently Of Sennaar, and still with vain defign 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 many more too long, 470 Embryo's frequently does in the names of nefs in another life, he was fo ra 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 stealing one night from his followers threw himself into the flaming Etna, that being no where to be found, he might be elteemed 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 Etnam Infiluit. Hume. 473. Cleombrotus;] The name is rightly placed the laft 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 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 epigrams, Ep. 29. which we will fubjoin with Frischlinus his tranflation. Ειπας ήλιο χαιρό, Κλεομβοτα εμβρακια της, Ἡλατ' αφ' υψηλά τείχεσεις олби Ao devida davate nanov. αλλα Πλατων Θ Εν το περί ψυχής γραμμ' αναπ λέξαμμα. Phoebe vale dicens, de rupe Cleombrotus alta Ambraciota, Stygis vivus adivit aquas. Funere nil dignum paffus: folúmque Platonis De vita mentis perpete legit opus. Embryo's and idiots, eremites and friers 474 White, black, and gray, with all their trumpery. dem epigramma in Ambraciotam Cleombrotum eft: quem ait, cum ei nihil accidiffet adverfi, e muro fe in mare abjeciffe lecto Platonis libro: and Ovid Ibis. ver. 493. Vel de præcipiti venias in Tartara faxo, Ut qui Socraticum de nece legit opus. 473. and many more too long,] Poorly and deficiently exprefs'd for, and more too long to name. Bentley. It feems as if a line were by miftake of the printer left out here; for (as Dr. Bentley fays) it is deficiently exprefs'd. Befides Milton had been mentioning those who came fingle; and therefore he could not fall upon the mention of embryo's, idiots, hermits, and friers without fome other verfe interpos'd, which fhould finish the account of those who came fingle, and contain a verb for the nominative cafes embryo's, idiots, &c. which at prefent is wanting. Pearce. A very ingenious perfon queftions, whether Milton by this appearance of inaccuracy and negligence did not defign to exprefs his contempt of their trumpery as he calls it, by huffling it all together in this dif Dying put on the weeds of Dominic, 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 sphere &c.] He fpeaks 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 pafs the fix'd, the firmament or fphere of the fix'd ftars, and beyond this that cryftallin fphere, the crystallin Heaven, clear as crystal, to which the Ptolemaics attributed a fort of libration or fhaking (the trepidation fo much talk'd of) to account for certain irregularities in the motion of the ftars, and beyond this that firft mov'd, the primum mobile, the sphere which was both the first mov'd and the firft 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 spheres 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 fhining 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 Blows them tranfverfe ten thoufand leagues awry The sport of winds: all these upwhirl'd aloft he certainly intends (as Mr. Thyer obferves) to ridicule the fond conceit of the Romanifts, that St. Peter and his fucceffors are in a particular manner intrusted with the keys of Heaven. And he makes ufe of the low phrase of Heaven's wicket, the better to expose the notions of those whom he places here in the Paradife of Fools. 489. then might ye fee] This is one of the paffages which furnishes Dr. Bentley here with objections against fifty-five verses of Milton. To the words might ye fee he fays, how could any one of his readers fee them, unless he is himself fuppos'd a fool? But was not Satan there? and he is no fool in this poem: it is one thing to be 495 The |