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'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires,-Till, at a signal given, the uplifted spear Of their great sultan waving to direct

Their course, in even balance down they light On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain,

A multitude, like which the populous North Poured never from her frozen loins, to pass

Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons Came like a deluge on the south, and spread Beneath Gibraltar, to the Libyan sands.

Forthwith from every squadron and each band, The heads and leaders thither haste where stood

Their great commander. Godlike shapes, and forms Excelling human; princely dignities;

And powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones, Though of their names in heavenly records now

Be no memorial, blotted out and rased By their rebellion from the Book of Life.

Nor had they among the sons of Eve Got them new names; till, wandering o'er the earth,

Through God's high sufferance, for the trial of man,

By falsities and lies the greatest part Of mankind they corrupted to forsake

God their Creator, and the invisible Glory of Him that made them to transform

Oft to the image of a brute, adorned With gay religions, full of pomp and gold,

And devils to adore for deities: Then were they known to men by various names,

And various idols through the heathen world.

Rhene or the Danaw .- The Rhine or Danube

Воок І.—376-407]

PARADISE LOST.

Say, Muse, their names then known. Who first, who last, Roused from the slumber, on that fiery couch, At their great emperor's call, as next in worth Came singly where he stood on the bare strand, While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof. The chief were those, who, from the pit of Hell, Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix Their seats long after next the seat of God, Their altars by His altar; gods adored Among the nations round; and durst abide Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned Between the cherubim; yea, often placed Within His sanctuary itself their shrines, Abominations, and with cursed things His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned, And with their darkness durst affront His light. First, Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears; Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud, Their children's cries unheard, that passed through fire To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite Worshipped in Rabba¹ and her watery plain, In Argob and in Basan, to the stream Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart Of Solomon he led by fraud to build His temple right against the temple of God, On that opprobrious hill,2 and made his grove The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.3 Next, Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's sons, From Aroer to Nebo, and the wild

¹ In Rabba, - Capital of the Ammonites.

That approbrious hill.—Made approbrious by the uses to which it was thus applied. \* Type of Hell.—Tophet was originally a beautiful royal residence in the Valley of Hinnom; but from the abominations which came to be practised there, the later Jews were wont to burn the bodies of malefactors in that quarter.