s meant thy great deliverer, who shall bruise
The Serpent's head; whereof to thee anon
Plainlier shall be reveal'd. This patriarch bleft,
Whom faithful Abraham due time fhall call,
A fon, and of his fon a grand-child leaves,
Like him in faith, in wisdom, and renown;
The grand-child with twelve fons increas'd departs
From Canaan, to a land hereafter call'd
Egypt, divided by the river Nile;

150

156

il's vifion in the fixth Æneid proDably gave Milton the hint of this whole epifode, this line is a tranflaion of that verfe, wherein Anchifes mentions the names of places, which they were to bear hereafter, er. 776.

Hæc tum nomina erunt, nunc funt fine nomine terræ. Addifon. Grotius has likewife imitated the fame paffage in his Adamus Exul, A& II. and Milton had feen Grotius as well as Virgil, and has exprefs'd the fame thing fhorter and better,

Things by their names I call,
though yet unnam'd.
Innominata quæque nominibus

fuis,
Libet vocare propriis vocabulis.

147. This ponder,] As if he had faid, I mention other things for

See

your information, but this you fhould particularly remember, and meditate upon.

152. Whom faithful Abraham due

time fall call,] Dr. Bentley obferves that every where elfe Milton makes but two fyllables of Abraham; and therefore to do the fame here, he reads future inftead of due. But I believe that Milton intended to make the name Abraham here confift of three fyllables, in allufion to God's adding a fyllable to it, as we find in Gen. XVII. 5. Neither fall thy nams any more be called Abram, but thy name Pearce. Jhall be Abraham.

Abram fignifies a great father, but Abraham is of larger extent, and nations. fignifies a father of many

155.-with twelve fons increas'd] A Latinifm; as Plaut. Trucul. II. 6. 34. Cumque es aucta liberis. See alfo Tacit. Agric. c. 6. Richardfon. 138. See

CC 4

See where it flows, difgorging at fev'n mouths
Into the fea: to fojourn in that land

He comes invited by a younger fon

160

In time of dearth, a fon whofe worthy deeds
Raife him to be the second in that realm
Of Pharaoh: there he dies, and leaves his race
Growing into a nation, and now grown
Sufpected to a fequent King, who seeks
To stop their overgrowth, as inmate guests
Too numerous; whence of guests he makes them flaves
Inhospitably', and kills their infant males:
Till by two brethren (those two brethren call
Mofes and Aaron) fent from God to clame
His people from inthralment, they return
With glory' and spoil back to their promis'd land.

170

ut firft the lawless tyrant, who denies

180

o know their God, or meffage to regard, [ust be compell❜d by figns and judgments dire; 175 o blood unfhed the rivers must be turn'd; rogs, lice, and flies must all his palace fill With loath'd intrufion, and fill all the land; is cattel muft of rot and murren die; otches and blains must all his flesh imboss, nd all his people; thunder mix'd with hail, ail mix'd with fire must rend th' Egyptian sky, and wheel on th' earth, devouring where it rolls; What it devours not, herb, or fruit, or grain, A darksome cloud of locufts swarming down Muft eat, and on the ground leave nothing green; Darkness must overshadow all his bounds,

185

Palpable darkness, and blot out three days;

Last with one midnight stroke all the firft-born
Of Egypt must lie dead. Thus with ten wounds 190
The river-dragon tam'd at length submits

To let his fojourners depart, and oft
Humbles his ftubborn heart, but still as ice
More harden'd after thaw, till in his rage
Pursuing whom he late dismiss'd, the sea
Swallows him with his hoft, but them lets pafs
As on dry land between two crystal walls,
Aw'd by the rod of Mofes fo to stand
Divided, till his refcued gain their shore :

195

Such

Stiriaque impexis induruit horris barbis.

Virg. Georg. III. 366. Ificles freeze, as they drop, in: wonderful hardness. Hunt

206.

but his approach Darkness defends between till m ing watch;] To defend be has the fignification of to forbid, binder, to keep off; as the Latic fendo is fometimes ufed, and the French defendre. There is b defendere in Ennius, folftitiam p defendite in Virgil, defendere frig in Horace. Darkness between fends, forbids and hinders, s proach till the morning watch, alia ing to Exod. XIV. 19, 20. And Angel of God, which went before the camp of Ifrael, removed and went

go

ch wondrous pow'r God to his faint will lend, 200 hough present in his Angel, who shall fore them in a cloud, and pill'ar of fire, day a cloud, by night a pill'ar of fire, O guide them in their journey, and remove hind them, while th' obdurate king pursues: 205 I night he will pursue, but his approach arkness defends between till morning watch; en through the fiery pillar and the cloud

od looking forth will trouble all his host, nd craze their chariot wheels: when by command ofes once more his potent rod extends

ind them; and the pillar of the d went from before their face, and ad behind them: And it came beeen the camp of the Egyptians and - camp of Ifrael, and it was a d and darkness to them, but it gave ht by night to thefe, fo that the one ne not near the other all the night. nd Milton himself has ufed defended the fame manner, XI. 86. that fended fruit. See the note there. nd again in Parad. Reg. II. 369. no interdict

Defends the touching of thefe viands

pure.

211 Over

And fo polite a writer as Sir William Temple, in the conclufion of his Effay upon the cure of the gout by Moxa, fpeaking of wine fays, that "the ufe of it pure was in fome "places defended by customs or "laws."

210. And craze their chariot wheels:] Bruife or break them in pieces. Craze from the French ecrafer to bruise or break. So I. 311. the chariot wheels are faid to have been broken, though Exod. XIV. 25. 'tis only faid they were taken off, so that the chariots were driven heavily. Milton who perfectly understood the original has

nd fo Spenfer ufes it, Fairy Queen, therefore expounded this taking off 4. Cant. 3. St. 32.

to be breaking; tho' that may mean no more, than what we do when we

Himfelf to fave, and danger to fay fuch a one is crazy, broken with age and disabled. Richardfon.

defend.

The