Book X. fhould fee their glorious Chief come forth in Triumph. They faw (but it was a Sight quite different) a Crowd of ugly Serpents: Horror at once fell on them, and horrid Sympathy; for what they faw they felt themselves now changing; down fell their Arms, Spear and Shield, and they as faft; and renewed the dire Hifs, and catched the dire Form by Contagion; alike in Punishment, as in their Crime. Thus the Applause they meant was turned to an exploding Hifs, and their defigned Triumph to Shame, caft upon themselves from their own Mouths.

HARD by there ftood a Grove, which fprung up at the Time of their Transformation, (fuch was the Will of him who reigns in Heaven!) to aggravate their Patience, which was laden with Fruit like that which grew in PARADISE, and was the Bait the Tempter had ufed to catch EVE: On that range Profpect they earnestly fixed their Eyes, imagining, that for one forbidden Tree there was now risen a Multitude, to work them further Mifery or Shame: Yet, parched with burning Thirst and fierce Hunger, could not abstain, though they were fent only to delude them; but on they rowled in Heaps, and climbing up the Trees, fat thicker than those, which are feigned to drefs the Heads of the FURIES: They greedily plucked the Fruit, fair to the Sight, like that which grew near the Sea of SODOM (g); though this more delufive, did not deceive the Touch but the Tafte: They fondly thinking to allay their Appetite with a good Guft, instead of Fruit chewed only bitter Ashes, which the offended Tafte rejected with Dislike; often they tried, Hunger and Thirst constraining them, and were as often tormented with the hateful Difrelifh, writhing their Jaws about that were filled with

(8) The Sea of Sodom. Jose phus fays, the Apples of Sodom were very fair and plea

fant to the Sight; but when touched they flew into Smoak and Ashes.

Soot

Soot and Cinders. Thus they often fell into the fame Illufion; not as MAN, whom they triumphed over, who fell but once; thus were they plagued and worn with Famine, and with long and continual Hiffing, 'till by Permiffion they refumed their loft Shape: Yet fome fay, that every Year for a certain Number of Days, they are enjoined to undergo this Humbling, to dafh their Pride and Joy for feducing MAN. However, they difperfed fome Tradition among the Heathen, of the Purchase they had got; and fabled how the Serpent, whom they called OPHION (b), with EURYNOME (i), (who encroached on her Hufband, and ruined his Pofterity) had first the Rule of high OLYMPUS; that they were driven thence by SATURN and OPS, (k), before the DICTEAN (1) JOVE was yet born.

(b) Ophion; Lat. from the Gr. i. e. A Serpent. One of the Companions of Cadmus, who fprung out of the Teeth of that Serpent which Cadmus flew. Others make him to have been one of the Titanes, the Husband of Eurynome, poffeffed of the Government of all Things; the antienteft of all the Gods, who reigned on Olympus, long before Saturn and Jupiter dethroned him and his Wife.

(1) Eurynome; Lat. from the Gr. i. e. Ruling wide, encroaching. The Daughter of Oceanus, and Wife of Ophion, which encroached on her Husband, and ruined her Pofterity.

Under

this Fable the Heathens couched Adam and Eve, and their Expulfion out of Paradife.

(k) Ops Lat. from the Gr. i. e. Riches. The Daughter

Sf

Or

of Heaven and Earth, the Sifter and Wife of Saturn. The Greeks called her alfo Rhea, i. e. Flowing with Wealth. Ops is the Earth, out of which all Riches are produced. Eve, the Silter and Wife of Adam, the Saturn of the Heathens; for he came out of the fame Womb, i. e. the Earth, and was expelled Paradife.

(1) Dietean, of Dicea, Lat. Gr. i. e. A Place of Nets and Fishermen. A City and Mountain in Crete, between Gnous and Samois, now called Caffiti; where Jupiter was nursed. It was fo called from Dictymna, one of Diana's Companions in hunting, which first found out Fishing Nets, and was worshipped there; and from the Fishermen who lived there.

С НА Р.

The Proceedings of Sin and Death; God foretelis the final Victory over them, and the renewing of all Things; but for the prefent commands ferveral Alterations to be made in the Elements.

M

EAN while the hellish Offfpring of SATAN arrived too foon in PARADISE; SIN, who was there potentially before the Fall, (there being a Poffibility of it, and actually when the Tranfgreffion was) but now appears in Perfon to dwell and take Poffeffion: Behind her came DEATH (m), following clofe, Step for Step, not yet mounted on his pale Horse: To whom SIN began to speak thus:

ALL-CONQUERING DEATH! and the fecond that fprung from SATAN! what doft thou now think of our Empire? Though obtained with Difficulty, is not it far better than ftill to have fat watching at Hell's dark Threshold? To be neither named nor feared, and thou to remain half-ftarved?

To whom the Monster, that SIN brought into the World, foon answered: Alike to me, who pine with eternal Hunger, is Hell, or PARADISE, or Heaven; that Place is beft for me, where I may meet with most Prey; which here, though plentiful, feems all too little to ftuff this Maw, this vaft Corps, which has been fo long kept hungry, and has Room for all.

(m) Death is fo defcribed Rev. vi. 8. "And I looked, and "behold a pale Horfe; and "his Name that fat on him was "Death; and Hell followed "with him: And Power was

"given unto them, over the "fourth Part of the Earth, "to kill with Sword, and with

Hunger, and with Death, "and with the Beasts of the "Earth."

Το

To whom SIN, his inceftuous Mother, thus replied: Do thou therefore feed firft upon thefe Herbs, and Fruits, and Flowers; next upon every Beast, and Fish, and Fowl; (and fure thefe are no coarse Morfels!) and then devour unfpared whatever the Scythe of TIME mows down; 'till I, refiding in MAN, quite through the Race, infect all his Thoughts, Looks, Words, and Actions, and feafon him for thy laft and fweetest Prey.

HAVING faid this, they each betook them their feveral Way, both bent to destroy, or render Things of all Kinds perishable or liable to Mortality; and fooner or later ripen them for Destruction: Which the ALMIGHTY feeing from his bright Throne among the Saints, thus to thofe bright Orders uttered his Voice:

SEE! with what Fury thefe Dogs of Hell advance, to destroy and ruin yonder World; which I created fo fair and good, and had still kept in that State, had not MAN's Folly let in these wasteful Furies, who impute Folly to me: So does SATAN, the Prince of Hell, and his Adherents, that I fuffer them to enter with fo much Eafe, and poffefs fo heavenly a Place; and conniving, feem to gratify my scornful Enemies, that laugh as if I (tranfported with fome Fit of Paf fion) had quitted at Random, and yielded up all to their Mifmanagement; and don't know that I called and drew them thither, only as my Hell-Hounds, to lick up the Dregs and Filth, which the Pollution of MAN'S Sin had fhed with a Taint upon what was pure; 'till crammed and gorged, and ready to burst, at one Stroke of thy victorious Arm, O my Son, in whom I am well pleafed! SIN and DEATH at last being flung to the Mouth of Hell, fhall ftop its Mouth for ever and ever, and feal up its ravenous

Sf 2

Jaws.

Jews. Then Heaven and Earth being renewed, fhall be purified to fuch a Degree of Sanctity, as fhall be incapable of Impurity; 'till then the Curfe pronounced on SIN and DEATH fhall lead them on.

He ended, and the heavenly Audience fung aloud HALLELUJAH, loud as the Sound of Seas, by Reason of the Multitude that fung." Juft are thy Ways, "and thy Decrees are righteous on all thy Works; "who can diminish thee? Next to the SON, the de

ftined Reftorer of MANKIND, be Glory; by whom "the new Heaven and Earth fhail be renewed out of "the old, or elfe defcend down from Heaven." Such was their Song, while He, the great CREATOR, calling forth his mighty Angels by Name, gave them their feveral Charges, as fuited beft with the prefent State of Things. The Sun had firft his Command to move fo, and fo to fhine, as might affect the Earth with Heat and Cold fcarcely tolerable, to call decripit Winter from the North, and from the South to bring Solftitial (1) Summer's Heat. To the pale Moon they prefcribed her Office: To the other five Planets (0), their Motions in their feveral Orbs and Afpects, in Sextile (p), Square (q), and Trine (r),

(n) Soltitial, of the Solftice; Lat. i. e. The Standing of the Sun. An Aftron. Term. The Summer Solitice falls on the twenty-fecond of June, and the Winter Solitice on the twentyfecond of December; to which two Points of the Tropicks when the Sun comes, there is no fenfible Increafe or De. creafe of the Day and Night for a little Time; it feems to be at a Stand. Here the first is

meant.

(a) Planets; Gr. i. e. Wan dering. Here, moving in

their feveral Orbs. Here feveral Terms of Aftrology and Aftronomy occur, in a continued Digreffion; according to Aftrologers, the Planets make feveral Angles or Aspects, in their Motions through the twelve Signs; the Names of the chief are, Conjunction, Sextile, Quadrate, Trine, and Opposite.

(P) Sextile; Lat. An Aftron. T. 1. e. Of the Sixth. An Afpect, when two Planets are distant 60 Degrees, or one fixth Part of the Zodiac.

and