marble seems to sweat. Many instances of this phenomenon
are reported. Thus Cicero, in his _De Divinatione_, tells us: "It was
reported to the senate that it had rained blood, that the river Atratus
had even flowed with blood, and that the statues of the gods had sweat."

197. Peor and Baaelim. Syrian false gods. See Numbers XXV 3.

199. that twice-battered god of Palestine. See I Samuel V 2.

200. mooned Ashtaroth. See I Kings XI 33.

203. The Lybic Hammon. "Hammon had a famous temple in Africa, where he
was adored under the symbolic figure of a ram."

204. their wounded Thammuz. See Ezekiel VIII 14.

205. sullen Moloch. See Par. Lost I 392-396.

210. the furnace blue. Compare Arcades 52.

212. Isis, and Orus, and the dog Anubis. Egyptian deities, the latter
figured as having the head of a dog.

213. Nor is Osiris seen. Osiris was the principal god of the Egyptians,
brother and husband of Isis. His highest function was as god of the Nile.
He met his death at the hands of his brother Typhon, a deity of
sterility, by whom he was torn into fourteen pieces. Thereupon a general
lament was raised throughout Egypt. The bull Apis was regarded as the
visible incarnation of Osiris.--_Murray's Manual of Mythology_.

215. the unshowered grass. Remember, this was in Egypt.

223. his dusky eyn. This ancient plural of eye occurs several times in
Shakespeare, as in As You Like It IV 3 50.

240. Heaven's youngest-teemed star. Compare Comus 175.

241. Hath fixed her polished car. _Fix_ has its proper meaning,
_stopped_. The star "came and stood over where the young child was."

ON SHAKESPEARE.

The first edition of the collected works of Shakespeare, known as the
first folio, was published in 1623, when Milton was fifteen years old.
The second Shakespeare folio appeared in 1632. Among the commendatory
verses by various hands prefixed, after the fashion of the time, to the
latter volume, was a little piece of eight couplets, in which some then
unknown rhymer expressed his admiration of the great poet. Collecting his
poems for publication in 1645, Milton included these couplets, gave them
the date 1630, and the title _On Shakespeare_ which they have since borne
in his works. The fact that he wrote the verses two years before their
publication in the Shakespeare folio shows that he did not produce them
to order, for the special occasion. It is interesting to note that Milton
at twenty-tw