e wild beasts,
{and} the yielding air the birds.

{But} an animated being, more holy than these, more fitted to receive
higher faculties, and which could rule over the rest,[26] was still
wanting. {Then} Man was formed. Whether it was that the Artificer of all
things, the original of the world in its improved state, framed him from
divine elements;[27] or whether, the Earth, being newly made, and but
lately divided from the lofty aether, still retained some atoms of its
kindred heaven, which, tempered with the waters of the stream, the son
of Iapetus fashioned after the image of the Gods, who rule over all
things. And, whereas other animals bend their looks downwards upon the
Earth, to Man he gave a countenance to look on high and to behold the
heavens, and to raise his face erect to the stars. Thus, that which had
been lately rude earth, and without any regular shape, being changed,
assumed the form of Man, {till then} unknown.

[Footnote 11: _Whoever of the Gods he was._--Ver. 32. By this
expression the Poet perhaps may intend to intimate that the God
who created the world was some more mighty Divinity than those who
were commonly accounted Deities.]

[Footnote 12: _Are some of them swallowed up._--Ver. 40. He here
refers to those rivers which, at some distance from their sources,
disappear and continue their course under ground. Such was the
stream of Arethusa, the Lycus in Asia, the Erasinus in Argolis,
the Alpheus in Peloponnesus, the Arcas in Spain, and the Rhone in
France. Most of these, however, after descending into the earth,
appear again and discharge their waters into the sea.]

[Footnote 13: _He commanded the plains._--Ver. 43. The use here of
the word 'jussit,' signifying 'ordered,' or 'commanded,' is
considered as being remarkably sublime and appropriate, and
serving well to express the ease wherewith an infinitely powerful
Being accomplishes the most difficult works. There is the same
beauty here that was long since remarked by Longinus, one of the
most celebrated critics among the ancients, in the words used by
Moses, 'And God said, Let there be light, and there was light,'
Genesis, ch. i. ver. 3.]

[Footnote 14: _On the right-hand side._--Ver. 45. The "right hand"
here refers to the northern part of the globe, and the "left hand"
to the southern. He here speaks of the zones. Astronomers have
divided th