employed on them the whole energy of our tongue. The several great scenes of the creation rise up to view one after another, in such a manner, that the reader seems present at this wonderful work, and to assist among the choirs of angels, who are the spectators of it. How glorious is the conclusion of the first day.

Thus was the first day ev'n and morn.

Nor past uncelebrated, nor unsung

By the celestial choirs, when orient light

Exhaling first from darkness they beheld;

Birth-day of heav'n and earth: with joy and shout

The hollow universal orb they fill'd.

We have the same elevation of thought in the third day; when the mountains were brought forth, and the deep was made.

Immediately the mountains huge appear

Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave
Into the clouds, their tops ascend the sky:

So high as heav'd the tumid hills, so low

Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep,
Capacious bed of waters

We have also the rising of the whole vegetable world described in this day's work, which is filled with all the graces that other poets have lavished on their description of the spring, and leads the reader's imagination into a theatre equally surpri sing and beautiful.

The several glories of the heavens make their appearance on the fourth day.

First in his east the glorious lamp was seen
Regent of day, and all the horizon round
Invested with bright rays, jocund to run

His longitude thro' Heav'n's high road: the grey
Dawn, and the Pleiades before him danced
Shedding sweet influence: less bright the moon,
But opposite in levell'd west was set,

His mirror, with full face borrowing her light
From him, for other light she needed none

In that aspect, and still the distance keeps

'Till night; then in the east her turn she shines
Revolv'd on Heav'n's great axle, and her reign
With thousand lesser lights dividual holds,

With thousand thousand stars that then appear'd
Spangling the hemisphere

One would wonder how the poet could be so concise in his description of the six days' works, as to comprehend them within the bounds of an episode, and at the same time so particular, as to give us a lively idea of them. This is still more remarkable in his account of the fifth and sixth days, in which he has drawn out to our view the whole animal creation, from the reptile to the behemoth. As the lion and the leviathan are two of the noblest productions in the world of living creatures, the reader will find a most exquisite spirit of poetry in the account which our author gives us of them. The sixth day concludes with the formation of man, upon which the angel takes occasion, as he did after the battle in heaven, to remind Adam of his obedience, which was the principal design of this his visit.

The poet afterwards represents the Messiah returning into Heaven, and taking a survey of his great work. There is something inexpressibly sublime in this part of the poem, where the author describes that great period of time, filled with so many glorious circumstances; when the heavens and earth were finished; when the Messiah ascended up in triumph through the everlasting gates; when he looked down with pleasure upon this new creation; when every part of nature seemed to rejoice in its existence; when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.

So ev❜n and morn accomplish'd the sixth day:
Yet not till the Creator from his work

Desisting, tho' un wearied, up return'd,

Up to the heav'n of heav'ns his high abode,

Thence to behold this new created world

Th' addition of his empire; how it shew'd

In prospect from his throne, how good, how fair,
Answering his great idea. Up he rode,
Follow'd with acclamation and the sound
Symphonious of ten thousand harps that tuned
Angelic harmonies: the earth, the air
Resounding, (thou remember'st, for thou heard'st)
The heavens and all the constellations rung,
The planets in their station list'ning stood,
While the bright pomp ascended jubilant.
Open ye everlasting gates, they sung,
Open ye heav'ns, your living doors, let in
The great Creator from his work return'd
Magnificent, his six days' work, a world.

I cannot conclude this book upon the creation, without men tioning a poem which has lately appeared under that title.' The work was undertaken with so good an intention, and is executed with so great a mastery, that it deserves to be looked upon as one of the most useful and noble productions in our English verse. The reader cannot but be pleased to find the depths of philosophy enlivened with all the charms of poetry, and to see so great a strength of reason, amidst so beautiful a redundancy of the imagination. The author has shewn us that design in all the works of nature, which necessarily leads us to the knowledge of its first cause. In short, he has illustrated, by numberless and incontestable instances, that divine wisdom which the son of Sirach has so nobly ascribed to the Supreme Being in his forma

'By Sir Richard Blackmore, and the only work of his that has partially escaped oblivion. Johnson speaks of it in terms of high commendation. Swift ridicules all of Blackmore's works; upon which Chalmers, or some author used by him in his notes on the Spectator, gravely says'When men have done laughing, and wisely lay aside all the Dean's writings for life, this poem of Blackmore's will be read for its superior intention and better tendency''—a day, which, like the millennium, seems to be still a good way off.-G.

tion of the world, when he tells us, 'that he created her, and ́saw her, and numbered her, and poured her out upon all his works.'

L.

THE accounts which Raphael gives of the battle of angels, and the creation of the world, have in them those qualifications which the critics judge requisite to an episode. They are nearly related to the principal action, and have a just connection with the fable.

The eighth book opens with a beautiful description of the impression which this discourse of the arch-angel made in our first parents. Adam afterwards, by a very natural curiosity, inquires concerning the motions of those celestial bodies which make the most glorious appearance among the six days' works. The poet here, with a great deal of art, represents Eve as withdrawing from this part of their conversation to amusements more suitable to her sex. He well knew, that the episode in this book, which is filled with Adam's account of his passion and esteem for Eve, would have been improper for her hearing, and has therefore devised very just and beautiful reasons for her retiring.

So spake our sire, and by his count'nance seem'd

Ent'ring on studious thoughts abstruse: which Eve
Perceiving where she sat retired in sight,

With lowliness majestic from her seat,

And grace that won who saw to wish her stay,
Rose, and went forth among her fruits and flowers,
To visit how they prosper'd, bud and bloom,
Her nursery: they at her coming sprung,

And touch'd by her fair tendance gladlier grew.
Yet went she not, as not with such discourse
Delighted, or not capable her ear

Of what was high: such pleasure she reserv'd
Adam relating, she sole auditress;

Her husband the relater she preferr'd
Before the angel, and of him to ask

Chose rather: he, she knew, would intermix
Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute
With conjugal caresses; from his lip

Not words alone pleased her. O when meet now
Such pairs in love, and mutual honour join'd!

The Angel's returning a doubtful answer to Adam's inquiries, was not only proper for the moral reason which the poet assigns, but because it would have been highly absurd to have given the sanction of an arch-angel to any particular system of philosophy. The chief points in the Ptolemaic and Copernican hypothesis are described with great conciseness and perspicuity, and at the same time dressed in very pleasing and poetical images.

his own

Adam, to detain the angel, enters afterwards upon history, and relates to him the circumstances in which he found himself upon his creation; as also his conversation with his Maker, and his first meeting with Eve. There is no part of the poem more apt to raise the attention of the reader, than this discourse of our great ancestor; as nothing can be more surprising and delightful to us, than to hear the sentiments that arose in the first man while he was yet new and fresh from the hands of his Creator. The poet has interwoven every thing which is delivered upon this subject in holy writ with so many beautiful imaginations of his own, that nothing can be conceived more just and natural than this whole episode. As our author knew this sub