and compleat Relation of what the other is only an Epitome. I have infifted the longer on this Confideration, as I look upon the Difpofition and Contrivance of the Fable to be the Principal Beauty of the Ninth Book, which has more Story in it, and is fuller of Incidents, than any other in the whole Poem. Satan's traverfing the Globe, and ftill keeping within the Shadow of the Night, as fearing to be discovered by the Angel of the Sun, who had before detected him, is one of those beautiful Imaginations [with] which [he] introduces this his fecond Series of Adventures. Having examined the Nature of every Creature, and found out one which was the most proper for his Purpose, he again returns to Paradife; and, to avoid Discovery, finks by Night with a River that ran under the Garden, and rifes up again through a Fountain that issued from it by the Tree of Life. The Poet, who, as we have before taken notice, speaks as little as poffible in his own Perfon, and, after the example of Homer, fills every Part of his Work with Manners and Characters, introduces a Soliloquy of this Infernal Agent, who was thus restless in the Destruction of Man. He is then defcrib'd as gliding through the Garden under the resemblance of a Mist, in order to find out that Creature in which he design'd to tempt our firft Parents. This Defcription has something in it very Poetical and Surprizing. So faying, through each thicket Dank or Dry The Author afterwards gives us a Defcription of the Morning, which is wonderfully fuitable to a Divine Poem, and peculiar to that first Season of Nature; he represents the Earth before it was curft, as a great Altar breathing out its Incense from all parts, and fending up a pleasant Savour to the Noftrils of its Creator; to which he adds a noble Idea of Adam and Eve, as offering their Morning Worship, and filling up the universal Confort of Praise and Adoration. Now when as facred light began to dawn In Eden on the humid flowers, that breathed With grateful fmell, forth came the human pair The Dispute which follows between our two first Parents is represented with great Art: It arifes [proceeds] from a difference of Judgment, not of Passion, and is managed with Reason, not with Heat; it is fuch a Dispute as we may fuppofe might have happened in Paradife, had Man continued Happy and Innocent. There is a great Delicacy in the Moralities which are interspersed in Adam's Discourse, and which the most ordinary Reader cannot but take notice of. That force of Love which the Father of Mankind fo finely describes in the Eighth Book, and which I inserted in my last Saturday's Paper, fhews it self here in many beautiful Instances: As in those fond Regards he casts towards Eve at her parting from him. Her long with ardent look his eye purfued To be return'd by noon amid the Bowre. In his impatience and amufement during her Absence. -Adam the while Waiting defirous her return, had wove As Reapers oft are wont their Harvest Queen. But particularly in that paffionate Speech, where seeing her irrecoverably loft, he resolves to perish with her, rather than to live without her. -Some curfed fraud Or enemy hath beguil'd thee, yet unknown, How can I live without thee, how forego Would never from my heart; no, no, I feel The beginning of this Speech, and the Preparation to it, are animated with the fame Spirit as the Conclufion, which I have here quoted. The feveral Wiles which are put in Practice by the Tempter, when he found Eve feparated from her Husband, the many pleasing Images of Nature, which are intermixt in this part of the Story, with its gradual and regular Progrefs to the fatal Catastrophe, are fo very remarkable, that it would be fuperfluous to point out their feveral [refpective] Beauties. I have avoided mentioning any particular Similitudes in my Remarks on this great Work, because I have given a general account of them in my Paper on the First Book. There is one, however, in this part of the Poem which I fhall here quote, as it is not only very beautiful, but the closest of any in the whole Poem; I mean that where the Serpent is describ'd as rolling forward in all his Pride, animated by the evil Spirit, and conducting Eve to her Destruction, while Adam was at too great a distance from her, to give her his Affiftance. These feveral Particulars are all of them wrought into the following Similitude. -Hope elevates, and Joy Brighten's his Creft, as when a wand'ring fire That fecret Intoxication of Pleasure, with all those tranfient flushings of Guilt and Joy which the Poet represents in our first Parents upon their eating the forbidden Fruit, to thofe flaggings of Spirit, damps of Sorrow and mutual Accufations which fucceed it, are conceiv'd with a wonderful Imagination, and described in very natural Sentiments. When Dido in the Fourth Eneid yielded to that fatal Temptation which ruin'd her, Virgil tells us, the Earth trembled, the Heavens were filled with flashes of Lightning, and the Nymphs howl'd upon the Mountain Tops. Milton, in the fame Poetical Spirit, has defcrib'd all Nature as disturbed upon Eve's eating the forbidden Fruit. So faying, her rafh hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the Fruit, fhe plucked, she eat: Upon Adam's falling into the fame Guilt, the whole Creation appears a second time in Convulfions. -He fcrupl'd not to eat Against his better knowledge; not deceiv'd But fondly overcome with Female charm. As all Nature fuffer'd by the guilt of our first Parents, these Symptoms of Trouble and Confternation are wonderfully imagin'd, not only as Prodigies, but as Marks of her Sympathizing in the Fall of Man. Adam's Converse with Eve, after having eaten the forbidden Fruit, is an exact Copy of that between Jupiter and Juno, in the Fourteenth Iliad. Juno there approaches Jupiter with the Girdle which he had received from Venus, upon which he tells her, that she appeared more charming and desirable than she ever had done before, even when their Loves were at the highest. The Poet afterwards describes them as repofing on a Summet of Mount Ida, which produced under them a Bed of Flowers, the Lotus, the Crocus, and the Hyacinth, and concludes his Description with their falling a-fleep. Let the Reader compare this with the following Paffage in Milton, which begins with Adam's Speech to Eve. For never did thy Beauty fince the Day So faid he, and forbore not glance or toy And Hyacinth, Earth's fresheft fofteft lap. |