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With what to fight or fmell was fweet; from thee
How fhall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this objcure

And wild, how shall we breath in other air
Lefs pure, accuftom'd to immortal fruits?

Adam's Speech abounds with Thoughts which are equally moving, but of a more Masculine and elevated Turn. Nothing can be conceived more Sublime and Poetical, than the following Passage in it:

This most afflicts me, that departing hence
As from his face 1 fhall be hid, deprived
His bleffed Count'nance; here I could frequent,
With worship, place by place where he vouchfafed
Prefence divine, and to my Sons relate;
On this mount he appear'd, under this tree
Stood vifible, among thefe Pines his voice

I heard, here with him at this fountain talk'd:
So many grateful Altars I would rear
Of graffie turf, and pile up every Stone
Of luftre from the brook, in memory,
Or monument to ages, and thereon

Offer fweet fmelling Gums and fruits and flowers :
In yonder nether world where fhall I feek
His bright appearances, or footsteps trace?
For though I fled him angry, yet recall'd
To life prolong'd and promifed race, I now
Gladly behold though but his utmost Skirts
Of Glory, and far off his Steps adore.

The Angel afterwards leads Adam to the highest Mount of Paradife, and lays before him a whole Hemisphere, as a proper Stage for those Visions which were to be reprefented on it. I have before observed how the Plan of Milton's Poem is in many Particulars greater than that of the Iliad or Æneid. Virgil's Hero, in the last of these Poems, is entertained with a fight of all those who are to defcend from him; but tho' that Episode is justly admired as one of the noblest

Designs in the whole Æneid, every one must allow that this of Milton is of a much higher Nature. Adam's Vifion is not confined to any particular Tribe of Mankind, but extends to the whole Species.

In this great Review, which Adam takes of all his Sons and Daughters, the first Objects he is prefented with exhibit to him the Story of Cain and Abel, which is drawn together with much Closeness and Propriety of Expreffion. That Curiofity and natural Horror which arifes in Adam at the Sight of the first dying Man is touched with great beauty.

But have I now feen death, is this the way
I must return to native duft? O Sight
Of terrour foul and ugly to behold,
Horrid to think, how horrible to feel!

The fecond Vision fets before him the Image of Death in a great Variety of Appearances. The Angel, to give him a General Idea of thofe Effects, which his Guilt had brought upon his Pofterity, places before him a large Hospital, or Lazar-house, fill'd with Perfons lying under all kinds of Mortal Diseases. How finely has the Poet told us that the fick Persons languished under Lingring and Incurable Distempers by an apt and Judicious use of such Imaginary Beings, as those I mentioned in my last Saturday's Paper.

Dire was the toffing, deep the Groans, Defpair
Tended the Sick, bufie from Couch to Couch;
And over them triumphant Death his dart
Shook, but delay'd to firike, though oft invoked
With vows as their chief good and final hope.

The Paffion which likewife rifes in Adam on this Occafion is very natural.

Sight fo deform what Heart of rock could tong
Dry-ey'd behold? Adam could not, but wept,
Tho' not of Woman born; Compaffion quell'd
His beft of Man, and gave him up to tears.

The Discourse between the Angel and Adam which follows, abounds with noble Morals.

As there is nothing more delightful in Poetry, than a Contrast and Opposition of Incidents, the Author, after this melancholy profpect of Death and Sickness, raises up a Scene of Mirth, Love and Jollity. The fecret Pleasure that steals into Adam's Heart, as he is intent upon this Vision, is imagined with great Delicacy. I must not omit the Description of the loose Female troupe, who seduced the Sons of God as they are call'd in Scripture.

For that fair female troupe thou faw'ft that feem'd
Of Goddeffes fo Blithe, fo Smooth, fo Gay,
Yet empty of all good wherein confifts
Womans domeftick honour and chief praife;
Bred only and compleated to the tafle
Of luftful appetence, to fing, to dance,

To drefs, and troule the tongue, and roul the Eye.
To thefe that fober race of Men, whofe lives
Religious titled them the Sons of God,

Shall yield up all their vertue, all their fame
Ignobly, to the trains and to the fmiles
Of thofe fair Atheists-

The next Vision is of a quite contrary Nature, and filled with the Horrours of War. Adam, at the fight of it, melts into Tears, and breaks out in that paffionate Speech;

-O what are thefe

Deaths minifters not Men, who thus deal death
Inhumanly to Men, and multiply

Ten thoufand fold the Sin of him who flew

His Brother: for of whom fuch Maffacre

Make they but of their Brethren, men of men?

Milton, to keep up an agreeable variety in his Visions, after having raised in the Mind of his Reader the feveral Ideas of Terror which are conformable to the Description of War, paffes on to those fofter Images of Triumphs and Festivals, in that Vision of Lewdness and Luxury, which ushers in the Flood.

As it is vifible, that the Poet had his Eye upon Ovid's account of the universal Deluge, the Reader may observe with how much Judgment he has avoided every thing that is redundant or puerile in the Latin Poet. We do not here fee the Wolf swimming among the Sheep, nor any of those wanton Imaginations which Seneca has found fault with, as unbecoming this great Catastrophe of Nature. If our Poet has imitated that Verse in which Ovid tells us, that there was nothing but Sea, and that this Sea had no Shoar to it, he has not fet the Thought in such a light as to incur the Cenfure which Criticks have paffed upon it. The latter part of that Verse in Ovid is idle and fuperfluous; but just and beautiful in Milton.

Jamque mare & tellus nullum difcrimen habebant, Nil nifi pontus erat, deerant quoque littora ponto. Ovid. -Sea cover'd Sea,

Sea without Shoar

Milton.

In Milton the former part of the Defcription does not foreftall the latter. How much more great and folemn on this occafion is that which follows in our English Poet,

-And in their palaces

Where luxury late reign'd, Sea Monflers whelp'd
And Stabl'd

than that in Ovid, where we are told, that the Sea Calfs lay in those places where the Goats were used to browze? The Reader may find several other Parallel Paffages in the Latin and English Defcription of the Deluge, wherein our Poet has vifibly the Advantage. The Sky's being over-charged with Clouds, the defcending of the Rains, the rifing of the Seas, and the appearance of the Rainbow, are fuch Descriptions as every one must take notice of. The Circumstance relating to Paradife is fo finely imagined and fuitable to the Opinions of many learned Authors, that I cannot forbear giving it a place in this Paper.

Then fhall this mount

Of Paradife by might of Waves be moved
Out of his place, push'd by the horned flood,
With all his verdure spoil'd, and trees a drift
Down the great river to the op'ning Gulf,
And there take root an Island falt and bare,
The haunt of Seals and Orcs, and Sea-Mews clang:

The Transition which the Poet makes from the Vision of the Deluge, to the Concern it occasioned in Adam, is exquifitely graceful, and copied after Virgil, tho' the first Thought it introduces is rather in the Spirit of Ovid.

How didft thou grieve, then, Adam, to behold
The end of all thy Off-fpring, end fo fad,
Depopulation; thee another floud,

Of tears and forrow, a floud thee alfo drown'd,
And funk thee as thy Sons: 'till gently rear'd
By th' Angel, on thy feet thou floodft at last,
Though comfortless, as when a father mourns
His Children, all in view deftroy'd at once.

I have been the more particular in my Quotations out of the Eleventh Book of Paradife Loft, because it is not generally reckoned among the most shining Books of this Poem. For which reason, the Reader might be apt to overlook thofe many Paffages in it, which deserve our, Admiration. The Eleventh_and Twelfth are indeed built upon that fingle Circumstance of the Removal of our firft Parents from Paradife; but tho' this is not in it self so great a Subject as that in most of the foregoing Books, it is extended and diversified with fo many furprizing Incidents and pleafing Episodes, that these two last Books can by no means be looked upon as unequal Parts of this divine Poem. I must further add, that had not Milton represented our first Parents as driven out of Paradife, his Fall of Man would not have been compleat, and confequently his Action would have been imperfect.

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