it in holy writ. Milton's exuberance of imagination has poured forth fuch a redundancy of ornaments on this feat of happiness and innocence, that it would be endlefs to point out each particular. I must not quit this head, without further obferving, that there is scarce a speech of Adam or Eve in the whole poem, wherein the fentiments and allufions are not taken from this their delightful habitation. The reader, during their whole course of action, always finds himself in the walks of Paradife. In short, as the critics have remarked,. that in thofe poems wherein fhepherds are actors, the thoughts ought always to take a tincture from the woods, fields, and rivers, fo we may obferve, that our firit parents feldom. lofe fight of their happy ftation in any thing they speak or do; and, if the reader will give me leave to use the expreffion, that their thoughts are always Paradifiacal. We are in the next place to confider the machines of the fourth book. Satan being now within profpect of Eden, and looking round upon the glories of the creation, is filled with fentiments different from thofe which he discovered whilft he was in hell. The place infpires him with thoughts more adapted to it: he reflects upon the happy condition from whence he fell, and breaks forth into a fpeech that is foftened with feveral tranfient touches of remorfe and felf-accufation: but at length he confirms himself in impenitence, and in his defign of drawing man into his own ftate of guilt and mifery. This conflict of paffions is raifed with a great deal of art, as the opening of his fpeech.to the fun is very bold and noble. "O thou that with furpaffing glory crown'd, I fell, how glorious once above thy fphere." This fpeech is, I think, the fine that is afcribed to Satan in the whole poem. The evil fpirit afterwards proceeds to make his difcoveries concerning our first parents, and to learn after what manner they may be beft attack ed. His bounding over the walls of Paradife; his fitting in the fhape of a cormorant upon the tree of life, which flood in the center of it, and overtopped all the other trees of the garden; his alighting among the herd of animals, which are fo beautifully reprefented as playing, about Adam and Eve, together with his transforming. himfelf into different fhapes, in order to hear their converfation; are circumftances that give an agreeable fur. prife to the reader, and are devifed with great art, to connect that feries of adventures in which the poet has engaged this artificer of fraud. The thought of Satan's transformation into a cormorant, and placing himself on the tree of life, feems raised upon that paffage in the Iliad, where two deities are defcribed, as perching on the top of an oak in the fhape of vultures. His planting himself at the ear of Eve under the form of a toad, in order to produce vain dreams and imaginations, is a circumftance of the fame nature; as his ftarting up in his own form is wonderfully fine, both in the literal defcription, and in the moral which is concealed under it. His anfwer upon his being discovered, and demanded to give an account of himfelf, is conformable to the pride and intrepidity of his character. "Know ye not then, faid Satan, fill'd with fcorn, Zephon's rebuke, with the influence it had on Satan, is exquifitely graceful and moral. Satan is afterwards led away to Gabriel, the chief of the guardian' angels, who kept watch in Paradife. His difdainful behaviour on this occafion is fo remarkable a beauty that the moft ordinary reader cannot but take notice of it. Gabriel's difcovering difcovering his approach at a distance, is drawn with great strength and liveliness of imagination.. "O friends, I hear the tread of nimble feet, The conference between Gabriel and Satan abounds with fentiments proper for the occafion, and suitable to the perfons of the two fpeakers. Satan clothing: him-felf with terror when he prepares for the combat is, truly fublime, and at least equal to Homer's defcription of difcord celebrated by Longinus, or to that of fame in Virgil, who are both reprefented with their feet: standing upon the earth, and their heads reaching above the clouds. "While thus he fpake, th' angelic fquadron bright “Turn'd fiery red, fharp'ning in mooned horns Their phalanx, and began to hem him round With ported fpears, &c.. -On th' other fide Satan alarm'd,. "Collecting all his might dilated flood: "Like Teneriff, or Atlas, unremov'd: His ftature reach'd the sky, and on his creff «Sat horror plum'd;" I must here take notice, that Milton is every where full of hints and fometimes literal translations, taken from the greateft of the Greek and Latin poets. But this I may referve for a difcourfe by itfelf, becaufe I would not break the thread of thefe fpeculations, that are defigned for English readers, with fuch. reflexions as would be of no ufe but to the learned: I must however obferve in this place, that the breaking. off the combat between Gabriel and Satan, by the hang ing out of the golden fcales in heaven, is a refinement upon Homer's thought, who tells us, that before the battle: N 6 between between Hector and Achilles, Jupiter weighed the event of it in a pair of fcales. The reader may fee the whole paffage in the 22d Iliad. Virgil, before the laft decifive combat, defcribes Jupiter in the fame manner, as weighing the fates of Turnus and Æneas. Milton, though he fetched this beautiful circumstance from the Iliad and Æneid, does not only infert it as a poetical embellishment, like the authors above-mentioned; but makes an artful ufe of it for the proper carrying on of his fable, and for the breaking off the combat between the two warriors, who were upon the point of engaging. To this we may further add, that Milton is the more juftified in this paffage, as we find the fame noble allegory in holy writ, where a wicked prince, fome few hours because he was affaulted and flain, is faid to have been weighed in the fcales, "and to have been found wanting." I must here take notice, under the head of the machines, that Uriel's gliding down to the earth upon a fun-beam, with the poet's device to make him defcend, as well in his return to the fun as in his coming from it, is a prettiness that might have been admired in a little fanciful poet, but feems below the genius of Milton. The defcription of the host of armed angels walking their nightly round in Paradise, is of another fpirit. "So faying, on he led his radiant files, હે "Dazzling the moon ;" as that account of the hymns which our firft parents ufed to hear them fing in thefe their midnight walks, is altogether divine, and inexpreffibly amufing to the imagination. We are, in the laft place, to confider the parts which, Adam and Eve act in the fourth book. The defcription of them, as they firft appeared to Satan, is exquifitely drawn, and fufficient to make the fallen angel gaze upon them with all that aftonishment, and thofe emotions of envy, in which he is reprefented. wo of far nobler fhape erect and tall, God-like erect! with native honour clad In naked majefty, feem'd lords of all; "And "And worthy feem'd: for in their looks divine "Dif-fhevel'd, but in wanton ringlets wav'ds There is a fine fpirit of poetry in the lines which follow, wherein they are described as fitting on a bed of flowers by the fide of a fountain, amidst a mixt assembly of animals. The fpeeches of these two firft lovers flow equally from paffion and fincerity. The profeffions they make to one another are full of warmth; but at the fame time founded on truth. In a word, they are the gallantries of Paradife. When Adam firft of men. "Sole partner and fole part of all these joys, "Dearer thyself than all; "But let us ever praise him, and extol "To prune thofe growing plants, and tend thefe flow'rs: " So |