M

CRUDELIS UBIQUE

ILTON has fhewn a wonderful art in defcribing that variety of paffions, which arife in our firft parents upon the breach of the commandment that had been given them. We fee them gradually paffing from the triumph of their guilt through remorse, fhame, defpair, contrition, prayer, and hope, to a perfect and compleat repentance. At the end of the tenth book they are reprefented as proftrating themfelves upon the ground, and watering the earth with their tears: to which the poet joins this beautiful circumftance, that they offered up their penitential prayers on the very place where their judge appeared to them when he pronounced their fentence.

-They forthwith to the place Repairing where he judg'd them, proftrate fell Before him reverent, and both confefs'd Humbly their faults, and pardon begg'd, with

tears

Watering the ground.

There is a beauty of the fame kind in a tragedy of Sophocles, where Oedipus, after having put out his own eyes, inftead of breaking his neck from the palace battlements (which furnishes fo elegant an entertainment for our EngJif audience) defires that he may be conducted to Mount Citharon, in order to end his life in that very place where he was expofed in his infancy, and where he fhould then have died, had the will of his parents been executed.

As the author never fails to give a poetical turn to his fentiments, he defcribes in the beginning of this book the acceptance which thefe their prayers met with, in a fhort allegory, formed upon that beautiful paffage in Holy Writ: And another angel came and ftood at the altar, having a golden cenfer; and there was given unto him much incenfe, that he fhould offer it with the prayers of all faints upon the golden altar, which was before the throne:

DRYDEN.

and the fmoke of the incenfe, which came with the prayers of the faints, afcended up before God."

-To heav'n their prayers

Flew up, nor mifs'd their way, by envious winds

Blown vagabond or fruftrate: in they pafs'd Dimenfionless through heav'nly doors, then clad

With incenfe, where the golden altar fum'd, By their great Interceffor, came in fight

Before the Father's throne

We have the fame thought expreffed a fecond time in the interceffion of the

Meffiah, which is conceived in very emphatical fentiments and expreffions.

Among the poctical parts of Scripture, which Milton has fo finely wrought into this part of his narration, I muft not omit that wherein Ezekiel, fpeaking of the angels who appeared to him in a vision, adds, that every one had four faces," and that their whole bodies, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, were full of eyes round about." -The cohort bright

Of watchful cherubim, four faces each
Had, like a double Janus, all their shape
Spangled with eyes—

The affembling of all the angels of heaven to hear the folemn decree paffed upon man, is reprefented in very lively ideas. The Almighty is here defcribed as remembering mercy in the midst of judgment, and commanding Michael to deliver his meffage in the mildest terms, left the fpirit of man, which was already broken with the fenfe of his guilt and mifery, fhould fail before him.

-Yet left they faint At the fad fentence rigorously urg'd, For I behold them foftened, and with tears Bewailing their excefs, all terror hide.

The conference of Alam and Eve is full of moving fentiments. Upon their

going abroad after the melancholy night which they had paffed together, they difcover the lion and the eagle purfuing each of them their prey towards the taftern gates of Paradife. There is a double beauty in this incident, not only as it prefents great and juft omens, which are always agreeable in poetry, but as it expreffes that enmity which was now produced in the animal creation. The poet, to fhew the like changes in nature, as well as to grace his fable with a noble prodigy, reprefents the fun in an eclipfe. This particular incident has likewife a fine effect upon the ima gination of the reader, in regard to what follows; for at the fame time that the fun is under an eclipfe, a bright cloud defcends in the western quarter of the heavens, filled with an hoft of angels, and more luminous than the fun itelf. The whole theatre of nature is darkened, that this glorious machine may appear in all it's luftre and magnificence.

-Why in the east

Darkness ere day's mid-courfe? and morning light

More orient in yon western cloud that draws O'er the blue firmament a radiant white, And flow defcends with fomething heav'nly fraught?

He err'd not, for by this the heav'nly bands Down from a fky of jafper lighted now In Paradife, and on till made halt; A glorious apparition

I need not ooferve how properly this author, who always faks his parts to the actors whom he introduces, has employed Michael in the expulfion of our first parents from Paradife. The archangel on this occafion neither appears in his proper shape, nor in that familiar manner with which Raphael, the fociable fpirit, entertained the father of mankind before the fall. His perfon, his port, and behaviour, are fuitable to a fpirit of the highest rank, and exquifitely defcribed in the following paffage.

-Th' archangel foon drew nigh, Not in his fhape celestial; but as man Clad to meet man: over his lucid arms A military veft of purple flow'd Livelier than Melibean, or the grain Of Sarra, worn by kings and heroes old, In time of truce: Iris had dipt the woof: His tarry helm, unbuckled, fhew'd him prime In manhood where youth ended; by his fide, As in a gliftering zodiac hung the fword,

Satan's dire dread, and in his hand the fpear. Adam bow'd low, he kingly from his state Inclin'd not, but his coming thus declared.

Eve's complaint, upon hearing that he was to be removed from the garden of Paradife, is wonderfully beautiful: the fentiments are not only proper to the fubject, but have fomething in them particularly foft and womanish.

Muft I then leave thee, Paradife? thus • leave

Thee, native foil, thefe happy walks and 'shades,

Fit haunt of gods? where I had hope to spend
Quiet though fad, the refpite of that day
That must be mortal to us both. O flow'rs,
That never will in other climate grow,
My early vifitation, and my laft

Atev'n, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave you

The angel afterwards leads Adam to the higheft mount of Paradife, and lays before him a whole hemifphere, as a proper ftage for thofe vifions which were to be reprefented on it. I have before obferved 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 thefe poems, is entertained with a fight of all thofe who are to defcend from him; but though that epifode is justly admired as one of the noblet defigns in the whole Eneid, every one muft 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 fpecies.

In this great review which Adam takes of all his fons and daughters, the firft objects he is prefented with exhibit to him the ftory of Cain and Abel, which is drawn together with much clofenefs and propriety of expreffion. That curiofity and natural horror which arifes in Adam at the fight 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 fight
Of terror foul, and ugly to behold,
Horrid to think, how horrible to feel!'

The fecond vifion fets before him the image of death in a great variety of appearances. The angel, to give him a general idea of thote effects which his guilt had brought upon his pofterity, places before him a large hofpital or lazar houfe, filled with perfons lying under all kinds of mortal diftafes. How finely has the poet told us that the fick perfons languished under lingering and incurable difcmpers, by an apt and judicious ufe of fuch imaginary beings as thofe I mentioned in my latt Saturday's paper!

Dire was the toffing, deep the groans; Defpair Tended the fick busi.ft from couch to couch; And over them triumphant Death his dart Shook, but delay'd to strike, tho' oft invok'd With vows, as their chief good, and final hope.

The paffion, which likewife rifes in Adam on this occation, is very natural. Sight fo deform what heart of rock could long 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 difcourfe between the angel and Adam, which follows, abounds with noble morals.

As there is nothing more delightful in poetry, than a contraft and oppofition of incidents, the author, after this melancholy profpect of death and sickness, raifes up a scene of mirth, love, and jollity. The fecret pleasure that steals into Adam's heart, as he is intent upon this vifion, is imagined with great delicacy. I muft not omit the defcription of the loofe female troop, who feduced the fons of God, as they are called in Scrip

ture.

• For that fair female troop thou saw`ft, that • feem'd

Of goddeffes, fo blithe, so smooth, so gay,
Yet empty of all good, wherein confifts
Woman's domeftic honour, and chief praife;
Bred only and compleated to the tafte
Of lustful appetence, to fing, to dance,
To drefs, and troule the tongue, and roll
the eye:

To thefe that fober race of men, whose lives
Religious title them the fons of God,
Shall yield up all their virtue, all their fame,
Ignobly, to the trains and to the fmiles
Of thefe fair atheitts-

The next vifion is of a quite contrary nature, and filled with the horrors of Adam at the fight of it melts into tears, and breaks out in that passionate fpeech

war.

Milton, to keep up an agreeable variety in his vifions, after having raised in the mind of his reader the feveral ideas of terror which are conformable to the defcription of war, paffes on to those fofter images of triumphs and feftivals, in that vilion of lewdness and luxury which ufhers in the flood.

As it is visible that the poet had his eye upon Ovid's account of the univerfal deluge, the reader may obferve 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 fwimming among the sheep, nor any of those wanton imaginations,

than that in Ovid, where we are told that the fea-calves lay in those places where the goats were ufed to browfe? The reader may find several other parallel paffages in the Latin and English defeription of the deluge, wherein our poet has visibly the advantage. The fky's being over-charged with clouds, the defcending of the rains, the rifing of the feas, and the appearance of the rainbow, are fuch defcriptions as every one must take notice of. The circumstance relating to Paradise is so 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 mov'd Out of his place, pufh'd by the horned flood, With all his verdure fpoil'd, and trees adrift, Down the great river to the op'ning gulf, The haunt of feals and orcs and fea-mews And there take root; an ifland falt and bare, clang.

The tranfition which the poet makes from the vifion of the deluge, to the concern it occafioned in Adam, is exquifitely graceful, and copied after Virgil, though the first thought it introduces is rather in the spirit of Ovid.

How did thou grieve then, Adam, to be-
hold

The end of all thy offspring, end fo fad,
Depopulation! thee another flood

Of tears and forrow, a flood thee alfo
• drown'd

And funk thee as thy fons; till gently
'rear'd

By th' angel, on thy feet thou ftoodit at last,
Tho' comfortless, as when a father mourns
His children all in view destroy'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 moft fhining books of this poem; for which reafon 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 circumftance of the removal of our firft parents from Paradife; but though this is not in itself fo great a subject as that in most of the foregoing books, it is extended and diverfified with fo many furprising incidents and pleafing epifodes, that thefe two latt books can by no means be looked upon as unequal parts of this divine poem. I must further add, that, had not Milton reprefented our firit parents as driven out of Paradife, his Fall of Man would not have been compleat, and confequently his action would have been imperfect.

L