There is a fine spirit of poetry in the lines which follow,, wherein they are described as sitting on a bed of flowers by the side of a fountain, amidst a mixed assembly of animals.

The speeches of these two first lovers flow equally from passion and sincerity. The professions they make to one another are full of warmth; but at the same time founded on truth. In a word, they are the gallantries of Paradise.

-When Adam, first of men

Sole partner and sole part of all these joys,
Dearer thyself than all;-

But let us ever praise Him, and extol

His bounty, foliowing our delightful task,

To prune those growing plants, and tend these flowers,
Which were it toilsome, yet with thee were sweet.

To whom thus Eve reply'd: 0 thou for whom
And from whom I was form'd, flesh of thy flesh,
And without whom am to no end, my guide
And head, what thou hast said is just and right;
For we to him indeed all praises owe
And daily thanks: I chiefly, who enjoy
So far the happier lot, enjoying thee
Pre-eminent by so much odds, while thou

Like consort to thyself canst no where find, &c.

The remaining part of Eve's speech, in which she gives an account of herself upon her first creation, and the manner in which she was brought to Adam, is I think as beautiful a passage as any in Milton, or perhaps in any other poet whatsoever. These passages are all worked off with so much art, that they are capable of pleasing the most delicate reader, without offending the

most severe.

That day I oft remember, when from sleep, &c.

A poet of less judgment and invention than this great author, would have found it very difficult to have filled these tender parts of the poem with sentiments proper for a state of innocence; to have described the warmth of love, and the professions of it,

、without artifice or hyperbole; to have made the man speak the most endearing things, without descending from his natural dignity, and the woman receiving them without departing from the modesty of her character; in a word, to adjust the prerogatives of wisdom and beauty, and make each appear to the other in its proper force and loveliness. This mutual subordination of the two sexes is wonderfully kept up in the whole poem, as particularly in the speech of Eve I have before-mentioned, and upon the conclusion of it in the following lines.

So spake our general mother, and with eyes
Of conjugal attraction unreprov'd,
And meek surrender, half embracing lean'd
On our first father; half her swelling breast
Naked met his under the flowing gold
Of her loose tresses hid; he, in delight

Both of her beauty and submissive charms,

Smil'd with superior love.

The poet adds, that the devil turned away with envy at the sight of so much happiness.

We have another view of our first parents in their evening discourses, which is full of pleasing images and sentiments suitable to their condition and characters. The speech of Eve, in particular, is dressed up in such a soft and natural turn of words and sentiments, as cannot be sufficiently admired.'

I shall close my reflections upon this book, with observing the masterly transition which the poet makes to their evening worship, in the following lines.

Thus at their shady lodge arriv'd, both stood,

Both turn'd, and under open sky ador'd

The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heav'n,

Which they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe,

And starry pole: thou also mad'st the night,
Maker omnipotent, and thou the day, &c.

1 V. Tatler, 114, and Spect., 285 and 325.-C.

Most of the modern heroic poets have imitated the ancients, in beginning a speech without premising that the person said thus or thus; but as it is easy to imitate the ancients in the omission of two or three words, it requires judgment to do it in such a manner as they shall not be missed, and that the speech may begin naturally without them. There is a fine instance of this kind out of Homer, in the twenty-third chapter of Longinus.

L.

No. 327. SATURDAY, MARCH 15.

-Major rerum mihi nascitur ordo.

VIRG. En. vii. 43.

A larger scene of action is display'd.

DRYDEN.

WE were told in the foregoing book, how the evil spirit practised upon Eve as she lay asleep, in order to inspire her with thoughts of vanity, pride, and ambition. The author, who shews poem, in preparing the

a wonderful art throughout his whole reader for the several occurrences that arise in it, founds upon the above-mentioned circumstance the first part of the fifth book. Adam, upon his awaking, finds Eve still asleep, with an unusual discomposure in her looks. The posture in which he regards her, is described with a tenderness not to be expressed, as the whisper with which he awakens her, is the softest that ever was conveyed to a lover's ear.

His wonder was to find unwaken'd Eve

With tresses discompos'd and glowing cheek,

As thro' unquiet rest: he on his side
Leaning half-rais'd, with looks of cordial love,
Hung over her enamour'd, and beheld

Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep,

Shot forth peculiar graces; then with voice
Mild as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes,
Her hand soft touching, whisper'd thus: Awake,
My fairest, my espous'd, my latest found,
Heaven's last best gift, my ever new delight!
Awake: the morning shines, and the fresh field
Calls us; we lose the prime, to mark how spring
Our tended plants, how blows the citron grove,
What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed,
How nature paints her colours, how the bee
Sits on the bloom, extracting liquid sweet.
Such whispering wak'd her, but with startled eye
On Adam, whom embracing, thus she spake.

O sole in whom my thoughts find all repose,
My glory, my perfection, glad I see

Thy face and morn return'd

I cannot but take notice that Milton, in the conference between Adam and Eve, had his eye very frequently upon the book of Canticles, in which there is a noble spirit of Eastern poetry, and very often not unlike what we meet with in Homer, who is generally placed near the age of Solomon. I think there is no question but the poet in the preceding speech remembered those two passages which are spoken on the like occasion, and filled with the same pleasing images of nature.

"My beloved spake, and said unto me, rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away; for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig-tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

"Come, my beloved, let us go forth into the field: let us get up early to the vineyards, let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth." His preferring the garden of Eden to that

-Where the sapient king

Held dalliance with his fair Egyptian spouse,

shews that the poet had this delightful scene in his mind.

เ

Eve's dream is full of those high conceits engendering pride,' which, we are told, the devil endeavoured to instil into her. Of this kind is that part of it where she fancies herself awakened by Adam in the following beautiful lines.

Why sleep'st thou Eve? now is the pleasant time,
The cool, the silent, save where silence yields
To the night-warbling bird, that now awake
Tunes sweetest his love-labour'd song; now reigns
Full orb'd the moon, and with more pleasing light
Shadowy sets off the face of things: in vain,
If none regard. Heav'n wakes with all his eyes,
Whom to behold but thee, Nature's desire,

In whose sight all things joy, with ravishment,
Attracted by thy beauty still to gaze!

An injudicious poet would have made Adam talk through the whole work in such sentiments as these but flattery and falsehood are not the courtship of Milton's Adam, and could not be heard by Eve in her state of innocence, excepting only in a dream produced on purpose to taint her imagination. Other vain sentiments of the same kind in this relation of her dream, will be obvious to every reader. Though the catastrophe of the poem is

finely presaged on this occasion, the particulars of it are so artfully shadowed, that they do not anticipate the story which follows in the ninth book. I shall only add, that though the vision of itself is founded upon truth, the circumstances of it are full of that wildness and inconsistency which are natural to a dream. Adam, conformable to his superior character for wisdom, instructs and comforts Eve upon this occasion.

So cheer'd he his fair spouse, and she was cheer'd,
But silently a gentle tear let fall

From either eye, and wip'd them with her hair;