I

Who ere while the happy garden sung,

By one man's disobedience lost, now sing
Recover'd Paradise to all mankind,

By
Milton's Paradise Regain'd has ere while &c. is plainly an allusion
not met with the approbation that to the Ille ego qui quondam &c. at-
it deserves. It has not the har- tributed to Virgil : but it doth not
mony of numbers, the sublimity therefore follow that Milton had
of thought, and the beauties of no better taste than to conceive
diction, which are in Paradise these lines to be genuin. Their
Loft. It is composed in a lower being so well known to all the
and less striking ftile, a stile suited learned was reason sufficient for his
to the subject. Artful sophistry, imitation of them, as it was for
falfe reasoning, set off in the most Spenser's before him:
specious manner, and refuted by
the Son of God with strong un-

Lo, I the man, whose Muse

whileom did mask,
affected eloquence, is the peculiar
excellence of this poem.

As time her taught, in lowly

Satan there defends a bad cause with

shepherds weeds,

Am now enforc'd a far unfitter great skill and fubtlety, as one

task, thoroughly versed in that craft;

For trumpets ftern to change
Qui facere assuerat

mine oaten reeds &c.
Candida de nigris, et de can-
dentibus atra.

2. By one man's disobedience] The

opposition of one man's disobedience His character is well drawn. Jortin. in this verfe to one man's obedience in

ver, 4. is somewhat in the stile and 1. I who ere while &c.] Milton manner of St. Paul. Rom. V. 19. begins his Paradise Regain'd in For as by one man's disobedience the same manner as the Paradise many were made finners ; so by the Loft; first proposes his subject, and obedience of one shall many be made then invokes the assistance of the righteous. Holy Spirit. The beginning I who 3. Recover'd Paradise] It may

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feem

By one man’s firm obedience fully try'd
Through all temptation, and the tempter foild 5
In all his wiles, defeated and repuls’d,
And Eden rais'd in the waste wildernefs.

Thou Spi'rit who ledst this glorious eremite
Into the desert, his victorious field,
Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence

By

1

seem a little odd at first, that Mil- to this defective plan; or his fondton should impute the recovery of ness for the plan influenced those Paradise to this short scene of our notions. That is whether he inSaviour's life upon earth, and not deed supposed the redemption of rather extend it to his agony, cru- mankind (as 'he here represents it) cifixion &c, but the reason no doubt was procured by Christ's triumph was, that Paradise regain'd by our over the Devil in the wilderness i Saviour's refifting the temptations or whether he thought that the of Satan might be a better con- scene of the desert opposed to that

a trast to Paradise loft by our first pa. of Paradise, and the action of a rents too easily yielding to the fame temptation withstood to a tempo feducing Spirit. Besides he might tation fallen under, made Paradise yery probably, and indeed very Regain'd a more regular sequel to reasonably, be apprehensive, that a Paradise Loft. Or if neither this Subject so extensive as well as sub- nor that, whether it was his being lime might be too great a burden tired out with the labor of comfor his declining constitution, and a posing Paradise Loft made him talk too long for the short term of averse to another work of length years he could then hope for. Even, (and then he would never be at a in his Paradise Loft he expresses his loss for fanciful reasons to deterfears, left he had begun too late, min him in the choice of his plan) and left an age too late, or cold clic is very unceștain. All that we can mate, or years should have damp'd his be sure of is, that the plan is a intended wing ; and surely he had very unhappy one, and defective much greater cause to dread the even in that narrow view of a fesame now, and be very cautious of guel, for it affords the poet no oplanching out too far.

Thyer. portunity of driving the Devil back It is hard to say whether Milton's again to Hell from his new con. wrong noțions in divinity led him quests in the air. In the mean time

nothing

II

By proof th' undoubted Son of God, inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted song else mute,
And bear through highth or depth of nature's bounds
With prosp'rous wing full summ’d, to tell of deeds
Above heroic, though in secret done,

15 And unrecorded left through many an age, Worthy t' have not remain’d so long unsung.

Now

nothing was easier than to have in- eremite, which was used before by vented a good one, which should Milton in his Paradise Lost III. end with the resurrection, and con- 474 prise these four books, fomewhat

Embryo's and idiots, eremites and contracted, in an episode, for which

friers : only the subject of them is fit.

Warburton. and by Fairfax in his translation of i' 7 And Éden rais'd in the walle Tasso, Cant. 11. St. 4.

wilderness.] There is, I think, Next morn the bishops twain, the a particular beauty in this line, eremite : when one considers the fine allu- and in Italian as well as in Latin fion in it to the curse brought upon there is eremita, which the French, the Paradisiacal earth by the fall of and we after them, contract into Adam, Curfed is the ground for hermite, hermit.

, thy sake- Thorns also and thistles fall it bring forth. Thyer.

13:

of nature's bounds] To 8. Thou Spi'rit who ledj) this glo- which he confines himself in this

rious eremite] The invocation poem, not as in Paradise Lost, is properly address’d to the Holy where he foars above and without Spirit, not only as the inspirer of the bounds of nature. VII. 21. every good work, but as the leader

Richardson. of our Saviour upon this occasion

14. With prosprous wing full into the wilderness. For it is said

fumm’d, ] We had the like exMat. IV. 1. Then was Jefus led up pression in Paradise Lost VII. 421. of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be ianpted of the Devil. And from the They fumm'd their pensGreek original epua the desert, and it was noted there that it is a and spoustns an inhabitant of the term in falconry. A hawk said desert, is rightly formed the word to be full fuinmd, when all his fea

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thers