-They forthwith to the place

Repairing where he judged them, prostrate fell

Before him reverent, and both confess'd

Humbly their faults, and pardon begg'd with tears
Watering the ground-

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

As the author never fails to give a poetical turn to his sentiments, he describes in the beginning of this book the acceptance which these their prayers met with, in a short allegory formed upon that beautiful passage in holy writ; And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censor; and there was given. unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar, which was before the throne: and the smoke of the incense which came with the prayers of the saints ascended up before God.'

-To heav'n their prayers

Flew up, nor miss'd the way by envious winds
Blown vagabond or frustrate in they pass'd
Dimensionless through heav'nly doors, then clad
With incense, where the golden altar fumed,
By their great Intercessor, came in sight
Before the Father's throne-

We have the same thought expressed a second time in the intercession of the Messiah, which is conceived in very emphatic sentiments and expressions.

Among the poetical parts of scripture which Milton has so finely wrought into this part of his narration, I must not omit that wherein Ezekiel, speaking 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 assembling of all the angels of heaven to hear the solemn decree passed upon man, is represented in very lively ideas. The Almighty is here described as remembering mercy in the midst of judgment, and commanding Michael to deliver his message in the mildest terms, lest the spirit of man, which was already broken with the sense of his guilt and misery, should fail before him.

-Yet lest they faint

At the sad sentence rigorously urg'd,

(For I behold them soft'ned, and with tears
Bewailing their excess) all terror hide.

The conference of Adam and Eve is full of moving sentiments. Upon their going abroad after the melancholy night which they had passed together, they discover the lion and the eagle pursuing each of them their prey towards the eastern gates of Paradise. There is a double beauty in this incident, not only as it presents great and just omens, which are always agreeable in poetry, but as it expresses that enmity which was now produced in the animal creation. The poet, to shew the like changes in nature, as well as to grace his fable with a noble prodigy, represents the sun in an eclipse. This particular incident has likewise a fine effect upon the imagination of the reader, in regard to what follows; for at the same time that the sun is under an eclipse, a bright cloud descends in the western quarter of the heavens, filled with an host of angels, and more luminous than the sun itself. The whole theatre of nature is darkened, that this glorious machine may appear in all its lustre and magnificence.

Why in the east

Darkness ere day's mid-course and morning light

More orient in that western cloud that draws

O'er the blue firmament a radiant white,

And slow descends, with something heav'nly fraught?

He err'd not, for by this the heav'nly bands
Down from a sky of jasper lighted now

In Paradise, and on a hill made halt;
A glorious apparition-

I need not observe how properly this author, who always suits his parts to the actors whom he introduces, has employed Michael in the expulsion of our first parents from Paradise. The archangel on this occasion neither appears in his proper shape, nor in that familiar manner with which Raphael the sociable spirit entertained the father of mankind before the fall. His person, his port, and behaviour, are suitable to a spirit of the highest rank, and exquisitely described in the following passage.

-Th' archangel soon drew nigh,

Not in his shape celestial, but as man
Clad to meet man; over his lucid arms
A military vest of purple flow'd
Livelier than Melibæan, or the grain
Of Sarra, worn by kings and heroes old
In time of truce; Iris had dipt the woof.
His starry helm, unbuckled, shew'd him prime
In manhood where youth ended; by his side
As in a glist'ring zodiac hung the sword,
Satan's dire dread, and in his hand the spear.
Adam bow'd low: he kingly from his state
Inclined not, but his coming thus declared.

Eve's complaint upon hearing that she was to be removed from the garden of Paradise is wonderfully beautiful: the sentiments are not only proper to the subject, but have something in them particularly soft and womanish.

Must I then leave thee, Paradise? thus leave
Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of gods? where I had hope to spend
Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both. O flow'rs
That never will in other climate grow,
My early visitation and my last

At even, which I bred up with tender hand

From the first opening bud, and gave you names;
Who now shall rear you to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from th' ambrosial fount?
Thee, lastly, nuptial bower, by me adorn'd
With what to sight or smell was sweet: from thee
How shall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this obscure

And wild, how shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustom'd to immortal fruits?

Adam's speech abounds with thoughts which are equally moving, and 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 I shall be hid, deprived
His blessed count'nance; here I could frequent,
With worship, place by place where he vouchsafed
Presence divine, and to my sons relate,

On this mount he appear'd, under this tree
Stood visible, among these pines his voice

I heard, here with him at this fountain talk'd;
So many grateful altars I would rear

Of

grassy turf, and pile up every stone

Of lustre from the brook, in memory
Or monument to ages, and thereon

Offer sweet smelling gums and fruits and flowers.
In yonder nether world where shall I seek
His bright appearances, or footsteps trace?
For though I fled him angry, yet recall'd
To life prolong'd and promised 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 Paradise, and lays before him a whole hemisphere, as a proper stage for those visions which were to be represented 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 sight of all those who are to descend from him; but though 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 vision 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 presented with exhibit to him the story of Cain and Abel, which is drawn together with much closeness and propriety of expression. That curiosity and natural horror which arises in Adam at the sight of the first dying man, is touched with great beauty,

But have I now seen death? is this the way

I must return to native dust? O sight

Of terror foul and ugly to behold,

Horrid to think, how horrible to feel!

The second vision sets before him the image of death in a great variety of appearances. The angel, to give him a general idea of those effects which his guilt had brought upon his posterity, places before him a large hospital, or lazar-house, fill'd with persons lying under all kinds of mortal diseases. How finely has the poet told us that the sick persons languished under lingering and incurable distempers, by an apt and judicious use of such imaginary beings as those I mentioned in my last paper.

Dire was the tossing, deep the groans, Despair
Tended the sick, busy from couch to couch;
And over them triumphant Death his dart
Shook, but delay'd to strike, though oft invoked
With vows as their chief good and final hope.

The passion which likewise rises in Adam on this occasion is very natural.

Sight so deform what heart of rock could long
Dry-eyed behold? Adam could not, but wept,
Tho' not of woman born; compassion quell'd
His best of man, and gave him up in 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