Paradise Regain'd. A Poem, in Four Books. To which is Added Samson Agonistes: and Poems Upon Several Occasions. The Author John Milton

THE

FIRST BOOK

O F

PARADISE REGAIN'D.

PARADISE REGAIND.

BOOK I.

I WHO cre while the happy garden fung,
By one man's disobedience loft, now fing
Recover'd Paradife to all mankind,

Milton's Paradife Regain'd has not met with the approbation that it deferves. It has not the harmony of numbers, the fublimity of thought, and the beauties of diction, which are in Paradise Loft. It is compofed in a lower and lefs ftriking ftile, a ftile fuited to the fubject. Artful sophistry, false reasoning fet off in the moft fpecious manner, and refuted by the Son of God with ftrong unaffected eloquence, is the peculiar excellence of this poem. Satan there defends a bad caufe with great skill and fubtlety, as one thoroughly verfed in that craft;

Qui facere affuerat

Candida de nigris, et de candentibus atra. His character is well drawn. Fortin.

1. I who ere while &c] Milton begins his Paradise Regain'd in the fame manner as the Paradife Loft; firft propofes his fubject, and then invokes the affiftance of the Holy Spirit. The beginning I who ere while &c is plainly an allufion to the Ille ego qui quondam &c attributed to Virgil: but it doth not therefore foldow, that Milton had no better taste than to conceive these lines to be genuin. Their being fo well known to all the learned was reafon sufficient for his imitation of them, as it was for Spenfer's before him:

Lo, I the man, whofe Mufe whileom did mask,
As time her taught, in lowly shepherds weeds,
Am now enforc'd a far unfitter task,
For trumpets stern to change mine oaten reeds
&c.

2. By one man's difobedience] The oppofition of one man's difobedience in this verfe to one man's obedience in ver. 4. is fomewhat in the ftile and manner of St. Paul. Rom. V. 19. For as by one man's difobedience many were made finners; fo by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

3. Recover'd Paradife] It may feem a little odd at first, that Milton fhould impute the recovery of Paradife. to this short scene of our Saviour's life upon earth, and not rather extend it to his agony, crucifixion &c; but the reafon no doubt was, that Paradise regain'd by our Saviour's refifting the temptations of Satan might be a better contrast to Paradife loft by our first parents too eafily yielding to the fame feducing Spirit. Befides he might very probably, and indeed very reasonably, be apprehensive, that a subject so extensive as well as fublime might be too great a burden for his declining conftitution, and a task too long for the fhort term of years he could then hope for. Even in his Paradife Loft he expreffes B 2

his

By one man's firm obedience fully try'd

Through all temptation, and the tempter foil'd
In all his wiles, defeated and repuls'd,

And Eden rais'd in the waste wilderness.
Thou Spirit who ledst this glorious eremite
Into the defert, his victorious field,

Against the spiritual foe, and brought'ft him thence 10 By proof th' undoubted Son of God, inspire,

his fears, left he had begun too late, and lest
an age too late, or cold climate, or years should
bave damp'd his intended wing; and furely he
had much greater cause to dread the fame now,
and be very cautious of launching out too far.
Thyer.

It is hard to fay whether Milton's wrong no-
tions in divinity led him to this defective plan;
or his fondnefs for the plan influenced thofe
That is whether he indeed fuppofed
notions.
the redemption of mankind (as he here repre-
fents it) was procured by Chrift's triumph over
the Devil in the wilderness; or whether he
thought that the scene of the defert oppofed
to that of Paradise, and the action of a tempta-
tion withstood to a temptation fall'n under,
made Paradife Regain'd a more regular fequel
to Paradife Loft. Or if neither this nor that,
whether it was his being tired out with the la-
bor of compofing Paradife Loft made him
averse to another work of length (and then he
would never be at a lofs for fanciful reafons to
determin him in the choice of his plan) is very
uncertain. All that we can be fure of is, that
the plan is a very unhappy one, and defective

even in that narrow view of a fequel, for it
affords the poet no opportunity of driving the
Devil back again to Hell from his new con-
quefts in the air. In the mean time nothing
was easier than to have invented a good one,
which fhould end with the refurrection, and
comprise these four books, fomewhat con-
tracted, in an epifode, for which only the fub-
ject of them is fit. Warburton.

There is, I think, a particular beauty in this
7. And Eden rais'd in the waste wilderness.]
line, when one confiders the fine allufion in it
to the curfe brought upon the Paradifiacal
Curfed is the
earth by the fall of Adam,
ground for thy fake Thorns alfo and thiftles
hall it bring forth.

Thyer.

As thou art wont, my prompted song else mute,

And bear through highth or depth of nature's bounds
With profp'rous wing full fumm'd, to tell of deeds
Above heroic, though in fecret done,

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

Now had the great Proclamer, with a voice.
More awful than the found of trumpet, cry'd

defert, is rightly formed the word eremite, which was used before by Milton in his Paradife Loft III. 474.

Embryo's and idiots, eremites and friers: and by Fairfax in his tranflation of Taffo, Cant. 11. St. 4.

Next morn the bishops twain, the eremite: and in Italian as well as in Latin there is eremita, which the French, and we after them, contract into hermite, hermit.

13. --- of nature's bounds] To which he confines himself in this poem, not as in Paradife

Loft, where he foars above and without the bounds of nature. VII. 21. Richardfon.

14. With profp'rous wing full fumm'd,] We had the like expreffion in Paradife Loft VII. 421.

They fumm'd their pens

and it was noted there that it is a term in falconry. A hawk is faid to be full fumm'd, when all his feathers are grown, when he wants nothing of the fum of his feathers, cui nihil de fumma pennarum deeft, as Skinner

19.

cry'd

Thyer.

Ask to all bap

Repentance, and Heav'n's kingdom nigh at hand and the approach of Chrift's kingdom. To all baptiz'd:] John preached repentance -to whom? and the answer is tiz'd. Doth not this feem to imply, that the great prophet baptized before he preached? and that none could be admitted to hear him without this previous immerfion? Whereas in the nature of things as well as the Gospel history, his preaching muft be, and was preparatory to his baptifm. One might read

nigh at hand, Baptizing all:

But this may be thought too diftant from the

common

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Paradise Regain'd. A Poem, in Four Books. To which is Added Samson Agonistes ...