follows the account their leader gives them of his expedition. The gradual change of Satan himself is described after Övid's manner, and may vie with any of those celebrated transformations which are looked upon as the most beautiful parts in that poet's works. Milton never fails of improving his own hints, and bestowing the last finishing touches in every incident which is admitted into his poem. The unexpected hiss which rises in this episode, the dimensions and bulk of Satan, so much superior to those of the infernal spirits who lay under the same transformation, with the annual change which they are supposed to suffer, are instances of this kind. The beauty of the diction is very remarkable in this whole episode, as I have observed in the sixth paper of these remarks the great judgment with which it was contrived.

The parts of Adam and Eve, or the human persons, come next under our consideration. Milton's art is no where more shewn than in his conducting the parts of these our first parents. The representation he gives of them, without falsifying the story, is wonderfully contrived to influence the reader with pity and compassion towards them. Though Adam involves the whole species in misery, his crime proceeds from a weakness which every man is inclined to pardon and commiserate, as it seems rather the frailty of human nature, than of the person who offended. Every one is apt to excuse a fault which he himself might have fallen into. It was the excess of love for Eve that ruined Adam and his posterity. I need not add, that the author is justified in this particular by many of the fathers, and the most orthodox writers. Milton has by this means filled a great part of his poem with that kind of writing which the French critics call the tender, and which is in a particular manner engaging to all sorts of readers.

Adam

Adam and Eve, in the book we are now considering, are likewise drawn with such sentiments as do not only interest the reader in their afflictions, but raise in him the most melting passions of humanity and commiseration. When Adam sees the several changes in nature produced about him, he appears in a disorder of mind suitable to one who had forfeited both his innocence and happiness: he is filled with horror, remorse, despair; in the anguish of his heart, he expostulates with his Creator for having given him an unasked existence.

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me man, did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me, or here place
In this delicious garden? As my will
Concurr'd not to my being, 'twere but right
And equal to reduce me to my dust,
Desirous to resign and render back
All I receiv'd.-

He immediately after recovers from his presumption, owns his doom to be just, and begs that the death which is threatened him may be inflicted on him.

-Why delays

His hand to execute what his decree
Fix'd on this day? why do I overlive,

Why am I mock'd with death, and lengthen'd out
To deathless pain? How gladly would I meet
Mortality, my sentence, and be earth.
Insensible; how glad would lay me down
As in my mother's lap: there I should rest,
And sleep secure; his dreadful voice no more
Would thunder in my ears, no fear of worse
To me, and to my offspring, would torment me
With cruel expectation.

Ι

This whole speech is full of the like emotion, and varied with all those sentiments which we may suppose natural to a mind so broken and disturbed. must not omit that generous concern which our first father shews in it for his posterity, and which is so proper to affect the reader.

Hide me from the face

Of God, whom to behold was then my height
Of happiness! yet well, if here would end
The misery: I deserv'd it, and would bear
My own deservings; but this will not serve;
All that I eat or drink, or shall beget,
Is propagated curse. O voice once heard
Delightfully, increase and multiply,
Now death to hear!

- In me all

Posterity stands curs'd: fair patrimony
That I must leave you, sons: O were I able
To waste it all myself, and leave you none!
So disinherited, how would you bless

Me, now your curse! Ah, why should all mankind
For one man's fault thus guiltless be condemn'd,
If guiltless but from me what can proceed,
But all corrupt?.

Who can afterwards behold the father of mankind extended upon the earth, uttering his midnight complaints, bewailing his existence, and wishing for death, without sympathizing with him in his distress?

Thus Adam to himself lamented loud

Through the still night; not now, as e'er man fell,
Wholesome and cool, and mild, but with black air
Accompanied, with damps and dreadful gloom,
Which to his evil conscience represented

All things with double terror: on the ground
Outstretch'd he lay, on the cold ground, and oft
Curs'd his creation, death as oft accus'd
Of tardy execution.-

The part of Eve in this book is no less passionate, and apt to sway the reader in her favour. She is represented with great tenderness as approaching Adam, but is spurned from him with a spirit of upbraiding and indignation conformable to the nature of man, whose passions had now gained the dominion over him. The following passage, wherein she is described as renewing her addresses to him, with the whole speech that follows it, have something in them exquisitely moving and pathetic.

He added not, and from her turn'd; but Eve,

Not so repuls'd, with tears that ceas'd not flowing,
And tresses all disorder'd, at his feet

Fell humble, and embracing them, besought

His

peace, and thus proceeded in her plaint.
Forsake me not thus, Adam: witness, Heav'n,
What love sincere, and reverence in my heart
I bear thee, and unweeting have offended,
Unhappily deceiv'd; thy suppliant

I beg, and clasp thy knees; bereave me not,
Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid,
Thy counsel in this uttermost distress,
My only strength and stay: forlorn of thee
Whither shall I betake me, where subsist?
While yet we live, scarce one short hour perhaps,
Between us two let there be peace, &c.

Adam's reconcilement to her is worked up in the same spirit of tenderness. Eve afterwards proposes to her husband, in the blindness of her despair, that, to prevent their guilt from descending upon posterity, they should resolve to live childless; or, if that could not be done, they should seek their own deaths by violent methods. As those sentiments naturally engage the reader to regard the mother of mankind with more than ordinary commiseration, they likewise contain a very fine moral. The resolution of dying, to end our miseries, does not shew such a degree of magnanimity as a resolution to bear them, and submit to the dispensations of Providence. Our author has therefore, with great delicacy, represented Eve as entertaining this thought, and Adam as disapproving it.

We are, in the last place, to consider the imaginary persons, as Death and Sin, who act a large part in this book. Such beautiful extended allegories are certainly some of the finest compositions of genius; but, as I have before observed, are not agreeable to the nature of an heroic poem. This of Sin and Death is very exquisite in its kind, if not considered as a part of such a work. The truths contained in it are so clear and open, that I shall

not lose time in explaining them; but shall only observe, that a reader who knows the strength of the English tongue, will be amazed to think how the poet could find such apt words and phrases to describe the actions of those two imaginary persons, and particularly in that part where Death is exhibited as forming a bridge over the Chaos; a work suitable to the genius of Milton.

Since the subject I am upon gives me an opportunity of speaking more at large of such shadowy and imaginary persons as may be introduced into heroic poems, I shall beg leave to explain myself in a matter which is curious in its kind, and which none of the critics have treated of. It is certain, Homer and Virgil are full of imaginary persons, who are very beautiful in poetry when they are just shewn, without being engaged in any series of action. Homer indeed represents sleep as a person, and ascribes a short part to him in his Iliad; but we must consider, that though we now regard such a person as entirely shadowy and unsubstantial, the heathens made statues of him, placed him in their temples, and looked upon him as a real deity. When Homer makes use of other such allegorical persons, it is only in short expressions, which convey an ordinary thought to the mind in the most pleasing manner, and may rather be looked upon as poetical phrases than allegorical descriptions. Instead of telling us that men naturally fly when they are terrified, he introduces the persons of Flight and Fear, who, he tells us, are inseparable companions. Instead of saying that the time was come when Apollo ought to have received his recompence, he tells us that the Hours brought him his reward. Instead of describing the effects which Minerva's ægis produced in battle, he tells us that the brims of it were encompassed by Terror, Rout, Discord, Fury, Pursuit, Massacre, and Death. In the same figure of speaking, he represents Victory as following Dio