-the heav'nly-harness'd team

Begins his golden progress in the east.

The

181. So spake, &c.] 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 gate 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. 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 ecliose, a bright cloud descends in the western quarter of the Heavens, filled with an hot 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. Addison. 204. Darkness ere day's mid-course,]

Et noctis faciem nebulas fecisse volucres
Sub nitido mirata die. Ov. Met. i. 602.

204.- and morning light &c.] I think it would not be amiss to refer the curious reader to Marino's description of the descent of the three Goddesses upon mount Ida, C. 2. St. 67. which is a scene of the same sort with this, and painted, I think, even in livelier colours than this of Milton. Thyer.

213. Not that more glorious, &c.] That was not a more glorious apparition of Angels, which appeared to Jacob in Ma hanaim, Gen. xxxii. 1, 2. "And Jacob went on his way, and the Angels of God met him: And when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God's host; and he called the name of that place Mahanaim." Nor that which appeared on the flaming mount in Dothan against the king of Syria, when he levied war against a single man, not like a generous enemy, but like a base assassin endeavoured to take him by surprise, namely Elisha, for having disclosed the designs of the king of Syria to the king of Israel, 2 Kings vi. 13, &c. «And it was told him, saying, Behold he is in Dothan. Therefore sent he thither horses, and chariots, and a great host and they came by night and

compassed the city about. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots: and his servant said unto him, Alas, my master, how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw and behold, the mountain was full of horses, and chariots of fire round about Elisha." 220. War unproclaim'd.] The severe censure on this makes me fancy that Milton hinted at the war with Holland, which broke out in 1664, when we surprised and took the Dutch Bourdeau before war was proclaimed, which the Whigs much exc inst. Warburton. 238.serve how

Angel soon drew nigh, &c.] I need not ob→ his author, who always suits his parts to the actors who he introduces, has employed Michael in the expulsion of our first parents from Paradise. The Arch-Angel 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 post, and behaviour are suitable to a Spirit of the highest rank, and exquisitély described in the following passage.

Addison.

242. Livelier than Melibean,] Of a livelier colour and richer dye than any made at Melibea, a city of Thessaly, famous for a fish called ostrum, there caught and used in dying the noblest purple.

244.—Iris bad dipt the woof;] A most poetical expression. He had said before, that it was livelier than the Melibean grain, or than that of Sarra; it excelled the most precious purple: but now he says that Iris herself had given the colour, the most beautiful colours being in the rainbow.

261.

And send thee from the garden forth to till

The ground whence thou wast taken, fitter soil.] It is after the manner of Homer, that the Angel is here made to deliver the order he had received in the very words he had received it. Homer's exactness is so great in this kind, that sometimes I I know not whether it is not rather a fault. He observes this method not only when orders are given by a superior power,

but also when messages are sent between equals. But in the passage before us, there is all the beauty and simplicity of Homer, without any of his faults. Here are only two lines repeated out of one speech, and a third out of another; ver. 48, and here again ver. 259.

But longer in this Paradise to dwell.

And it is a decree pronounced solemnly by the Almighty, and certainly it would not have become the Angel, who was sent to put it in execution, to deliver it in any other words than those of the Almighty. And let me add, that it was the more proper and necessary to repeat the words in this place, as the catastrophe of the poem depends so much upon them, and by them the fate of Man is determined, and Paradise is lost.

263. He added not, for Adam at the news &c.] How naturally and justly does Milton here describe the different ef fects of grief upon our first parents! Mr. Addison has already remarked upon the beauty and propriety of Eve's complaint, but I think there is an additional beauty to be observed when one considers the fine contrast which there is betwixt that and Adam's sorrow, which was silent and thoughtful, as Eve's was loud and hasty, both consistent with the different characters of the sexes, which Milton has indeed kept up with great exact. ness through the whole poem. Thyer.

268. O unexpected stroke, &c.] 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. Addison.

• 296. Celestial, whether &c.] Adam's speech abounds with thoughts, which are equally moving, but 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 &c. Addison. There is the same propriety in these speeches of Adam and Eve, as the critics have observed in the speeches of Priam and Hecuba to dissuade Hecto: from fighting with Achilles in the twenty-second book of the Iliad, where the sentiments are excellently adapted to the different characters of the father and mother. And this, says Mr. Pope, puts me in mind of a judicious stroke in Milton, with regard to the several characters

of Adam and Eve. When the Angel is driving them both out of Paradise, Adam grieves that he must leave a place where he had conversed with God and his Angels; but Eve laments that she shall never more behold the fine flowers of Eden: Here Adam mourns like a man, and Eve like a woman.

366. -Ascend

This bill;] 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. Addison.

367.let Eve (for I have drench'd her eyes)

Here sleep below,] It may be asked why Eve was not permitted to see this vision, as she had no less occasion than Adam, thereby to learn true patience; but Milton here only continues the same decorum which he had before observed, when he made Eve retire upon Raphael's beginning his conference with Adam, book viii. Besides the tenderness of the female mind could not be supposed able to bear the shocking scenes, which were going to be represented.

By suffering,] Virg. Æn. v. 710.

Quicquid erit, superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est.

381. Not bigber that bill &c.] That hill was not higher, whereon the devil set our Saviour (the second man, 1 Cor. xv. 47; the last Adam, ver. 45.) to show him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. Matth. iv. 8. The prospects are well compared together, and the first thought of the one might probably be taken from the other: and as the one makes part of the subject of Paradise Lost, so doth the other of Paradise Regain'd.

387.

from the destin'd walls

Of Cambalu, &c.] He first takes a view of Asia, and there

of the northern parts, the destin'd walls not' yet in being but designed to be (which is to be understood of all the rest) of Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Can, the principal city of Cathay, a province of Tartary, the ancient seat of the Chams, and Samarchand by Oxus, the chief city of Zagathaian Tartary near the river Oxis, Temir's throne, the birth place and royal residence of Tamerlane; and from the northern he passes to the eastern and southern parts of Asia, to Paquin or Pekin of Sinaan kings, the capital of China, the country of the ancient Sinæ mentioned by Ptolemy, and thene to Agra and Labor, two great cities in the empire of the great Mogul, down to the golden Chersonese, that is Malacca, the most southern promontory of the East-Indies, so called on account of its riches, to distinguish it from the other Chersoneses or peninsula's, or where the Persian in Ecbatan sat, Ecbatana formerly the capital city of Persia, or since in Hispaban, the capital city at present, or where the Russian Ksar, the Csar of Muscovy, in Moscow, then the metropolis of all Russia, or the Sultan in Bizance, the Grand Signiorin Constantinople, formerly Byzantium, Turcheŝtan-born, as the Turks came from Turchestan, a province of Tartary. He passes now into Africa; nor could bis eye not ken th' empire of Negus, the upper Ethiopia or the land of the Abyssinians, subject to one sovereign, stiled in their own language Negus or king, and by the Europeans Prestor John, to his utmost port Ercoco, or Erquico on the Red Sea, the north-east boundary of the Abyssinian empire, and the less maritime kings, the lesser kingdoms on the sea coast, Mombaza and Quilela, and Melind, all near the line in Zanguebar, a great region of the lower Ethiopia on the eastern or Indian sea, and subject to the Portuguese, and Sofala thought Ophir, another kingdom and city on the same sea, mistaken by Purchas and others for Ophir, whence Solomon brought gold to the realm of Congo, a kingdom in the lower Ethiopia on the western shore, as the others were on the eastern, and Angola farthest south, another kingdom south of Congo; Or thence from Niger flood, the river Niger that divides Negroland into two parts, to Atlas mount in the most western parts of Africa, the kingdoms of Almansor, the countries over which Almansor was king, namely Fez and Sus, Morocco and Algiers, and Tremesen, all kingdoms in Barbary. After Africa he comes to Europe, On