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Suidas by very dark brown; and Milton in like manner means brown or black locks, distinguishing Adam's hair from Eve's in the colour as well as in other particulars.

303.his shoulders broad:] Broad shoulders are always assigned to the ancient heroes. But I wonder that Milton has given no indication that Adam had a beard; not the least down or blossom on his chin, the first access to manhood; which the Greek and Latin poets dwell on, as the principal part of manly beauty: and our Spenser, b. ii. cant. 12. st. 79. and b. iii. cant. 5. st. 29. Bentley.

His beard is a particular that the post could not have forgot, but I suppose he purposely omitted it, because Raphael and the principal painters always represent him without one; Milton frequently fetches his ideas from the works of the greatest masters in painting.

The poet has, I think, showed great judgment and deli cacy in avoiding in this place the entering into a circumstantial description of Eve's beauty. It was, no doubt, a very tempting occasion of giving an indulgent loose to his fancy : since the most lavish imagination could not possibly carry too high the charms of woman, as she first came out of the hands of her heavenly Maker. But as a picture of this kind would have been too light and gay for the graver turn of Milton's plan, he has very artfully mentioned the charms of her person in general terms only, and directed the reader's. attention more particularly to the beauty of her mind.

305.-golden tresses] This sort of hair was most admired and celebrated by the Ancients, I suppose as it usually betokens a fairer skin and finer complexion. It would be almost endless to quote passages to this purpose in praise of Helen and the other famous beauties of antiquity. Venus herself, the Goddess of beauty, is described of this colour and complexion; is stiled golden Venus, by Homer and by Virgil. As Milton had the taste of the Ancients in other things, so likewise in this particular. He must certainly have preferred this to all other colours, or he would never have bestowed it upon Eve, whom he designed as a pattern of beauty to all her daughters.

323. Adam the goodliest man of men, &c.] These two lines are censured by Mr. Addison, and are totally rejected by Dr.

Bentley, as implying that Adam was one of his sons, and Eve one of her daughters: but this manner of expression is borrowed from the Greek language, in which we find sometimes the superlative degree used instead of the comparative. The meaning therefore is, that Adam was a goodlier man than any of his sons, and Eve fairer than her daughters. So Achilles is said to have been the most short-lived of others. So Nireus is said to have been the handsomest of the other Grecians, Iliad. ii. 637.

And the same manner of speaking has passed from the Greeks to the Latins. So a freed woman is called in Horace, sat. i. i. 100. fortissima Tyndaridarum, not that she was one of the Tyndarida, but more brave than any of them.

347. His lithe proboscis;] His limber trunk, so pliant and useful to him, that Cicero calls it, elephantorum manum, the elephant's hand.

351. Couch'd] Let the reader observe how artfully the word couch'd is placed, so as to make the sound expressive of the sense,

others on the grass

Couch'd.

Such a rest upon the first syllable of the verse is not very common, but very beautiful when it is so accommodated to

the sense.

352. Or bedward ruminating ;] Chewing the cud before they go to rest.

354. To th' ocean isles,] The islands in the Western Ocean; for that the sun set in the sea, and rose out of it again, was an ancient poetic notion, and is become part of the phraseology of poetry.

389.-yet public reason just, &c.] Public reason compels me, and that public reason is honour and empire enlarged with revenge, by conquering this new world. And thus Satan is made to plead public reason just, and necessity to excuse bis devilish deeds; the tyrant's plea, as the poet calls it, probably with a view to his own times, and particularly to the plea for ship-money.

395. Then from his lofty stand on that high tree, &c.] The tree of life, higher than the rest, where he had been perching all this while from ver. 196. And then for the transformations

which follow, what changes in Ovid's Metamorphosis are so natural, and yet so surprising as these? He is well likened to the fiercest beasts, the lion and the tiger, and Adam and Eve in their native innocence to two gentle fawns.

411. Sole partner, &c.] The specchies of these two first lovers flow equally from passion and sincerity. The professions they make to one another are full of warmth, but at the same time founded upon truth. Addison.

421. This one, this easy charge,] It was very natural for Adam to discourse of this, and this was what Satan wanted more particularly to learn; and it is expressed from God's command, Gen. ii. 16, 17.

449. That day I oft remember, &c.] The remaining part of Eve's speech, in which she gives an account of herself upon her first creation, and the manner in which she was brought to Adam, is as beautiful a passage as any in Milton, or perhaps in any other poet whatsoever. These passages are all worked off with so much art, that they are capable of pleasing the most delicate reader without offending the most severe. A poet of less judgment and invention than this great author would have found it very difficult to have filled these tender parts of the poem with sentiments proper for a state of innocence; to have described the warmth of love and the professions of it without artifice or hyper. bole; to have made the man speak the most indearing things without descending from his natural dignity; and the woman receiving them without departing from the modesty of her character; in a word, to adjust the prerogatives of wisdom and beauty, and make each appear to the other in its proper force and loveliness. This mutual subordination of the two sexes is wonderfully kept up in the whole poem, as particularly in this speech of Eve, and the lines following it. The poet adds, that the Devil turned away at the sight of so much happiness. Addison.

458.- ----to look into the clear

Smooth lake,] It has been asked sarcastically enough, (Spectator, vol. v. No. 325.) whether some moral is not couched under this place, where the poet lets us know, that the first woman immediately after her creation ran to a looking-glass, and became so enamoured of her own face,

that she had never removed to view any of the other works of nature, had not she been led off to a man.

478. Under a platan ;] The plane tree so named from the breadth of its leaves, a tree useful and delightful for its extraordinary shade, Virg. Georg. iv. 146.

Jamque ministrantem platanum potantibus umbram.

499. -as Jupiter, &c.] As the Heaven smiles upon the air, when it makes the clouds and every thing fruitful in the spring. This seems to be the meaning of the allegory; for Jupiter is commonly taken for the Heaven or æther, and Juno for the air, though some understand by them the air and earth. However that be, the congress of Jupiter and Juno was accounted the great cause of fruitfulness. Homer in the fourteenth book of the Iliad enlarges much upon the story of their loves, more than enough to give occasion to this simile, and describes the earth putting forth her fairest flowers as the immediate effect of them. And Virgil likewise in describing the spring employs the same kind of images, and represents Jupiter operating upon his spouse for the production of all things, Georg. ii. 325. Tum pater omnipotens foecundis imbribus æther Conjugis in gremium lætæ descendit, et omnes Magnus alit, magno commixtus corpore, fœtus. For then almighty Jove descends, and pours Into his buxom bride his fruitful show'rs; And mixing his large limbs with her's, he feeds Her births with kindly juice, and fosters teeming seeds.

Dryden. 506. Imparadis'd in one another's arms,] Imparadis'd has been remarked as a word first coined by Milton. But Sir Philip Sidney has it in Arcadia, p. 109. "So this impaLadis'd neighbourhood made Zelmane's soul cleave unto her. 515.----Knowledge forbidden?] This is artfully per

verted by Satan as if some useful and necessary knowledge was forbidden: whereas our first parents were created with perfect understanding, and the only knowledge that was torbidden, was the knowledge of evil, by the commission of it.

549 Gabriel. One of the Arch Angels sent to shew Danel the vision of the four monarchies and the seventy

weeks, Dan. vii. and ix. and to the Virgin Mary to reveal the incarnation of our Saviour, Luke i. His name in the Hebrew signifies the man of God, or the strength and power of God; well by our author posted as chief of the angelic guards placed about Paradise.

551. -heroic games] They were not now upon the watch, they awaited night; but their arms were ready. The Angels would not be idle, but employed themselves in these noble exercises. So the soldiers of Achilles during bis quarrel with Agamemnon, and so the infernal Spirits, when their chief was gone in search of the new creation.

In ver. 792. Uriel is said to be arrived from the sun's decline, which is no more a place than the evening, but beautifully poetical; and justified by Virgil, Georg. iv. 59, where a swarm of bees sails through the glowing summer.

556. On a sun-beam,] Uriel's gliding down to the earth upon a sun-beam, with the poet's device to make him descend, as well in his return to the sun, as in his coming from it, is a prettiness that might have been admired in a little fanciful poet, but seems below the genius of Milton. The description of the host of armed angels walking their nightly round in Paradise, is of another spirit,

So saying on he led his radiant files

Dazzling the moon;

as that account of the hymns which our first parents used to hear them sing in these their midnight walks, is alto gether divine, and inexpressibly amusing to the imagination.

As Uriel was coming from the sun to the earth, his coming upon a sun beam was the most direct and level course that he could take; for the sun's rays were now pointed right against the eastern gate of Paradise, where Gabriel was sitting, and to whom Uriel was going.

556.---swift as a shooting star, &c.] Homer in like manner compares Minerva's descent from heaven to a shooting star. The fall of Phæton is illustrated with the same comparison by Ovid. Met. ii. 320.

Volvitur in præceps longoque per aera tra&tu
Fertur; ut interdum de coelo stella sereno,
Etsi non cecidit, potuit cecidisse videri.

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