sented as prostrating themselves upon the ground, and watering the earth with their tears: to which the poet joins this beautiful circumstance, that they offered up their penitential prayers on the very place where their Judge appeared to them when he pro nounced their sentence. They forthwith to the place Repairing where he judged them, prostrate fell Humbly their faults, and pardon begg'd with tears '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 Cithæron, 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 1 This paragraph was added when the papers were revised for publication in volumes.-G. 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 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 soften'd, and with tears 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 discovered 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 VOL. V.-7* 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? Down from a sky of jasper lighted now In Paradise, and on a hill made halt; 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 His starry helm, unbuckled, shew'd him prime 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, At even, which I bred up with tender hand And wild, how shall we breathe in other air 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 On this mount he appear'd, under this tree So many grateful altars I would rear Or monument to ages, and thereon Offer sweet smelling gums and fruits and flowers. 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 neid, every one must allow that this of Milton is of a much higher Adam's vision is not confined to any particular tribe of nature. 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. |