Blown vagabond or frustrate: in they pasted We have the same thought expressed a second time in the intercession of the Messiah, which is conceived in very emphatical 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 angers who appeared to him m a vision, adds, that every one had four faces, and that their whole bodies, and their hacks, 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 bis guilt and misery, should fail before him.— " Yet lest they faint At the sad sentence rigorously urg'd. 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 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 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 with all its lustre and magnificence.— " Why in the east Darkness ere day's mid-course, and morning light Store orient in yen western cloud that draws O'er the blue firmament a radiant white. And slow descends with something heav'nly fraught] He err'd not, for by this the heav'nly bands Down from a sky of jasper lighted now In Paradise, and an a hill made halt; A glorious apparition ■ " I need not observe how properly this author, who always suits his parts to the actors whom tie 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.— " —^— TV archangel soon drew nigh, 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.— " Matt I th«» leave thee, Paradise ? Thus leave 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, The angel afterwards leads Adam to the highest monnt 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 or the Iliad, or iEneid. Virgil's hero, in the last of these poems, is entertained with a sight of all those who are to descend from hira; but though that episode is justly admired as one of the noblest designs in the whole jEneid, 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 wbole species. 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 1 I» this the way The second vision sets before him the image of death, in a great variety of appearances. The angel, to give him a general idea of those effects which his guilt had brought upon his posterity, places before him a large hospital or lazar house, filled with persons lying under all kinds of mortal diseases. How finely has the poet told us that the sick persons languished under lingering and incurable distempers, by an apt and judicious use of such imaginary beings is those I mentioned in my last Saturday's paper! * " Dire was the tossing, deep the groans ; Despair The passion which likewise arises in Adam on this occasion, is very natural. " Sight so deform what heart of rock could long The discourse between the angel and Adam, which follows, abounds with noble morals. As there is nothing more delightful in poetry, than a contrast and opposition of incidents, the author, after this melancholy prospect of death and sickness, raises up a scene of mirth, love, and jollity The secret pleasure that steals into Adam's heart, as he is intent upon this vision, is imagined with great delioacy. I must not omit the description of the loose female troop, who seduced the sons of God, as they are called in Scripture. " For that fair female troop thou saw'st, that seem'd The next vision is of a quite contrary nature, and filled with the horrors of war. Adam at the sight of it melts into tears, and breaks out into that passionate speech,— " 0 ! what are these Death's ministers, not men, who thus deal death *J«.' -' . * No. 357. Milton, to keep up an agreeable variety in his visions, after having raised in the mind of his reader the several ideas of terror which are conformable to the description of war, passes on to those softer images of triumphs and festivals, in that vision of lewdness and luxury which ushers in the flood. As it is visible that the poet had his eye upon Ovid's account of the universal deluge, the reader may observe with how much judgment he has avoided every thing that is redundant or puerile in the Latin poet We do not here 6ee the wolf swimming among the sheep, nor any of those wanton imaginations, which Seneca found fault with, as unbecoming the great catastrophe of nature. If our poet has imitated that verse in which Ovid tells us that there was nothing but eea, and that this sea had no shore to it, he has not set the thought in such a light aa to incur the censure which critics have passed upon it. The- latter part of that verse in Ovid is idle and superfluous, but just and beautiful in Milton. " Jamque marc et tellus nullum discrimen habebant. OVID. HEX. I. 291. " Now sens and earth were in confusion lost; Sea cover'd sea, Sea without shore In Milton the former part of the description does not forestall the latter. How much more great and solemn on this occasion is that which follows in our English poet,— " ——— And in their palaces than that in Ovid, where we are told that the sea-calfs lay in those places where the goats were used to browse ! The reader may find several other parallel passages in the Latin and English description of the deluge, wherein our poet has visibly the advantage. The sky's being overcharged with clouds, the descending of the rains, the rising of the seas, and the appearance of the rainbow, are such descriptions as every one must take notice of. The circumstance relating to Paradise is so finely imagined, and suitable to the opinions of many learned authors, that I cannot forbear giving it a place in this paper. *" Then shall this mount Of Pnrndisc by might of waves bemovlj |