Under a plantain; yet methought less fair,

Less winning soft, less amiably mild,

Than that smooth watery image: back I turn'd;
Thou following cry'st aloud, 'Return, fair Eve,

Whom fly'st thou? whom thou fly'st of him thou art,

His flesh, his bone: to give thee being I lent,

Out of my side to thee, nearest my heart,
Substantial life to have thee by my side
Henceforth an individual solace dear;

Part of my soul I seek thee, and thee claim
My other half.' With that thy gentle hand
Seiz'd mine; I yielded, and from that time see
How beauty is excell'd by manly grace
And wisdom, which alone is truly fair.

So spake our general mother, and with eyes
Of conjugal attraction, unreprov'd,
And meek surrender, half embracing lean'd
On our first father; half her swelling breast
Naked met his under the flowing gold
Of her loose tresses hid; he in delight
Both of her beauty and submissive charms,

Smil'd with superior love, as Jupiter

On Juno smiles; when he impregns the clouds
That shed May flowers, and press'd her matron lip
With kisses pure.

ADAM'S MORNING PRAYER.

These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty, thine this universal frame,

Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sitt'st above the heav'ns

To us invisible, or dimly seen

In these thy lowest works; yet these declare
Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.
Speak ye who best can tell, ye sons of light,
Angels! for ye behold Him, and with songs,
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle His throne rejoicing; ye in heav'n:
On earth join all ye creatures, to extol
Him first, Him last, Him midst, and without end!
Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,

If better thou belong not to the dawn,

Sure pledge of day; that crown'st the smiling morn,
With thy bright circlet, praise Him in thy sphere
While day arises, that sweet hour of prime.
Thou sun! of this world both eye and soul,
Acknowledge Him thy greater; sound His praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st,
And when high noon has gain'd, and when thou fall'st.
Moon! that now meet'st the orient sun, now fly'st
With the fix'd stars, fix'd in their orb that flies;
And ye five other wand'ring fires! that move

In mystic dance not without song, resound

His praise, who out of darkness call'd up light.
Air, and ye elements! the eldest birth

Of nature's womb, that in quaternian run
Perpetual circle, multiform, and mix,

And nourish all things; let your ceaseless change
Vary to our great Maker still new praise.
Ye mists, and exhalations! that now rise
From hill, or streaming lake, dusky or gray,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honour to the world's great Author rise:
Whether to deck with clouds the uncolour'd sky,
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers,
Raising or falling, still advance his praise.

His praise, ye winds! that from four quarters blow,
Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines!
With every plant, in sign of worship wave.
Fountains, and ye that warble as ye flow,
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.
Join voices all, ye living souls: ye birds

That singing up to Heaven gate ascend,

Bear on your wings and in your notes His praise.
Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk
The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep,
Witness if I be silent morn or even,

To hill, or valley, fountain or fresh shade,
Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise.
Hail, universal Lord! be bounteous still
To give us only good; and, if the night
Have gather'd aught of evil or conceal'd,
Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark.

Adam bow'd low; he kingly, from his state
Inclined not, but his coming thus declared:-

'Adam, Heaven's high behest no preface needs: Sufficient that thy pray'rs are heard, and death Then due by sentence when thou didst transgress, Defeated of his seizure many days,

Giv'n thee of grace, wherein thou may'st repent,
And one bad act with many deeds well done
May'st cover: well may then thy Lord appeas'd
Redeem thee quite from Death's rapacious claim:
But longer in this Paradise to dwell

Permits not; to remove thee I am come,
And send thee from the garden forth to till
The ground whence thou wast taken, fitter soil.'
He added not, for Adam at the news
Heart-struck with chilling gripe of sorrow stood,
That all his senses bound; Eve, who unseen,

*

Yet all had heard, with audible lament
Discover'd soon the place of her retire.

'O unexpected stroke; worse than of death!
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave
Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of gods? where I had hoped to spend,
Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both. O flowers!
That never will in other climate grow,

My early visitation, and my last

At even, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names!
Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount?
Thee lastly, nuptial bower, by me adorn'd

With what to sight or smell was sweet, from thee
How shall I part, and whither wander down

Into a lower world, to this obscure

And wild? how shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustom'd to immortal fruits?'

Whom thus the Angel interrupted mild:-
'Lament not, Eve, but patiently resign
What justly thou hast lost; nor set thy heart,
Thus over-fond, on that which is not thine:
Thy going is not lonely; with thee goes
Thy husband; him to follow thou art bound;
Where he abides, think there thy native soil.'
Adam by this from the cold sudden damp
Recovering, and his scatter'd spirits return'd,
To Michael thus his humble words address'd :-
'Celestial, whether among the thrones, or nam'd
Of them the highest, for such of shape may seem
Prince above princes, gently hast thou told
Thy message, which might else in telling wound
And in performing end us; what besides

Of sorrow, and dejection, and despair
Our frailty can sustain, thy tidings bring;
Departure from that happy place, our sweet

Recess, and only consolation left
Familiar, to our eyes, all places else
Inhospitable appear and desolate,

Nor knowing us, nor known: and if by prayer
Incessant, I could hope to change the will
Of him who all things can, I would not cease

To weary him with my assiduous cries:

But prayer against his absolute decree

No more avails than breath against the wind,

Blown stifling back on him that breathes it forth: Therefore to his great bidding I submit

Th' Archangel stood, and from the other hill
To their fixed station, all in bright array,
The cherubim descended; on the ground

Gliding meteorous, as evening mist

Ris'n from a river o'er the marish glides,

And gathers ground fast at the lab'rer's heel
Homeward returning. High in front advanc'd,
The brandish'd sword of God before them blaz'd,
Fierce as a comet; which with torrid heat,
And vapours as the Libyan air adust,
Began to parch that temp'rate clime: whereat
In either hand the hast ning angel caught
Our ling'ring parents, and to the eastern gate
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain; then disappear'd.
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Wav'd over by the flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces throng'd and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropt, but wip'd them soon.
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.

We forbear to prolong these extracts by the introduction of any passages from Milton's Sonnets, Lycidas, Paradise Regained, or Sampson Agonistes: not that suitable ones might not from these poems with great felicity be drawn, but because we feel confident that our estimation, exalted as it is. of his genius, is abundantly sustained by the passages already introduced from his other works. We shall, therefore, close this extended, though we hope, not tedious lecture, by a very brief notice of him as a writer in prose.

Though, as an author, Milton's celebrity rests mainly upon his poetry, yet in prose his style is lofty, clear, vigorous, expressive, and frequently adorned with profuse and glowing imagery. Like that of many other productions of the age, it is, however, deficient in simplicity and smoothness; which is doubtless attributable to his fondness for the Latin idiom in the construction of his sentences. Yet a recent critic in the Edinburgh Review remarks, that 'it is to be regretted that the prose writings of Milton should, in our time, be so little read. As compositions, they deserve the attention of every man who wishes to become acquainted with the full power of the English language. They abound with passages, compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is stiff with gorgeous embroidery. Not even in the earlier books of Paradise Lost has he ever risen higher, than in those parts of his controversial works in which his feelings, excited by conflict, find a vent in bursts of devotional and lyric rapture. It is, to borrow his own majestic language, 'a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies.' Milton's principal works in prose are the History of England, already alluded to, A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, A Tractate of Education, A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, Three Tracts on Divorce, and the Areopagitica. Our time will not, however, permit us longer to

linger with this interesting author: we shall therefore close our present remarks with the following extract, entitled his Literary Musings, as it shadows forth his Divine Poem, 'Paradise Lost.'

LITERARY MUSINGS.]

After I had, from my first years, by the ceaseless diligence and care of my father, whom God recompense, been exercised to the tongues, and some sciences, as my age would suffer, by sundry masters and teachers, both at home and at the schools, it was found that whether aught was imposed me by them that had the overlooking, or betaken to of my own choice in English, or other tongue, prosing or versing, but chiefly the latter, the style, by certain vital signs it had, was likely to live. But much latelier, in the private academies of Italy, whither I was favoured to resort, perceiving that some trifles which I had in memory, composed at under twenty or thereabout (for the manner is, that every one must give some proof of his wit and reading there), met with acceptance above what was looked for; and other things which I had shifted, in scarcity of books and conveniences, to patch up among them, were received with written encomiums, which the Italian is not forward to bestow on men of this side the Alps, I began thus far to assent both to them and divers of my friends here at home; and not less to an inward prompting, which now grew daily upon me, that by labour and intent study (which I take to be my portion in this life), joined to the strong propensity of nature, I might perhaps leave something so written, to after-times, as they should not willingly let it die. These thoughts at once possessed me, and these other, that if I were certain to write as men buy leases, for three lives and downward, there ought no regard be sooner had than to God's glory, by the honour and instruction of my country.

For which cause, and not only for that I knew it would be hard to arrive at the second rank among the Latins, I applied myself to that resolution which Ariosto followed against the persuasions of Bembo, to fix all the industry and art I could unite to the adorning of my native tongue; not to make verbal curiosities the end, that were a toilsome vanity; bnt to be an interpreter, and relater of the best and safest things among mine own citizens, throughout this island, in the mother dialect. That what the greatest and choicest wits of Athens, Rome, or modern Italy, and those Hebrews of old did for their country, I in my proportion, with this over and above, of being a Christian, might do for mine, not caring to be once named abroad, though perhaps I could attain to that, but content with these British islands as my world, whose fortune hath hitherto been, that if the Athenians, as some say, made their small deeds great and renowned by their eloquent writers, England hath had her noble achievements made small by the unskillful handling of monks and mechanics.

Time serves not now, and perhaps I might seem too profuse, to give any certain account of what the mind at home, in the spacious circuits of her musing, hath liberty to propose to herself, though of highest hope and hardest attempting. Whether that epic form, whereof the two poems of Homer, and those other two of Virgil and Tasso are a diffuse, and the book of Job a brief model; or whether the rules of Aristotle herein are strictly to be kept, or nature to be followed, which in them that know art and use judgment, is no transgression, but an enriching of art. And lastly, what king or knight before the conquest might be chosen, in whom to lay the pattern of a Christian hero. And as Tasso gave to a prince of Italy his choice, whether he would command him to write of Godfrey's expedition against the infidels, or Belisarius against the Goths, or Charlemagne against the Lombards, if to the instinct of nature and the emboldening of art aught may be trusted, and that there be nothing adverse in our climate, or the fate of this age, it haply would be no rashness, from an equal diligence and inclination, to present the like offer in our own ancient