N° 363 battlements (which furnishes so elegant an entertainment for our English audience) defires that he may be conducted to mount Citharon, 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 bis sentiments, he describes in the beginning of this book the acceptance which these their prayers met with, in a short allegory, form'd upon that beautiful passage in holy writ: And another angel came and stood at the altar, baving a go'den cenfer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all faints upon the golden altar, which was before the throne: And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the faints, afcended up before God.

To heav'n their prayers

Flew up, ner miss'd the way, by envious winds
Elown vagabond or fruftrate: in they pass'd
Dimensionless through heav'nly doors, then clad
With incerfe, where the golden altar fum'd,
By their great Interceffor, came in fight

Before the Father's throne

We have the fame thought expressed a second time in the interceffion of the Meffiah, which is conceived in very emphatical fentiments and expressions.

Among the poetical parts of scripture, which Milton has fo 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 had, like a double Janus, all their shape Spangled with eyes

The assembling of all the angels of heaven to hear the folemn decree passed upon man, is represented in very lively ideas. The Almighty is here defcrib'd as remembring

membring mercy in the midst of judgment, and commanding Michael to deliver his message in the mildest terms, left the spirit of man, which was already broken with the sense of his guilt and mifery, should fail before him.di

- Yet left they faint

At the fad sentence rigorously urg'd,
For 1 behold them Softned, and with tears
Bewailing their excess, all terror bide.

The conference of Adam and Eve is full of moving fentiments. Upon their going abroad after the melancholy night which they had paffed 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 fun 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 fame time that the fun 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 fun itself. The whole theatre of nature is darkened, that this glorious machine may appear in all its luftre 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 flow defcends with something heav'nly fraught?
He err'd not, for by this the beav'nly bands

Down from a sky of jasper lighted now
In paradise, and on a hill made halt;

A glorious apparition

I need not observe how properly this author, who always suits his parts to the actors whom he introduces, has employed Michael in the expulfion of our first parents from from Paradise. The archangel on this occasion neithe 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 exquifitely defcrib'd in the following passage.

-Th' archangel foon drew nigh,
Not in his shape celestial; but as man
Clad to meet man: over his lucid arms
A military veft of purple flow'd,
Livelier than Melibean, or the grain
Of Sarra, worn by Kings and heroes old,
In time of truce: Iris had dipt the woof:
His starry helm, unbuckled, shew'd him prime
In manhood where youth ended; by his fide,
As in a glistring zodiac hung the fword,
Satan's dire dread, and in his hand the spear.
Adam bow'd low, he kingly from his state
Inclin'd not, but bis coming thus declared.

Eve's complaint, upon hearing that she was to be removed from the garden of Paradije, is wonderfully beautiful: The sentiments are not only proper to the fubject, but have something in them particularly foft and womanish.

Must 1 then leave thee, Paradise? Thus leave
Thee, native foi, these bappy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of gods? Where I had hope to spend
Quiet, though fad, the respite of that day
That must be morial to us both. O flow'rs,
That never will in other climate grow,
My early vifitation, and my last

At even, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave you names;
W ho now shail rear you to the jun, or rank
Your tribes, an. water from the ambrofial fount?.
Thee, lastly, nuptial bower, by me adorn'd
With what to fight or smell was sweet; from thee
How shall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this obscure
And wild? bow shall we breathe in other air
Lejs pure, accustom'd to immortal fruits ?

Jon boan 1

Adams

Adam's speech abounds with thoughts which are equally moving, but of a more mafculine and elevated turn. Nothing can be conceived more fublime and poetical than the following passage in it.

This most afflicts me, that departing hence
As from his face 1 shall be bid, depriv'd
His blessed count' nance; here I cou'd frequent,
With worship, place by place where he vouchsaf'd
Presence divine; and to my sons relate,
On this mount he appear'd, under this tree
Stood vihbe, among these pines his voice
I heard; here with him at this fountain talk'd:
So many grateful altars I would rear
Of grafly turf, and pile up every stone
Of luftre from the brook, in memory
Or monument to ages, and thereon
Offer Sweet-smelling gums and fruits and flow'rs.
In yonder nether world, where shall I seek
His bright appearances, or footsteps trace?
For though I fled him angry, yet recali'd
To life prolong'd and promif'd race, I now
Gladly behold though but his utmost skirts
Of glory, and far off his steps adore.

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 entertain'd with a fight of all those who are to descend from him; but though that episode is juftly admired as one of the noblest defigns 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.

In this great review which Adam takes of all his fons 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 curiofity and natural horror which arises in Adam at the fight 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 fight
Of terror foul, and ugly to behold,
Horrid to think, bow borrible to feel!

The fecond vifion fets 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 pofterity, places before him a large hofpital or lazar house, fill'd with perfons lying under all kinds of mortal diseases. How finely has the poet told us that the fick persons languished under lingring and incurable diftempers, by an apt and judicious use of fuch imaginary Beings as those I mentioned in my last Saturday's paper.

Dire was the toffing, deep the groans; Despair
Tended the fick, bujy from couch to couch;
And over them triumphant Death his dart
Shook, but delay'd to strike, the oft invok'd
With vows, as their chief good and final hope.

The paffion, which likewise rises in Adam on this occafion, is very natural.

Sight so deform what heart of rock could long
Dry-eyed behold? Adam could not, but wept,
Tho' not of woman torn; compassion quell'd
His best of man, and gave him up to tears.

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 oppofition of incidents, the author, after this melancholy profpect of death and fickness, raises up a scene of mirth, love, and jollity. The secret pleasure that steals into Adam's heart, as he is intent upon this vifion, is imagined with great delicacy. I must not omit the defcription of the loose female troop, who feduced the fons of God, as they are called in Scripture.

Far