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The poet adds, that the devil turned away with envy at the sight of so much happiness.

We have another view of our first parents in their evening discourses, which is full of pleasing images and sentiments suitable to their condition and characters. The speech of Eve in particular is dressed up in such a soft and natural turn of words and sentiments, as cannot be sufficiently admired.

I shall close my reflections upon this book with observing the masterly transition which the poet makes to their evening worship in the following lines:

Thus at their shady lodge arrived both stood,

Both turn'd, and under open sky adored

The God that made both sky, air, earth, and heav'n,
Which they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe,
And starry pole: Thou also mad'st the night,

Maker omnipotent, and thou the day,' &c.

Most of the modern heroic poets have imitated the ancients, in beginning a speech without premising that the person said thus or thus; but as it is easy to imitate the ancients in the omission of two or three words, it requires judgment to do it in such a manner as they shall not be missed, and that the speech may begin naturally without them. There is a fine instance of this kind out of Homer, in the twenty-third chapter of Longinus.

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK I.

THE ARGUMENT.

The First Book proposes, first, in brief, the whole subject, Man's disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise, wherein be was placed then touches the prime cause of his fall, the serpent, or rather Satan in the serpent; who, revolting from God, and drawing to his side many legions of angels, was, by the command of God, driven out of heaven, with all his crew, into the great deep. Which action passed over, the poem hastens into the midst of things, presenting Satan, with his angels, now failen into hell, described here, not in the centre (for heaven and earth may be supposed as yet not made, certainly not yet accursed), but in a place of utter darkness, fitliest called Chaos : here Satan, with his angels, lying on the burning lake, thunderstruck and astonished, after a certain space recovers, as from confusion, and calls up him who next in order and dignity lay by him they confer of their miserable fall. Satan awakens all his legions, who lay till then in the same manner confounded. They rise; their numbers; array of battle; their chief leaders named, according to the idols known afterwards in Canaan and the countries adjoining. To these Satan directs his speech, comforts them with hope yet of regaining heaven, but tells them lastly of a new world, and a new kind of creature to be created, according to an ancient prophecy, or report, in heaven; for that angels were long before this visible creation was the opinion of many ancient fathers. To find out the truth of this prophecy, and what to determine thereon, he refers to a full council. What his associates thence attempt. Pandemonium, the palace of Satan, rises, suddenly built, out of the deep: the infernal peers there sit in council.

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK I.

Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Horeb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

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1. Compare the opening of the Iliad, Mâviv &eide, bed of the Odyssey, Avopa poi evvere: of the Æneid, Arma virumque cano.' In all these instances, as in Milton, the subject of the poem is the very first thing offered to us, and precedes the verb with which it is connected. This dignified simplicity of exordium is commended by Horace, A. P. 148. Semper ad eventum festinat; et in medias res Non secus ac notas, auditorem rapit.'

4. With loss of Eden, i. e. of Paradise, the whole being put for a part. For Paradise was planted in Eden, (a word signifying delight or pleasure,) and the country is supposed to be the same as Mesopotamia. See P. L. iv. 210. Gen. ii. N.

6. Secret top: secret probably in respect of the secresy of the interview between God and Moses, during which no creature was permitted, on pain of instant death, even to touch the mountain.' COWPER. It is used as the Latin secretus, ('secreti calles,' Æn. vi. 442. ' arva secreta,' 478.) set apart, consecrated, holy ground : Bentley's emendation therefore, sacred top, is needless.

7. It is evident from several places of Scripture, that mount Horeb is either an adjoining mountain to mount Sinai, or that they are only two different heads or risings of one and the same mountain. The Ten Commandments, which are set down Exod.

That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,
In the beginning how the heavens and earth
Rose out of chaos: or, if Sion hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flow'd
Fast by the oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar

Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer

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xx. as delivered from mount Sinai, are repeated, Deut. v., as delivered from mount Horeb.' WELLS' Geography of the O. and N. T. -This name ought to be written Horeb, not Oreb, (as in most editions of Milton.) Öreb is another mountain, where Oreb, king of the Midianites, was slain: see Judges vii. 25.' MASSEY.

8. Exod. iii. 1. Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law.' Also figuratively, Psalm lxxvii. 20. Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.'' CoWPER.

10. On mount Sion stood the city of David, and therein the royal palace; also the ark of the Lord in the midst of the tabernacle that David pitched for it. Siloa was a small river that flowed near the temple at Jerusalem. It is mentioned by Isaiah viii. 6. It is there written Shilvah; Siloalt in Nehem. ii. 15. Siloum, Joha ix. 7.

12. Fast by, close to:, as in ii, 725. fast by Hell gate."

14. Hor. Od. i. 10. “Nom usitata, nec tenui ferar Pennà biformis per ligandum æthera Vates.”

15. The mountains of Brattu, (more particularly Parnassus and Helicon.) cenely called Amius, were the haunt of the Muses. Virg. G. BI1. Jumtu rattens deducam vertice Musas." N.

8. Lorus L 925. Awa Floridum peragro loca, nullius auto trike soly: Fig. G. ii. 3. Catera quæ vacuas tenuissent Carter, Ommie jam wigat-Frimus ego in patriam,' &c.

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