The river-dragon tam'd at length submits
To let his sojourners depart; and oft
Humbles his stubborn heart; but still, as ice,
More harden'd after thaw till in his rage
Pursuing whom he late dismiss'd, the sea
Swallows him with his host; but them let pass
As on dry land between two crystal walls;
Aw'd by the rod of Moses so to stand

Divided

The river-dragon is an allusion to the crocodile, which inhabits the Nile, from whence Egypt derives her plenty. This allusion is taken from that sublime passage in Ezekiel: 'Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, which hath said, My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself. Milton has given us another very noble and poetical image in the same description, which is copied almost word for word out of the history of Moses :

All night he will pursue, but his approach
Darkness defends between till morning watch:
Then through the fiery pillar and the cloud
God looking forth will trouble all his host,

And craze their chariot wheels: when by command
Moses once more his potent rod extends
Over the sea the sea his rod obeys:

On their embattell'd ranks the waves return,
And overwhelm their war

As the principal design of this episode was to give Adam an idea of the holy person who was to reinstate human nature in that happiness and perfection from which it had fallen, the poet confines himself to the line of Abraham, from whence the Messiah was to descend. The angel is described as seeing the patriarch actually travelling towards the land of promise, which gives a particular liveliness to this part of the narration:

'I see him, but thou canst not, with what faith
He leaves his gods, his friends, his native soil,
Ur of Chaldea, passing now the ford
To Haran; after him a cumbrous train
Of herds, and flocks, and num'rons servitude;
Not wand'ring poor, but trusting all his wealth
With God, who call'd him in a land unknown.
Canaan he now attains; I see his tents

Pitch'd about Sechem, and the neighbouring plain
Of Moreh; there by promise he receives
Gift to his progeny of all that land;

From Hamath northward to the desert south;
(Things by their names I call, though yet unnam'd.)'

As Virgil's vision in the sixth Eneid probably gave Milton the hint of this whole episode, the last line is a translation of that verse where Anchises mentions the names of places, which they were to bear hereafter:

'Hæc tum nomina erunt, nunc sunt sine nomine terræ.'

The poet has very finely represented the joy and gladness of heart which arises in Adam upon his discovery of the Messiah. As he sees his day at a distance through types and shadows, he rejoices in it; but when he finds the redemption of man completed, and Paradise again renewed, he breaks forth in rapture and transport:

"O goodness infinite, goodness immense !

That all this good of evil shall produce,' &c.

I have hinted in my sixth paper on Milton, that an heroic poem, according to the opinion of the best critics, ought to end happily, and leave the mind of the reader, after having conducted it through many doubts and fears, sorrows and disquietudes, in a state of tranquillity and satisfaction. Milton's fable, which had so many other qualifications to recommend it, was deficient in this particular. It is here therefore that the poet has shewn a most exquisite judgment, as well as the finest invention, by finding out a method

to supply this natural defect in his subject. Accordingly he leaves the adversary of mankind, in the last view which he gives of him, under the lowest state of mortification and disappointment. We see him chewing ashes, groveling in the dust, and loaden with supernumerary pains and torments. On the contrary, our two first parents are comforted by dreams and visions, cheered with promises of salvation, and in a manner raised to a greater happiness than that which they had forfeited. In short, Satan is represented miserable in the height of his triumphs, and Adam triumphant in the height of misery.

Milton's poem ends very nobly. The last speeches of Adam and the archangel are full of moral and instructive sentiments. The sleep that fell upon Eve, and the effects it had in quieting the disorders of her mind, produces the same kind of consolation in the reader, who cannot peruse the last beautiful speech, which is ascribed to the mother of mankind, without a secret pleasure and satisfaction:

Whence thon return'st, and whither went'st, I know; For God is also in sleep, and dreams advise, Which he hath sent propitious, some great good Presaging, since with sorrow and heart's distress Wearied I fell asleep; but now lead on;

In me is no delay with thee to go,

:

Is to stay here; without thee here to stay,
Is to go hence unwilling: thou to me
Art all things under heav'n, all places thou,
Who for my wilful crime art banish'd hence.
This farther consolation yet secure
1 carry hence; though all by me is lost,
Such favour I unworthy am vouchsaf'd,
By me the promis'd seed shall all restore.'

The following lines, which conclude the poem, rise in a most glorious blaze of poetical images and expressions.

Heliodorus in the Ethiopics acquaints us, that the motion of the gods differs from that of mortals, as the former do not stir their feet, nor proceed step by step, but slide over the surface of the earth by an uniform swimming of the whole body. The reader may observe with how poetical a description Milton has attributed the same kind of motion to the angels who were to take possession of Paradise:

So spake our mother Eve; and Adam heard
Well pleas'd, but answer'd not; for now too nigh
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-

The author helped his invention in the following passage, by reflecting on the behaviour of the angel who in holy writ has the conduct of Lot and his family. The circumstances drawn from that relation are very gracefully made use of on this occa

sion:

"In either hand the hast'ning angel caught
Our ling'ring parents, and to th' eastern gate
Led them direct; and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain; then disappear'd,
They looking back,' &c.

The scene which our first parents are surprised with, upon their looking back on Paradise, wonderfully strikes the reader's imagination, as nothing can be more natural than the tears they shed on that occasion:

They looking back, all th' eastern side beheld
Of Paradise so late their happy seat,

Wav'd over by that flaming brand, the gate
With dreadful faces throng'd and fiery arms:
Some natural tears they dropp'd, but wip'd them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.'

If I might presume to offer at the smallest alteration in this divine work, I should think the poem would end better with the passage here quoted, than with the two verses which follow:

"They hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way.'

These two verses, though they have their beauty, fall very much below the foregoing passage, and renew in the mind of the reader that anguish which was pretty well laid by that consideration:

'The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.'

The number of books in Paradise Lost is equal to those of the Eneid. Our Author in his first edition had divided his poem into ten books, but afterwards broke the seventh and the eleventh each of them into two different books, by the help of some small additions. This second division was made with great judgment, as any one may see who will be at the pains of examining it. It was not done for the sake of such a chimerical beauty as that of resembling Virgil in this particular, but for the more just and regular disposition of this great work.

Those who have read Bossu, and many of the critics who have written since his time, will not pardon me if I do not find out the particular moral which is inculcated in Paradise Lost. Though I can by no means think, with the last-mentioned French author, that an epic writer first of all pitches upon a certain moral, as the ground-work and foundation