his having learn'd, thou hast attain'd the sum 575 Of all the rest, then wilt thou not be loath Let us descend now therefore from this top 580 585 Exacts our parting hence: and see the guards, 590 Their motion, at whose front a flaming sword, 595 600 That ye may live, which will be many days, With cause for evils past, yet much more cheer'd 605 He ended, and they both descend the hill; Descended, Adam to the bower where Eve Lay sleeping ran before, but found her waked; And thus with words not sad she him received: 611 Whence thou 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 581. 2 Pet. i. 5. 588. Top of speculation; an eminence of contemplation, from which the eye of the mind saw the mysteries of Providence all cleared up. 608. An inconsistency is pointed out between this line and the argument to the book, in which it will be found that Adam in ald to waken Eve, while he is here represented as tinding hes Presaging, since with sorrow' and heart's distress 613 020 I carry hence; though all by me is lost, So spake our mother Eve; and Adam heard 626 630 635 Well pleased, but answer'd not; for now too nigh 640 630. Marish; from the French Marais, a marsh. 648. The conclusion of this wonderful poem is not inferior in beauty to its progress. Ceasing from the calm and unadorned narrative which occupies the former part of the last book, tha author rises again into his accustomed sublimity, and then with the most admirable skill closes the poem with an appeal, deep and powerful, to all the feelings of awe and tenderness which i ubject can awaken. Never, I think, nas worse taste been shew" than by the critics who would have had the last two lines omitted END OF PARADISE LOST. PARADISE REGAINED. BOOK I. THE ARGUMENT. The subject proposed. Invocation of the Holy Spirit. The poem opens with John baptizing at the river Jordan. Jesus coming there is baptized; and is attested by the descent of the Holy Ghost, and by a voice from heaven, to be the Son of God. Satan, who is present, upon this immediately flies up into the regions of the air where, summoning his infernal council, he acquaints them with his apprehensions that Jesus is that seed of the woman destined to destroy all their power, and points out to them the immediate necessity of bringing the matter to proof, and of attempting, by snares and fraud, to counteract and defeat the person from whom they have so much to dread. This office he offers himself to undertake; and, his offer being accepted, sets out on his enterprise. In the mean time God, in the assembly of holy angels, declares that he has given up his Son to be tempted by Satan; but foretells that the tempter shall be completely defeated by him: upon which the angels sing a hymn of triumph. Jesus is led up by the Spirit into the wilderness, while he is meditating on the commencement of his great office of Saviour of mankind. Pursuing his meditations he narrates, in a soliloquy, what divine and philanthropic impulses he had felt from his early youth, and how his mother Mary, on perceiving these dispositions in him, had acquainted him with the circumstances of his birth, and in formed him that he was no less a person than the Son of God; to which he adds what his own inquiries and reflections had supplied in confirmation of this great truth, and particularly dwells on the recent attestation of it at the river Jordan. Our Lord passes forty days, fasting, in the wilderness; where the wild beasts become mild and harmless in his presence. Satan now appears under the form of an old peasant; and enters into dis course with our Lord, wondering what could have brought him alone into so dangerous a place, and at the same time professing to recognise him for the person lately acknowledged by John, at the river Jordan, to be the Son of God. Jesus briefly replies. Satan rejoins with a description of the difficulty of supporting life in the wilderness; and entreats Jesus, if he be really the Son of God, to manifest his divine power, by changing some of the stones into bread. Jesus reproves him, and at the same time tells him that he knows who he is. Satan instantly avows himself, and offers an artful apology for himself and his conduct. Our blessed Lord severely reprimands him, and refutes every part of his justi fication. Satan, with much semblance of humility, stil endeavour to justify himself; and professing his admiration of Jesus, and his regard for virtue, requests to be permitted at a future time to hear more of his conversation; but is answered, that this must be as ne shall find permission from above. Satan then disappears, and the book closes with a short description of night coming. I WHO ere while the happy Garden sung, By one Man's disobedience lost, now sing Recover'd Paradise to all mankind. By one Man's firm obedience fully tried 5 1. Milton's Paradise Regained has afforded a fruitful subject for critica dispute and consideration, but it is universally agreed that it by no means occupies the next degree in excellence to Paradise Lost. Imperfect in the design, and evincing few of those mighty efforts of invention which distinguish the former work of its great author, it has never possessed the popularity which any composition of Milton might seem to challenge. But it should be impressed upon the reader's mind, that if the poem be imperfect in its plan, considered as a regular epic, this is no objection to it when examined according to the plan which the author himself laid down. Milton, I think it is beyond doubt, never intended to imitate his Paradise Lost in this poem, nor to take any of the classical models to work by. His object appears to have been to shew the coming of the Messiah, or rather his awful and mysterious entry into the kingdom which was to supplant for ever that of Satan, and form, as it were, the vestibule of an eternal Paradise. Commentators have taken it for granted that he meant to give the whole history of man's restoration; he did not do this, but intended only to shew Christ co e in the flesh, and b that the completion of those grand promises of the Father which predicted the restoration of mankind. Supposing this to have been his purpose, the temptation in the wilderness was the best point in the New Testament histories he could determine on. It represented the Messiah in the full development of al' his human characteristics as born of the woman, and it represented him as warring visibly with Satan before the gate of Paradise. The promised Deliverer thus come in the flesh, thus sprung from the chosen race, contending with the prince of this world, and proving his divinity by his triumph-the poet might well consider the title of Paradise Regained was not too high a name for a work which shews Christ as truly man, and, by his conquest over Satan at the first outset, as truly the Son of God. This, I think, may be said in answer to many criticisms on this poem, but if it be less defective as a whole than is commonly believed, it is more imperfect in its general execution than many are disposed to consider it. There is little or no passion, no stirring description, ani scarcely any dialogues, distinguished for more than ordinary power. The character of Christ is very weakly developed, its mysterious nature is reduced to a commonplace humanity, and the scenes in which he is attacked by Satan, present nothing but prettinesses of invention or paraphrases of Scripture. Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious eremite Into the desert, his victorious field, Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence By proof th' undoubted Son of God, inspire, 11 15 As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute, 30 To the flood Jordan, came as then obscure, O ancient Pow'rs of air, and this wide world 8. Divinely; like the Latin divinitus, from heaven. 35 40 45 |