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The fixth, and of creation laft arofe With evening harps and matin, when God faid, 450 Let th' earth bring forth foul living in her kind, Cattel and creeping things, and beast of th' earth, Each in their kind. The earth obey'd, and strait Opening her fertil womb teem'd at a birth Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms, Limb'd and full grown: out of the ground up As from his lair the wild beaft where he wons In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den; Among the trees in pairs they rose, they walk'd: The cattel in the fields and meadows green:

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455 rofe

460 Thofe

is more conformable to the text of Scripture.

Cattel and creeping thing, and beaft

of th' earth.

456.- out of the ground up rofe As from bis lair the wild beaft where he wons

In foreft wild,] Lair, or layer, an old Saxon word fignifying a bed. The ufe of this word is ftill kept up among us, as when we call the dif ferent ftrata or beds of earth, fome of clay, fome of chalk, fome of ftone &c lairs. Wons is an old Saxon word fignifying to dwell or inhabit. Dr. Bentley reads In foreft wide, inftead of wild, wild beaft going before; but Milton does not diflike fuch a repetition of the fame word.

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Those rare and folitary, thefe in flocks
Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upfprung.
The graffy clods now calv'd, now half appear'd
The tawny lion, pawing to get free

464
His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds,
And rampant shakes his brinded mane; the ounce,
The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole
Rifing, the crumbled earth above them threw
In hillccs: the fwift ftag from under ground
Bore
up his branching head: fcarce from his mold
Behemoth

461. Those rare and folitary, thefe in flocks] Those, that is the wild beasts mention'd in ver. 457. thefe the tame, the cattel; and it is a very fignal act of Providence that there are fo few of the former fort, and fo many of the latter, for the ufe and service of man.

462.broad berds] This will found a little ftrange to the ear of an English reader, who must there fore be told that he follows Homer litterally. Iliad. XI. 678.

– αιπολία πλατε αγων. Virgil hath a long herd. Æn. I. 186. et longum per valles pafcitur agmen. Richardfon.

463. The graffy clods now calv'd,] Dr. Bentley quarrels with this expreffion, and fays that calv'd is a metaphor very heroical, especially for wild beafs. But as Dr. Pearce jufly obferves, to calve (from the Belgic word Kalven) fignifies to

forth: it is a general word,

469

and does not relate to cows only; for binds are faid to calve in Job XXXIX. 1. and Pfalm XXIX. 9. Mr. Addison particularly commends this metaphor: and the whole defcription of the beafts rifing out of the earth, tho' Dr. Bentley condemns it as an infertion of the editor's, is certainly not only worthy of the genius of Milton, but may be efteem'd a fhining part of the poem. He fuppofes the beafts to rife out of the earth, in perfect forms, limb'd and full grown, as Raphael had painted this fubject before in the Vatican; and he defcribes their manner of rifing in figures and attitudes, and in numbers too, fuited to their various natures.

467. The libbard.] The fame as the leopard; a word ufed by Spenfer and the old poets, Fairy Queen, B. I. Cant. 6. St. 25.

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470. Scarce from his mold Behemoth biggest born of earth upheav'd

Behemoth biggest born of earth upheav'd

His vaftness: fleec'd the flocks and bleating rofe,
As plants: ambiguous between fea and land
The river horse and scaly crocodile.

At once came forth whatever creeps the ground, 475
Infect or worm: thofe wav'd their limber fans
For wings, and smallest lineaments exact

In all the liveries deck'd of fummer's pride
With spots of gold and purple', azure and green:
These as a line their long dimenfion drew,

His vaftnefs:] The numbers are excellent, and admirably express the heaviness and unwieldinefs of the elephant, for it is plainly the elephant that Milton means. Behemoth and leviatban are two creatures, described

in the book of Job, and formerly the generality of interpreters underftood by them the elephant and the whale: but the learned Bochart and other later critics have endevor'd to show that behemoth is the river barfe and leviathan the crocodile. It feems as if Milton was of the former opinion by mentioning leviathan among the fishes, and the river borfe and fealy crocodile, ver. 474. as diftinct from behemoth and leviathan; and there is furely authority fufficient to justify a poet in that opinion. Behemoth biggest born. The allitteration, as the critics call it, is very remarkable, all the words beginning with b. We had another inftance a little before in the production of the mountains, ver. 286.

480 Streaking

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Streaking the ground with finuous trace; not all
Minims of nature; fome of ferpent kind,
Wondrous in length and corpulence, involv'd
Their fnaky folds, and added wings. First crept
The parfimonious emmet, provident

Of future, in small room large heart inclos'd,

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involv'd

Their fnaky folds, and added wings.] These verses Dr. Bentley rejects: he thinks them fo plainly spurious, that (as he fays) the editor is here caught in the forgery. Let us fee whether this be the cafe or not. Snaky, he fays, is mere tautology, i. e. Serpents involv'd serpentin folds. But is not ferpent a more general word than Snake? does it not include all the creeping kind, at least several animals that are not fakes nor have Jnaky folds? If fo, then the epithet fnaky is no tautology. But what is added wings, fays the Doctor? It means, had wings added to their long and corpulent bodies. Scarcely any thing is more common in poetry than to fpeak after this manner, which represents the creature as doing that which is done to it. So in IX 515. a fhip is faid to feer and Shift her fail. So in Virgil's Georg. II. 535. it is faid of the city of Rome,

485

Pattern

Did the city itself build the wall? no, but it had the wall built round its feven hills. If Milton afterwards, in ver. 495. &c mentions the Serpent again, he mentions a particular fpecies of the ferpent kind; and with a plain view to make Adam more mindful of that animal which was to work his ruin and destruction. So that all the marks of forgery, which the Doctor difcovers here, immediately difappear upon a careful examination of the paffage.

Pearce.

482. Minims of nature;] This word minims is form'd from the adjective minima, and in allufion to the Vulgar Latin of Prov. XXX. 24. Quatuor ifta funt minima terræ. The word was in use before for an order of friers, Minim, minimi, so called from affected humility.

485. provident Of future,] As Horace fays, Sat. I. I. 35.

Haud ignara ac non incauta futuri. in small room large heart inclos'd, Georg. IV. 83.

Ingentes animos angufto in pectore verfant.

Septemque una fibi muro circum- It is there faid of the bee, and here

dedit arces.

applied to the ant.

487. Par

Pattern of juft equality perhaps.

Hereafter, joined in her popular tribes

Of commonalty: fwarming next appear'd

The female bee, that feeds her husband drone 490 Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells

With honey stor❜d: the reft are numberless,

487. Pattern of juft equality] We fee that our author upon occafion difcovers his principles of government. He inlarges upon the fame thought in another part of his works. "Go to the ant, thou fluggard, faith "Solomon; confider her ways and "be wife; which baving no prince, "ruler, or lord, provides her meat "in the fummer, and gathers her food "in the harveft: which evidently "fhows us, that they who think the "nation undone without a king,

tho' they look grave or haughty, ." have not so much true fpirit and "understanding in them as a pif“mire: neither are thefe diligent "creatures hence concluded to live "in lawless anarchy, or that com"mended, but are fet the examples "to imprudent and ungovern'd men, "of a frugal and felf-governing de"mocraty or commonwealth; fafer " and more thriving in the joint " providence and counfel of many ❝ induftrious equals, than under the “fingle domination of one impe"rious lord." See his Ready and eafy way to eftablish a free commonwealth, p. 591. Edit. 1738. He adds perhaps hereafter, as he had no hopes of it at that time. He commends the ants or emmets for living in a

And

republic, as the bees are faid to do under a monarchy; and therefore Mr. Pope fays, Effay on Man, III. 186.

The ants republic, and the realm. of bees.

490. The female bee, that feeds her busband drone

Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells] Dr. Bentley would throw out part of thefe verfes and read thus,

Th' induftrious bee that builds her waxen cells.

The drone (fays he) is not the bee's husband; and that bees are all females, feems an idle and idiotical notion, against the course and rule of nature. But (however that be) both thofe opinions had been ftrenuously maintain'd by Mr. Charles Butler in the fourth Chapter of his curious treatise upon bees, intitled The Feminine Monarchie, printed in 1634: and it seems to have been the prevailing doctrin in Milton's days. No need then to fufpect the editor's hand here.

Pearce.

There has been lately publish'd in French a natural history of bees, Hiftoire naturelle des abeilles &c.

D 3

Paris

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