From whom I have that thus I move and live, When suddenly stood at my head a dream, 290 And liv'd: One came, methought, of shape divine, And faid, Thy manfion wants thee, Adam, rise, 296 First Man, of men innumerable ordain'd 300 First Father, call'd by thee I come thy guide - Tempting, ftirr'd in me sudden appetite To pluck and eat; whereat I wak’d, and found Had lively shadow'd: Here had new begun 310 315 Submifs: he rear'd me', and Whom thou fought'ft I am, Said mildly, Author of all this thou feest Above, or round about thee, or beneath. This Paradife I give thee, count it thine 320 Of juftify it. It gives a greater ftrength to the fenfe, as it confines the awe to the rejoicing, and thereby expreffes that mixture of joy and reverence, which the Scriptures so often recommend to us in our approaches to the divine Being. Thyer. 320. To till and keep,] Dr. Bentley fays that Paradife was not to be till'd, but the common earth after the fall: he therefore fays that Milton defign'd it To drefs and keep, as in Gen. II. 15. to dress it and to keep it. This looks like a juft objection, and yet is not fo in reality: for if he had confulted the original, he would have found that Adam was to till as well before as after the fall: while he continued in that garden, he Of every tree that in the garden grows Eat freely with glad heart; fear here no dearth: 325 330 Yet render'd to till: but the LXX. likewife employ one and the fame word he was to fill that; after his expulfion from thence he was to till the common earth Our poet feems here in both places, as the to have approv'd of the opinion of Fagius (a favorite annotator of his) who in his note on Gen. II. 9. thinks that Adam was to have plough'd and fow'd in Paradite, if he had continued there: And Milton here follows Ainsworth's tranflation, which has in Gen. II, 15. to till it and to keep it: And Aint worth's tranflation is more exact than that of our common bible; for not only the original word here ufed is the very fame with that ufed in Chap. III. 23. and which is there Vulgar Latin does operari: and the Hebrew, the Greek, the Latin word alike fignify to labor, cultivate, or till. In Chap. III. 23. our tranf lators render it till, and they might as well have render'd it fo Chap. II. 15. fince that word in the common acceptation fignifies no more than to cultivate; and therefore Ainsworth has till, and Le Clerc colere in both places. Our English tranflators chofe to use dress here, as imagining it (I fuppofe) more applicable to a garden. But Dr. Bent ley Yet dreadful in mine ear, though, in my choice 335 Not to incur; but foon his clear afpéct Not hither fummon'd, fince they cannot change ley should have confulted the ancient verfions and the original, and not have trufted to our English tranflation, especially before he found fault with an author who underflood the original fo well as Milton did. Pearce. 323. But of the tree &c.] This being the great hinge on which the whole poem turns, Milton has mark'd it ftrongly. But of the tree- Remember what I warn thee - he dwells, expatiates upon it from ver. 323 to 336, repeating, enforcing, fixing every word; 'tis all nerve and energy. Richardfon. 340 345 As 330. inevitably thou shall die,] In the day that thou eateft thereof thon fhalt furely die, as it is express'd Gen. II. 17. that is from that day thou fhalt become mortal, as our poet im. mediately afterwards explains it. 335. Yet dreadful in mine ear,] The impreffion, which the interdiction of the tree of life left in the mind of our firft parent, is describ'd with great ftrength and judgment; as the image of the feveral beafts and birds paffing in review before him is very beautiful and lively. Addison. 353-with |