imagination of the reader, in regard to what follows; for at the same time that the sun is under an eclipse, a bright cloud descends in the western quarter of the heavens, filled with an host of angels, and more luminous than the sun itself. The whole theatre of nature is darkened, that this glorious machine may appear with all its lustre and magnificence:

-Why in the east

Darkness ere day's mid-course? and morning light
More orient in that western cloud that draws
O'er the blue firmament a radiant white,

And slow descends with something heavenly fraught?
He err'd not, for by this the heavenly bands
Down from a sky of jasper lighted now

In Paradise, and on a hill made halt;

A glorious apparition

I need not observe how properly this author, who always suits his parts to the actors whom he introduces, has employed Michael in the expulsion of our first parents from Paradise. The archangel on this occasion neither appears in his proper shape, nor in the familiar manner with which Raphael, the sociable spirit, entertained the father of mankind before the fall. His person, his port, and behaviour, are suitable to a spirit of the highest rank, and exquisitely described in the following passage:

-Th' archangel soon drew nigh,
Not in his shape celestial; but as man
Clad to meet man: over his lucid arms
A military vest of purple flow'd,
Livelier than Melibœan, or the grain
Of Sarra, worn by kings and heroes old,
In time of truce: Iris had dipt the woof:
His starry helm, unbuckled, shew'd him prime
In manhood where youth ended; by his side,
As in a glist'ring zodiac, hung the sword,

Satan's dire dread, and in his hand the spear.
Adam bow'd low; he kingly from his state
Inclin'd not, but his coming thus declared.'

Eve's complaint, upon hearing that she was to be removed from the garden of Paradise, is wonderfully beautiful. The sentiments are not only proper to the subject, but have something in them particularly soft and womanish:

'Must I then leave thee, Paradise? Thus leave
Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of gods, where I had hope to spend
Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both? ( flowers,
That never will in other climate grow,
My early visitation, and my last

At even, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave you names!
Who now shall rear you to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from th' ambrosial fount?
Thee, lastly, nuptial bower, by me adorn'd
With what to sight or smell was sweet: from thee
How shall I part? and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this, obscure

And wild? How shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?'

Adam's speech abounds with thoughts which are equally moving, but of a more masculine and elevated turn. Nothing can be conceived more sublime and.. poetical than the following passage in it:

"This most afflicts me, that departing hence
As from his face I shall be hid, depriv'd
His blessed count'nance; here I could frequent,
With worship, place by place where he vouchsaf'd
Presence divine; and to my sons relate,
On this mount he appeared, under this tree
Stood visible, among these pines his voice
I heard; here with him at this fountain talk'd:
So many grateful altars I would rear

Of grassy turf, and pile up every stone
Of lustre from the brook, in memory
Or monuments to ages, and thereon
Offer sweet-smelling gums and flow'rs.
In yonder nether world, where shall I seek
His bright appearances, or footsteps trace?
For though I fled him angry, yet recall'd
To life prolong'd and promis'd race, I now
Gladly behold though but his utmost skirts
Of glory, and far off his steps adore.'

The angel afterward leads Adam to the highest mount of Paradise, and lays before him a whole hemisphere, as a proper stage for those visions which were to be represented on it. I have before observed how the plan of Milton's poem is, in many particulars, greater than that of the Iliad or Æneid. Virgil's hero, in the last of these poems, is entertained with a sight of all those who are to descend from him; but though that episode is justly admired as one of the noblest designs in the whole Æneid, every one must allow that this of Milton is of a much higher nature. Adam's vision is not confined to any particular tribe of mankind, but extends to the whole species.

In this great review which Adam takes of all his sons and daughters, the first objects he is presented with exhibit to him the story of Cain and Abel, which is drawn together with much coolness and pro priety expression. The curiosity and natural horror which arises in Adam at the sight of the first dying man is touched with great beauty:

'But have I now seen death? Is this the way
I must return to native dust? O sight

Of terror foul, and ugly to behold!
Horrid to think, how horrible to feel!'

The second vision sets before him the image of death, in a great variety of appearances. The angel,

to give him a general idea of those effects which his guilt had brought upon his posterity, places before him a large hospital, or lazar-house, filled with persons lying under all kinds of mortal diseases. How finely has the poet told us that the sick persons languished under lingering and incurable distempers, by an apt and judicious use of such imaginary beings as those I mentioned in my last Saturday's paper!

'Dire was the tossing, deep the groans; Despair
Tended the sick, busy from couch to couch;
And over them triumphant Death his dart
Shook, but delay'd to strike, tho' oft invok'd
With vows, as their chief good and final hope.'

The passion which likewise rises in Adam on this occasion is very natural:

'Sight so deform what heart of rock could long!
Dry-ey'd behold? Adam could not, but wept,
Tho' not of woman born; compassion quell'd
His best of man, and gave him up to tears.'

The discourse between the angel and Adam which follows, abounds with noble morals.

As there is nothing more delightful in poetry than a contrast and opposition of incidents, the author, after this melancholy prospect of death and sickness, raises up a scene of mirth, love, and jollity. The secret pleasure that steals into Adam's heart, as he is intent upon this vision, is imagined with great delicacy. I must not omit the description of the loose female troop, who seduced the sons of God, as they are called in scripture.

'For that fair female troop thou saw'st, that seem'd Of goddesses, so blythe, so smooth, so gay,

Yet empty of all good, wherein consists
Woman's domestic honour, and chief praise;

Bred only and completed to the taste

Of lustful appetence, to sing, to dance,

To dress, and troule the tongue, and roll the eye.
To these that sober race of men, whose lives
Religious titled them the sons of God,

Shall yield up all their virtue, all their fame,
Ignobly, to the trains and to the smiles

Of those fair atheists

The next vision is of a quite contrary nature, and filled with the horrors of war. Adam at the sight of it melts into tears, and breaks out into that passionate speech,

O what are these!

Death's ministers, not men, who thus deal death
Inhumanly to men, and multiply

Ten thousandfold the sin of him who slew

His brother for of whom such massacre

Make they, but of their brethren, men of men?'

Milton to keep up an agreeable variety in his visions, after having raised in the mind of his reader the several ideas of terror which are conformable to the description of war, passes on to those softer images of triumphs and festivals, in that vision of lewdness and luxury which ushers in the flood.

As it is visible that the poet had his eye upon Ovid's account of the universal deluge, the reader may observe with how much judgment he has avoided every thing that is redundant or puerile in the Latin poet. We do not here see the wolf swimming among the sheep, nor any of those wanton imaginations which Seneca found fault with, as unbecoming this great catastrophe of nature. If our poet has imitated that verse in which Ovid tells us that there was nothing but sea, and that this sea had no shore to it, he has not set the thought in such a light