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Of fome rich burgher, whofe fubftantial doors,
Cross-barr'd and bolted faft, fear no affault,

In at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles:
So clomb this first grand thief into God's fold;"
So fince into his church lewd hirelings climb.
Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life,
The middle tree and highest there that grew,
Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life

190

195

Thereby regain'd, but fat devifing death

To them who liv'd; nor on the virtue thought

ftronger refemblance; and the hint

Of

195. The middle tree and highest there that grew,] The tree of

of this and the additional fimile of a thief feems to have been taken life alfo in the midst of the garden, from those words of our Saviour Gen. II. 9. In the midft is a Hein St. John's gospel, X. 1. He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up fome other way, the fame is a thief and a robber.

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193. lewd hirelings] The word lewd was formerly underftood in a larger acceptation than it is at prefent, and fignified profane, impious, wicked, vicious, as "well as wanton: and in this larger fenfe it is employ'd by Milton in the other places where he uses it, as well as here; I. 490.

brew phrafe, expreffing not only the local fituation of this inlivening tree, but denoting its excellency, as being the most confiderable, the talleft, goodlieft, and moft lovely tree in that beauteous garden planted by God himfelf: So Scotus, Duran, Valefius, &c. whom our poet follows, affirming it the higheft there that grew. To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradife of God, Rev. II. 7.

Hume.

than whom a Spirit more lewd: thought of Satan's transformation 196. Sat like a cormorant ;] The

and VI. 182.

into a cormorant, and placing himfelf on the tree of life, feems raifed

Yet lewdly dar'ft our miniftring upon that paffage in the Iliad,

upbraid.

where two deities are described, as perching

Of that life-giving plant, but only us'd

For profpect, what well us'd had been the pledge
Of immortality. So little knows

Any, but God alone, to value right

The good before him, but perverts best things
To worst abuse, or to their meanest use.

201

Beneath him with new wonder now he views 205 To all delight of human fenfe expos'd

In narrow room Nature's whole wealth, yea more, A Heav'n on Earth: for blissful Paradife

perching on the top of an oak in the shape of vulturs. Addifon. The poet had compared Satan to a vultur before, III. 431. and here again he is well likend to a cormorant, which being a very voracious fea-fowl, is a proper emblem of this destroyer of mankind,

196. yet not true life &c.] The poet here moralizes, and reprehends Satan for making no better ufe of the tree of life. He fat upon it, but did not thereby regain true life to himself, but fat devifing death to others who were alive. Neither did he think at all on the virtues of the tree, but used it only for the convenience of profpect, when it might have been ufed fo as to have been a pledge of immortality. And fo he perverted the best of things to worst abufe, by fitting upon the tree of life devifing death, or to meanest

Of

afe, by ufing it only for profpect, when he might have applied it to nobler purposes. But what use then would our author have had Satan to have made of the tree of life? Would eating of it have alter'd his condition, or have render'd him more immortal than he was already? What other use then could he have made of it, unless he had taken occafion from thence to reflect duly on life and immortality, and thereby had put himfelf in a condition to regain true life and a happy immortality? If the poet had not fome fuch meaning as this, it is not easy to say what is the fenfe of the paffage. Mr. Thyer thinks that the well us'd in this paffage relates to our first parents, and not to Satan: but I conceive that well us'd and only us'd must both refer to the fame person; and what ill ufe did our first parents

Cc 3

make

Of God the garden was, by him in th'eaft
Of Eden planted; Eden ftretch'd her line
From Auran eastward to the royal towers
Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings,
Or where the fons of Eden long before
Dwelt in Telaffar: in this pleasant foil
His far more pleasant garden God ordain'd;
Out of the fertil ground he caus'd to grow
All trees of nobleft kind för fight, fmell, tafte;

make of the tree of life? They
did not use it ill before the fall, and
after the fall they were not per-
mitted to ufe or eat of it at all.
209. Of God the garden was, by
bim in th
eaft
Of Eden planted; So the facred
text, Gen. II. 8. And the Lord God
planted a garden eastward in Eden,
that is eastward of the place where
Mofes writ his hiftory, tho' Milton
fays in th' east of Eden; and then
We have in a few lines our author's
topography of Eden. This pro-
vince (in which the terreftrial Pa-
radife was planted) extended from
Aurah or Haran or Chartan or
Charræ, à city of Mefopotamia
near the river Euphrates, extended,
I fay, from thence eastward to Se-
leucia, a city built by Seleucus
one of the fucceffors of Alexander
the great, upon the river Tigris.
Of in other words, this province
was the faine, where the children
of Eden dwelt in Telässar (as Ifaiah

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fays Chap. XXXVII. 12.) which Telaffar or Talatha was a province and a city of the children of Eden, placed by Ptolomy in Babylonia, upon the common ftream of Tigris and Euphrates. See Sir Haaé Newton's Chronol. p. 275. So that our author places Eden, agreeably to the accounts in Scripture, fomewhere in Mefopotamia.

215. His far more pleasant garden] In the defcription of Paradife, the poet has obferved Ariftotle's rule of lavishing all the ornaments of diction on the weak unactive parts of the fable, which are not fupported by the beauty of fentiments and characters. Accordingly the reader may obferve, that the expřeffions are more florid and elaborate in thefe defcriptions, than in most other parts of the poem. I muft farther add, that tho the drawings of gardens, rivers, rainbows, and the like dead pieces of nature, are justly cenfured in an

And all amid them ftood the tree of life,
High eminent, blooming ambrofial fruit
Of vegetable gold; and next to life,

220

Our death the tree of knowledge grew faft by,
Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill.
Southward through Eden went a river large,
Nor chang'd his courfe, but through the fhaggy hill
Pass'd underneath ingulf'd; for God had thrown
That mountain as his garden mold high rais'd 226

heroic poem, when they run out into an unneceffary length; the defcription of Paradife would have been faulty, had not the poet been very particular in it, not only as it is the fcene of the principal action, but as it is requifite to give us an idea of that happinefs from which our first parents fell. The plan of it is wonderfully beautiful, and formed upon the fhort ketch which we have of it in holy Writ, Milton's exuberance of imagina tion has poured forth fuch a redundancy of ornaments on this feat of happiness and innocence, that it would be endless to point out each particular. I must not quit this head without further obferving, that there is scarce a fpeech of Adam and Eve in the whole poem, wherein the fentiments and allyfions are not taken from this their delightful habitation. The reader, during their whole courfe of action, always finds himself in the

Upon

walks of Paradise. In fhort, as the critics have remarked that in thofe poems, wherein fhepherds are actors, the thoughts ought always to take a tincture from the woods, fields, and rivers; fo we may obferve, that our first parents feldom lofe fight of their happy ftation in any thing they fpeak or do; and, if the reader will give me leave to use the expreffion, that their thoughts are always Paradi fiacal. Addifon.

223. Southward through Eden

went a river large,] This is moft probably the river formed by the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris, which flows fouthward, and muft needs be a river large by the joining of two fuch mighty rivers. Upon this river it is fuppofed by the beft commentators that the terreftrial Paradife was fituated. Milton calls this river Tigris in IX. 71.

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Upon the rapid current, which through veins
Of porous earth with kindly thirft up drawn,
Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
Water'd the garden; thence united fell

Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood,
Which from his darkfome paffage now appears,
And now divided into four main streams,
Runs diverfe, wand'ring many a famous realm
And country, whereof here needs no account;
But rather to tell how, if Art could tell,

233. And now divided into four main fireams,] This is grounded upon the words of Mofes, Gen. II. 10. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. Now the moft probable account that is given of these four rivers we conceive to be this. The river that water'd the garden of Eden was, as we think, the river fomed by the junction of Euphrates and Tigris; and this river was parted into four other main ftreams or rivers; two above the garden, namely Euphrates and Tigris before they are join'd, and two below the garden, namely Euphrates and Tigris after they are parted again; for Euphrates and Tigris they were still called by the Greeks and Romans, though in the time of Mofes they were named Pison and Gihon. Our

230

235

How

poet expreffes it as if the river had been parted into four other rivers below the garden; but there is no being certain of thefe particulars, and Milton, fenfible of the great uncertainty of them, wifely avoids giving any farther defcription of the countries thro' which the rivers flow'd, and fays in the general that no account needs to be given of them here.

238. Rolling on orient pearl and

Sands of gald,] Pactolus, Hermus, and other rivers are defcribed by the poets as having golden fands; but the defcription is made richer here, and the water rolls on the choiceft pearls as well as fands of gold. So in HII. 507. we have arient gems; fee the note there. We have likewife orient pearl in Shakefpear, Richard III. A&t IV. and in Beaumont and Fletcher, The faithful Shepherdefs, Act III. And in

the

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