Sufficient that thy pray'rs are heard, and Death,
Then due by fentence when thou didst transgress,
Defeated of his feifure many days

Giv'n thee of grace, wherein thou mayft repent, 255
And one bad act with many deeds well done
Mayft cover: well may then thy Lord appeas'd
Redeem thee quite from Death's rapacious clame;
But longer in this Paradife to dwell

Permits not; to remove thee I am come,

And fend thee from the garden forth to till
The ground whence thou waft taken, fitter foil.

former part of the period is indeed
thus: By his fide hung the fword, and
the fpear in his hand. The image
then is, that as his fword hung loosely
in his belt, he carried the fpear neg-
ligently in his hand, as he advanc'd
toward Adam; and perhaps this is
the picture intended to be given.
But the reader is at liberty to ima-
gin the fpear carried in the Angel's
hand in what attitude pleases him
beft, or several; for 'tis common
with the Ancients for the verb not
to be applicable to all the members
of the period. So here hung may
be restrain'd to the sword only. There
is another like inftance, IV. 509.
pines agrees to defire only. Mark-
land on Statius's Sylv. I. I. 79. gives
feveral inftances of this in the An-
cients. Richardfon.

261. And fend thee from the garden
forth to till
VOL. II.

260

He

The ground whence thou waft taken,

fitter foil.] It is after the manner of Homer, that the Angel is here made to deliver the order he had receiv'd in the very words he had receiv'd it. Homer's exa&nefs is fo great in this kind, that fometimes I know not whether it is not rather a fault. He obferves this method not only when orders are given by a fuperior power, but also when meffages are fent between equals. Nay in the heat and hurry of a battel a man delivers a message word for word as he received it: and fometimes a thing is repeated fo often that it becomes almoft tedious. Jupiter delivers a commiffion to a Dream, the Dream delivers it exactly in the fame words to Agamemnon, and Agamemnon repeats it a third time to the council, tho' it be a tautology of five or fix verses toY

gether.

He added not, for Adam at the news

Heart-ftruck with chilling gripe of forrow ftood,
That all his fenfes bound; Eve, who unfeen
Yet all had heard, with audible lament
Discover'd foon the place of her retire.

265

O unexpected stroke, worse than of Death!
Muft I thus leave thee, Paradife? thus leave
Thee, native foil, thefe happy walks and fhades, 270
Fit haunt of Gods? where I had hope to spend,
Quiet though fad, the refpit of that day

That must be mortal to us both. O flowers,
That never will in other climate grow,

gether. But in the paffage before us, here is all the beauty and fim plicity of Homer, without any of his faults. Here are only two lines repeated out of one fpeech, and a third out of another; ver. 48. and here again ver. 259.

But longer in this Paradife to dwell.

And it is a decree pronounced folemnly by the Almighty, and certainly it would not have become the Angel, who was fent to put it in execution, to deliver it in any other words than thofe of the Almighty. And let me add, that it was the more proper and necellary to repeat the words in this place, as the cataftrophe of the poem depends fo much upon them, and by them the

My

fate of Man is determin'd, and Paradife is loft.

263. He added not, for Adam at the

news &c.] How naturally and juftly does Milton here describe the different effects of grief upon our first parents! Mr. Addison has already remark'd upon the beauty and propriety of Eve's complaint, but I think there is an additional beauty to be obferv'd when one confiders the fine contraft which there is betwixt that and Adam's forrow, which was filent and thoughtful, as Eve's was loud and hafty, both confiftent with the different characters of the fexes, which Milton has indeed kept up with great exactness thro' the whole poem. Thyer.

268.0 unexpected ftroke, &c.] Eve's complaint, upon hearing that the

was

My early vifitation, and my laft

275

At ev'n, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names,
Who now fhall rear ye to the fun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from th' ambrofial fount?
Thee laftly, nuptial bow'r, by me adorn'd 280
With what to fight or fmell was sweet, from thee
How fhall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this obfcure

And wild? how fhall we breathe in other air
Lefs pure, accuftom'd to immortal fruits?
Whom thus the Angel interrupted mild.

285

Lament

out of the author's copy, which he fupplies thus,

how fhall we breathe in air lefs pure?

What eat, accuftom'd to immortal
fruits?

He asks, What do the fruits, now
to be parted with, fignify to her
breathing in other air? But this quef-
tion does not include all the words
neceffary for understanding the paf-
fage: because those fruits were im-
mortal ones, therefore Eve questions
how fhe fhould be able to breathe in
lefs pure air: To eat (for the future)
fruits not immortal, and to have air
lefs pure too, were circumftances
which might well juftify her folici-
tous inquiry about her breathing in
the lower world.
Y 2

Pearce. 296. Ce

Lament not, Eve, but patiently refign
What justly thou haft loft; nor fet thy heart,
Thus over-fond, on that which is not thine;
Thy going is not lonely; with thee goes
Thy husband; him to follow thou art bound;
Where he abides, think there thy native foil.

290

Adam by this from the cold fudden damp Recovering, and his fcatter'd fpi'rits return'd, To Michael thus his humble words addrefs'd. 295 Celestial, whether among the Thrones, or nam'd Of them the high'eft, for such of shape may seem Prince above princes, gently haft thou told

300

Thy meffage, which might else in telling wound,
And in performing end us; what befides
Of forrow and dejection and despair
Our frailty can fuftain, thy tidings bring,
Departure from this happy place, our sweet

296. Celestial, whether &c.] Adam's fpeech abounds with thoughts, which are equally moving, but of a more mafculine and elevated turn. No. thing can be conceived more fublime and poetical than the following paffage in it,

This moit afflicts me, that departing
Addifon.

hence &c.

There is the fame propriety in thefe fpeeches of Adam and Eve, as the

Recefs,

critics have obferved in the speeches of Priam and Hecuba to diffuade Hector from fighting with Achilles in the twenty-fecond book of the Iliad, where the fentiments are excellently adapted to the different characters of the father and mother. And this, fays Mr. Pope, puts me in mind of a judicious ftroke in Milton, with regard to the feveral characters of Adam and Eve. When the Angel is driving them both out

of

Recefs, and only confolation left

Familiar to our eyes, all places else

395

Inhofpitable' appear and defolate,

Nor knowing us nor known: and if by prayer
Inceffant I could hope to change the will

Of him who all things can, I would not cease
To weary him with my affiduous cries:

But pray'r against his abfolute decree

310

315

No more avails than breath against the wind,
Blown ftifling back on him that breathes it forth:
Therefore to his great bidding I fubmit.
This most afflicts me, that departing hence,
As from his face I fhall be hid, depriv'd
His bleffed count'nance; here I could frequent
With worship place by place where he vouchfaf'd
Prefence divine, and to my fons relate,

On this mount he appear'd, under this tree

320 Stood

and fubject." With lefs fervency was ftudied what St. Paul or St. John had written, than was liften'd to one that could fay, here he taught, here he flood, this was his fature, and thus he went habited, "and O happy this house that har"bour'd him, and that cold frone where

"

66

on he refted, this village wherein "be wrought fuch a miracle, and "that pavement bedew'd with the "avarm effuf.on of his left blood, that Y 3 Sprouted