And day is yet not spent; till then thou seest
How subtly to detain thee I devise,

Inviting thee to hear while I relate,

Fond, were it not in hope of thy reply:
For while I fit with thee, I feem in Heaven,
And sweeter thy difcourfe is to my ear
Than fruits of palm-tree pleasantest to thirst
And hunger both, from labor, at the hour
Of sweet repaft; they fatiate, and foon fill
Though pleasant, but thy words with grace
Imbued, bring to their sweetness no fatiety.

210

214

divine

To

As to the feverish traveler, when firft

He finds a cryftal ftream to quench his thirst. Dryden.

But the fine turn in the three laft lines of Milton is entirely his own, and gives an exquifite beauty to this paffage above Virgil's. See An Effey upon Milton's imitations of the Ancients, P. 37.

212.-fruits of palm tree] The palm tree bears a fruit call'd a date, full of sweet juice, a great reftorative to dry and exhaufted bodies by augmenting the radical moisture. There is one kind of it called Palma Egyptiaca, which from its virtue againft drouth was named Aos fitim fedans. Hume.

To whom thus Raphael answer'd heav'nly meek. Nor are thy lips ungraceful, Sire of men, Nor tongue ineloquent; for God on thee Abundantly his gifts hath also pour'd Inward and outward both, his image fair:

grace

220

Speaking or mute all comeliness and
Attends thee, and each word, each motion forms;
Nor less think we in Heav'n of thee on Earth

Than of our fellow fervant, and inquire

Gladly into the ways of God with Man:

225

For God we see hath honor'd thee, and fet
On Man his equal love: fay therefore on;

For

be fure, he muft have had by hearfay or infpiration. Milton had very good reason to make the Angel abfent now, not only to vary his fpeaker, but becaufe Adam could beft, or only, tell fome particulars Richardfon. not to be omitted.

231. the gates of Hell;] Hom. Iliad. XXIII. 71. wuλas aïdao.

233. To fee that none thence issued

forth &c.] As Man was to be the principal work of God in this lower world, and (according to Milton's hypothefis) a creature to fupply the lofs of the fallen Angels, fo particular care is taken at his creation. The Angels on that day keep watch and guard at the gates of Hell, that none may iffue forth to interrupt the facred work. At the fame

For I that day was abfent, as befel,
Bound on a voyage uncouth and obscure,
Far on excurfion tow'ard the gates of Hell;
Squar'd in full legion (fuch command we had)
To see that none thence iffued forth a spy,
Or enemy, while God was in his work,
Left he incens'd at fuch eruption bold,
Destruction with creation might have mix'd.
Not that they durft without his leave attempt,
But us he fends upon his high behests

For state, as Sovran King, and to inure

230

235

Our prompt obedience. Fast we found, faft shut 240

time that this was a very good reafon for the Angel's abfence, it is likewife doing honor to the Man with whom he was converfing.

240.-Faft we found, faft fhut &c] There is no question but our poet drew the image in what follows from that in Virgil's fixth book, where Æneas and the Sibyl ftand before the adamantin gates, which are there defcribed as shut upon the place of torments, and liften to the groans, the clank of chains, and the noife of iron whips, that were heard in those regions of pain and forrow.

Addifon. The reader will not be displeased to fee the paffage, Æn. VI. 557. Hinc exaudiri gemitus, et fæva fo

nare

The dismal gates, and barricado'd ftrong;
But long ere our approaching heard within
Noife, other than the found of dance or fong,
Torment, and loud lament, and furious rage.
Glad we return'd up to the coafts of light
Ere fabbath evening: fo we had in charge.
But thy relation now; for I attend,

245

Pleas'd with thy words no lefs than thou with mine,
So fpake the Godlike Pow'r, and thus our fire.
For Man to tell how human life began

Is hard; for who himself beginning knew?
Defire with thee ftill longer to converfe
Induc'd me.

259

As new wak'd from foundest sleep

Soft

furvey of himself, and of all the works of nature. He likewife is reprefented as difcovering by the light of reafon, that he and every thing about him muft have been the effect of fome being infinitely good and powerful, and that this being had a right to his worship and adoration. His firft address to the fun and to thofe parts of the creation which made the most diftinguith'd figure, is very natural and amufing to the imagination. His next fentiment, when upon his firft going to fleep he fancies himself lofing his existence, and falling away into nothing, can never be fufficiently admir'd. His dream, in which he still preferves the confcioufnefs of his existence,

to

Soft on the flow'ry herb I found me laid

260

In balmy sweat, which with his beams the fun 255
Soon dry'd, and on the reaking moisture fed.
Strait toward Heav'n my wond'ring eyes I turn'd,
And gaz'd a while the ample sky, till rais'd
By quick inftinctive motion up I fprung,
As thitherward endevoring, and upright
Stood on my feet; about me round I faw
Hill, dale, and shady woods, and funny plains,
And liquid lapse of murm'ring streams; by these,
Creatures that liv'd and mov'd, and walk'd, or flew,
Birds on the branches warbling; all things fmil'd, 265
With fragrance and with joy my heart o'erflow'd.

together with his removal into the garden which was prepared for his reception, are allo circumstances finely imagined, and grounded upon what is delivered in facred ftory. These and the like wonderful incidents in this part of the work have in them all the beauties of novelty, at the fame time that they have all the graces of nature. They are fuch as none but a great genius could have thought of, though, upon the perufal of them, they feem to rife of themfelves from the fubject of which he treats. In a word, tho' they are natural, they are not obvious, which is the true character of all fine writing. Addifon.

256.reaking] Or reeking is