turn to his sentiments, he describes in the beginning of this book the acceptance which these their prayers met with, in a short allegory formed upon that beautiful passage in holy writ, And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar, which was before the throne: and the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God.**

-To heaven their prayer

Flew up, nor miss'd the way, by envious winds
Blown vagabond or frustrate; in they pass'd
Dimensionless through heav'nly doors, then clad
With incense, where the golden altar fum'd
By their great Intercessor, came in sight
Before the Father's throne.-

We have the same thought expressed a

second time in the intercession of the Mes

siah, which is conceived in very emphatical

sentiments and expressions.

Among the poetical parts of Scripture, which Milton has so finely wrought into this part of his narration, I must not omit that wherein Ezekiel, speaking of the angels who appeared to him in a vision adds, that every one had four faces, and that their whole bodies, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, were full of eyes round about:

-The cohort bright

Of watchful cherubim, four faces each
Had, like a double Janus, all their shape
Spangled with eyes.

The assembling of all the angels of heaven, to hear the solemn decree passed upon man, is represented in very lively ideas. The Almighty is here described as remembering mercy in the midst of judgment, and commanding Michael to deliver his message in the mildest terms, lest the spirit of man, which was already broken with the sense of his guilt and misery, should fail before him:

-Yet lest they fain

At the sad sentence rigorously urg'd,
For I behold them soften'd, and with tears
Bewailing their excess, all terror hide.'

The conference of Adam and Eve is full of moving sentiments. Upon their going abroad, after the melancholy night which they had passed together, they discover the lion and the eagle, each of them pursuing their prey_towards the eastern gates of Paradise. There is a double beauty in this incident, not only as it presents great and just omens, which are always agreeable in poetry, but as it expresses that enmity which was now produced in the animal creation. The poet, to show the like changes in nature, as well as to grace his fable with a noble prodigy, represents the sun in an eclipse. This particular incident has likewise a fine effect upon the imagination of the reader, in regard to what follows; for at the same time that the sun is under an

* Rev. viii. 3, 4.

--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 casion neither appears in his proper shape, from Paradise. The archangel on this oc

nor in the familiar manner with which Ra

phael, 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 Melibean, or the grain
Of Sarra, worn by kings and heroes old,
In time of truce: Iris had dipt the woof:
His starry helm, unbuckled, show'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? O 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, deprived
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 appear'd, 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 afterwards 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 closeness and propriety of 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,
Though 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 as to incur the censure which critics have passed upon it. The latter part of that verse in Ovid is idle and superfluous, but just and beautiful in Milton,

Jamque mare et tellus nullum discrimen habebant;
Nil nisi pontus erat; deerant quoque littora ponto.
Ovid. Met. i. 291.

Now seas and earth were in confusion lost;
A world of waters, and without a coast.-Dryden.
-Sea cover'd sea,

Sea without shore.

Milton.

In Milton the former part of the description does not forestall the latter. How much more great and solemn on this occasion is that which follows in our English poet,

And in their palaces,
Where luxury late reign'd, sea-monsters whelp'd
And stabled-

than that in Ovid, where we are told that the sea-calf lay in those places where the goats were used to browse! The reader may find several other parallel passages in the Latin and English description of the

we find celebrated as the scene of some famous action, or retaining any footsteps of a Cato, Cicero, or Brutus, or some such great virtuous man. A nearer view of any such particular, though really little and trifling in itself, may serve the more powerfully to warm a generous mind to an emulation of their virtues, and a greater ardency of am

'Can there be a more astonishing thought in nature, than to consider how men should fall into so palpable a mistake? It is a large field, and may very well exercise a sprightly genius; but I do not remember you have yet taken a turn in it. I wish, sir, you would make people understand that "travel" is really the last step to be taken in the institution of youth, and that to set out with it, is to begin where they should end.

"Certainly the true end of visiting foreign parts, is to look into their customs and policies, and observe in what particulars they excel or come short of our own; to unlearn some odd peculiarities in our manners, and wear off such awkward stiffnesses and affectations in our behaviour, as possibly may have been contracted from constantly associating with one nation of men, by a more free, general, and mixed conversation. But how can any of these advantages be attained by one who is a mere stranger to the customs and policies of his native country, and has not yet fixed in his mind the first principles of manners and behaviour? To endeavour it, is to build a gaudy structure without any foundation; or, if I may be allowed the expression, to work a rich embroidery upon a cob web.

'Another end of travelling, which deserves to be considered, is the improving our taste of the best authors of antiquity, by seeing the places where they lived, and of which they wrote; to compare the natural face of the country with the descriptions they have given us, and observe how well the picture agrees with the original. This must certainly be a most charming exercise to the mind that is rightly turned for it; besides that, it may in a good measure be made subservient to morality, if the person is capable of drawing just conclusions concerning the uncertainty of human things, from the ruinous alterations time and barbarity have brought upon so many palaces, cities, and whole countries, which make the most illustrious figures in history. And this hint may be not a little improved by examining every little spot of ground that

comes duly tempered and prepared for the impression. But this I believe you will hardly think those to be, who are so far from entering into the sense and spirit of the ancients, that they do not yet understand their language with any exactness.

But I have wandered from my purpose, which was only to desire you to save, if possible, a fond English mother, and mother's own son, from being shown a ridiculous spectacle through the most polite parts of Europe. Pray tell them, that though to be sea-síck, or jumbled in an outlandish stagecoach, may perhaps be healthful for the constitution of the body, yet it is apt to cause such dizziness in young empty heads as too often lasts their life-time. I am, sir, your most humble servant.

"PHILIP HOMEBRED.”

'Birchin-lane.

'SIR,-I was married on Sunday last, and went peaceably to bed; but, to my surprise, was awakened the next morning by the These warlike thunder of a set of drums. sounds (methinks) are very improper in a marriage-concert, and give great offence; they seem to insinuate, that the joys of this state are short, and that jars and discords soon ensue. I fear they have been ominous to many matches, and sometimes proved a prelude to a battle in the honey-moon. A nod from you may hush them; therefore, pray, sir, let them be silenced, that for the future none but soft airs may usher in the morning of a bridal night; which will be a favour not only to those who come after, but to me, who can still subscribe myself, your most humble and most obedient servant,

'ROBIN BRIDEGROOM.'

'MR. SPECTATOR,-I am one of that sort of women whom the gayer part of our sex are apt to call a prude. But to show them

*The following paragraph, in the first edition of this paper in folio, was afterwards suppressed. It is here reprinted from the Spect. in folio, No. 364. I cannot quit this head without paying my acknow. ledgments to one of the most entertaining pieces this age has produced, for the pleasure it gave me. You will easily guess that the book I have in my head is Mr. Addison's Remarks upon Italy. That ingenious gentleman has with so much art and judgment applied his exillustrate the several occurrences of his travels, that his act knowledge of all the parts of classical learning, to work alone is a pregnant proof of what I have said. Nobody that has a taste this way, can read him going from Rome to Naples, and making Horace and Sibius Italicus his chart, but he must feel some uneasiness in himself to reflect that he was not in his retinue. I am sure I wished it ten times in every page, and that not without a secret vanity to think in what state I should and in company with a countryman of my own, who, of have travelled the Appian road, with Horace for a guide, all men living, knows best how to follow his steps.'