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 ye names,
Who now shall rear ye to the Sun, or rank

Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount ?"

The Archangel and Adam descend together the hill, where the emissary of the Empyrean had announced the object of his mission; then

Adam to the bower where Eve

Lay sleeping ran before, but found her waked;
And thus with words not sad she him received :—
"Whence thou return'st, and wither went'st, I know;

For God is also in sleep, and dreams advise,
Which he hath sent propitious, some great good
Presaging, since, with sorrow and heart's distress
Wearied, I fell asleep. But now lead on ;
In me is no delay; with thee to go

Is to stay here; without thee here to stay
Is to go hence unwilling; thou to me
Art all things under Heaven, all places thou,
Who for my wilful crime art banished hence.
This further consolation yet secure

I carry hence though all by me is lost,
Such favour I unworthy am voutsafed,

By me the Promised Seed shall all restore."

So spake our mother Eve; and Adam heard Well pleased, but answered not; for now too nigh The Archangel stood.

In either hand the hastening Angel caught
Our lingering parents, and to the eastern gate
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain-then disappeared.
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,

Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms.

Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose

Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.

They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,

Through Eden took their solitary way.

And so the "Commedia" of the Creation ends with the "Tragedia" of the Fall.

CHAPTER VII.

The Angel of Presumption and Other Devils.

THE

HE two grandest poetic conceptions of the Spirit of Evil to be found in the whole of English literature are, without doubt, Satan, the "Angel of Presumption" of Cædmon (se engel ofermódes), and Satan, the fallen "Archangel" of Milton.

In the present chapter we propose to compare the respective characteristics of these two colossal beings;—or rather, these two conceptions of the same colossal being,-both before and after the expulsion of the rebel hosts from the Empyrean; and, if we introduce the Serpent of the Hebrew story, or any modern personification of the Spirit of Evil, we shall do so simply to bring out, in still bolder relief, the salient points in the main study.

It is scarcely necessary to premise, that with any philosophical or theological speculations on the "Origin of Evil," or the existence of a "Personal Devil," we have no concern in the present work. We shall treat of Satan, the subject of this special