Ceased warbling, but all night tuned her soft lays:
Others, on silver lakes and rivers, bathed
Their downy breast; the swan with arched neck,
Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows
Her state with oary feet; yet oft they quit
The dank, and, rising on stiff pennons, tower
The mid aereal sky: others on ground

Walk'd firm; the crested cock, whose clarion sounds
The silent hours; and the other, whose gay train
Adorns him, colour'd with the florid hue

Of rainbows and starry eyes. The waters thus
With fish replenish'd, and the air with fowl,
Evening and morn solemnized the fifth day.
The sixth, and of creation last, arose
With evening harps and matin; when God said,
Let the earth bring forth soul living in her kind,
Cattle, and creeping things, and beast of the earth,
Each in their kind. The earth obey'd, and straight
Opening her fertile womb, teem'd at a birth
Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,
Limb'd and full grown out of the ground uprose,
As from his lair, the wild beast, where he wons
In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den;
Among the trees in pairs they rose, they walk'd;
The cattle in the fields and meadows green :
Those rare and solitary, these in flocks

Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upsprung.
The grassy clods now calved; now half appear'd

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The tawny lion, pawing to get free

His hinder parts; then springs, as broke from bonds,

And rampant shakes his brinded mane: the ounce,
The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole
Rising, the crumbled earth above them threw
In hillocks the swift stag from under ground
Bore up his branching head: scarce from his mould,
Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved
His vastness: fleeced the flocks and bleating rose,
As plants; ambiguous between sea and land.
The river-horse, and scaly crocodile.
At once came forth whatever creeps the ground,
Insect or worm: those waved their limber fans
For wings, and smallest lineaments exact
In all the liveries deck'd of summer's pride,
With spots of gold and purple, azure and green :
These as a line their long dimension drew,
Streaking the ground with sinuous trace; not all

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remarked, in 'Il Penseroso,' in his first sonnet, and again in 'Paradise Lost,' b. iii. 38; b. iv. 648, 771; b. v. 40; b. viii. 518.-TODD.

Minims of nature; some of serpent kind,
Wondrous in length and corpulence, involved
Their snaky folds, and added wings. First crept
The parsimonious emmet, provident

Of future; in small room large heart enclosed;
Pattern of just equality, perhaps

Hereafter, joined in her popular tribes

Of commonalty: swarming next appear'd

The female bee, that feeds her husband drone

Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells

With honey stored the rest are numberless,

And thou their natures know'st, and gavest them names,

Needless to thee repeated; nor unknown

The serpent, subtlest beast of all the field,

Of huge extent sometimes, with brazen eyes

And hairy mane terrific, though to thee

Not noxious, but obedient at thy call.

Now heaven in all her glory shone, and roll'd

Her motions, as the great first Mover's hand

First wheel'd their course: earth in her rich attire

Consummate lovely smiled; air, water, earth,

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By fowl, fish, beast, was flown, was swum, was walk'd,
Frequent; and of the sixth day yet remain❜d:
There wanted yet the master-work, the end

Of all yet done; a creature, who, not prone
And brute as other creatures, but endued
With sanctity of reason, might erect
His stature, and upright with front serene
Govern the rest, self-knowing; and from thence
Magnanimous to correspond with Heaven,
But grateful to acknowledge whence his good
Descends; thither, with heart, and voice, and eyes,
Directed in devotion, to adore

And worship God Supreme, who made him chief
Of all his works: therefore the Omnipotent

Eternal Father (for where is not he

Present?) thus to his Son audibly spake :

Let us make now man in our image, man

In our similitude, and let them rule

f Pattern of just equality.

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We see that Milton, upon occasion, discovers his principles of government. He enlarges upon the same thought in his 'Ready Way to establish a free Commonwealth,' Prose W. i. 591. He commends the ants or emmets for living in a republic, as the bees are said to live under a monarchy.-NEWTON.

8 Let us make now man.

The author keeps closely to Scripture in his account of the formation of man, as well as of the other creatures. See Gen. i. 26, 27, 28. There are scarcely any alterations but what were requisite for the verse, or were occasioned by the change of the person, as the angel is speaking to Adam. And what additions are made are plainly of the same original.-NEWTON.

Over the fish and fowl of sea and air,
Beast of the field, and over all the earth,
And every creeping thing that creeps the ground.
This said, he form'd thee, Adam, thee, O man,
Dust of the ground, and in thy nostrils breathed
The breath of life; in his own image he
Created thee, in the image of God
Express; and thou becamest a living soul.
Male he created thee; but thy consort

Female, for race; then bless'd mankind, and said,
Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth;
Subdue it, and throughout dominion hold
Over fish of the sea, and fowl of the air,
And every living thing that moves on the earth.
Wherever thus created, (for no place

Is yet distinct by name), thence as thou know'st,
He brought thee into this delicious grove,
This garden, planted with the trees of God,
Delectable both to behold and taste;

And freely all their pleasant fruit for food

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Gave thee all sorts are here that all the earth yields,
Variety without end; but of the tree,

Which, tasted, works knowledge of good and evil,

Thou mayst not; in the day thou eat'st, thou diest :
Death is the penalty imposed; beware,

And govern well thy appetite; lest sin

Surprise thee, and her black attendant, death.

Here finish'd he, and all that he had made
View'd, and behold all was entirely good;

So even and morn accomplish'd the sixth day :
Yet not till the Creator, from his work
Desisting, though unwearied, up return'd,
Up to the heaven of heavens, his high abode;
Thence to behold this new-created world,
The addition of his empire how it show'd
In prospect from his throne, how good, how fair,
Answering his great idea. Up he rode,
Follow'd with acclamation, and the sound
Symphonious of ten thousand harps, that tuned
Angelic harmonies: the earth, the air

Resounded (thou remember'st, for thou heard'st),
The heavens and all the constellations rung,
The planets in their station listening stood,
While the bright pomp ascended jubilant.
Open, ye everlasting gatesh! they sung;

h Open, ye everlasting gates!

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See Psalm xxiv. 7:- "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of Glory shall come in." This hymn was sung when the ark of God was carried up into the sanctuary on Mount Sion, and is understood as a

Open, ye heavens! your living doors; let in
The great Creator, from his work return'd
Magnificent, his six days' work, a world;
Open, and henceforth oft; for God will deign
To visit oft the dwellings of just men,
Delighted; and with frequent intercourse
Thither will send his winged messengers
On errands of supernal grace. So sung

The glorious train ascending: he through heaven,
That open'd wide her blazing portals, led
To God's eternal house direct the way;

A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,

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And pavement stars, as stars to thee appear,

Seen in the galaxy, that milky way,

Which nightly, as a circling zone, thou seest

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Powder'd with stars. And now on earth the seventh

Evening arose in Eden, for the sun

Was set, and twilight from the east came on,
Forerunning night; when at the holy mount

Of heaven's high seated top, the imperial throne
Of Godhead, fix'd for ever firm and sure,
The Filial Power arrived, and sat him down
With his great Father; for he also went

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prophecy of our Saviour's ascension into heaven; and therefore is fitly applied by our author to the same Divine Person's ascending thither, after he had created the world. -NEWTON.

In the seventh book the author appears in a kind of composed and sedate majesty ; and though the sentiments do not give so great an emotion as those in the former book, they abound with magnificent ideas. The sixth book, like a troubled ocean, represents greatness in confusion; the seventh affects the imagination like the ocean in a calm; and fills the mind of the reader, without producing in it anything like tumult or agitation.

Longinus, among the rules which he lays down for succeeding in the sublime way of writing, proposes to his reader, that he should imitate the most celebrated authors who have gone before him, and have been engaged in works of the same nature; as in particular, that, if he writes on a poetical subject, he should consider how Homer would have spoken on such an occasion. By this means one great genius often catches the flame from another; and writes in his spirit without copying servilely after him. There are a thousand shining passages in Virgil, which have been lighted up by Homer. Milton, though his own natural strength of genius was capable of furnishing out a perfect work, has doubtless very much raised and ennobled his conceptions by such an imitation as that which Longinus has recommended.

In this book, which gives us an account of the six days' work, the poet received but very few assistances from heathen writers, who were strangers to the wonders of creation but as there are many glorious strokes of poetry upon this subject in Holy Writ, the author has numberless allusions to them through the whole course of this book. The great critic I have before mentioned, though a heathen, has taken notice of the sublime manner in which the lawgiver of the Jews has described the creation in the first book of Genesis; and there are many other passages in Scripture, which rise up to the same majesty, where this subject is touched upon. Milton has shown his judgment very remarkably in making use of such of these as were proper for his poem; and in duly qualifying those high strains of Eastern poetry, which were suited to readers, whose imaginations were set to a higher pitch than those of colder climates. Adam's speech to the angel, where he desires an account of what passed within the

Invisible, yet stay'd, (such privilege

Hath Omnipresence,) and the work ordain'd,
Authour and End of all things; and, from work
Now resting, bless'd and hallow'd the seventh day,
As resting on that day from all his work.
But not in silence holy kept: the harp
Had work, and rested not; the solemn pipe,
And dulcimer, all organs of sweet stop,
All sounds on fret by string or golden wire,
Temper'd soft tunings, intermix'd with voice
Choral or unison; of incense clouds,
Fuming from golden censers, hid the mount.
Creation and the six days' acts they sung.

Thy power! what thought can measure thee, or tongue

Great are thy works, Jehovah! infinite

Relate thee? Greater now in thy return

Than from the giant angels: thee that day

Thy thunders magnified; but to create
Is greater than created to destroy.

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Who can impair thee, Mighty King, or bound
Thy empire? easily the proud attempt
Of spirits apostate, and their counsels vain,
Thou hast repell'd; while impiously they thought
Thee to diminish, and from thee withdraw
The number of thy worshippers. Who seeks
To lessen thee, against his purpose serves

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regions of nature before the creation, is very great and solemn. The lines in which he tells that the day is not too far spent for him to enter upon such a subject, are exquisite in their kind, v. 98.

The angel's encouraging our first parents in a modest pursuit after knowledge, and the causes which he assigns for the creation of the world, are very just and beautiful. The Messiah, by whom, as we are told in Scripture, the heavens were made, comes forth in the power of his Father, surrounded with a host of angels, and clothed with such a majesty as becomes his entering upon a work, which, according to our conceptions, appears the utmost exertion of Omnipotence. What a beautiful description has our author raised upon that hint in one of the prophets! "And behold there came four chariots out from between two mountains, and the mountains were mountains of brass:" About his chariots numberless were pour'd, &c.

I have before taken notice of these chariots of God, and of these gates of heaven; and shall here only add, that Homer gives us the same idea of the latter, as opening of themselves; though he afterwards takes off from it by telling us that the Hours first of all removed those prodigious heaps of clouds which lay as a barrier before them. I do not know anything in the whole poem more sublime than the description which follows; where the Messiah is represented at the head of his angels as looking down into the chaos, calming its confusion, riding into the midst of it, and drawing the first outline of the creation.

The thought of the golden compasses, v. 225, is conceived altogether in Homer's spirit; and is a very noble incident in this wonderful description. Homer, when he speaks of the gods, ascribes to them several arms and instruments, with the same greatness of imagination. Let the reader only peruse the description of Minerva's ægis, or buckler, in the fifth book; with her spear which would overturn whole squadrons, and her helmet that was sufficient to cover an army drawn out of a hundred cities. The golden compasses in the above-mentioned passage appear a very