Much he the place admir'd, the person more.
As one who long in populous city pent,
Where houses thick and fewers annoy the air,
Forth iffuing on a fummer's morn to breathe
Among the pleafant villages and farms
Adjoin'd, from each thing met conceives delight,

rides, and thofe of the kings Allonis and Alcinous. Antiquitas nihil prius mirata eft quam Hefperidum hortos, ac regum Adonidis & Alcinoi. Plin. Nat. Hift. Lib. XIX, cap. 4. The Italian poet Marino in his L'Adone, Cant. VI. defcribes the gardens of Adonis at large: and Huetius in his Demonftr. Evangel. Prop. 4. cap. 3. fect. 3. fays of the Greeks, Regem Adonidem hortorum curæ impense fuiffe deditum narrantes. Our countryman Spenfer celebrates the gardens of Adohis in his Fairy Queen, Book 3. Cant. 6. the title of which is

The gardens of Adonis, fraught With pleasures manifold; where he likewife gives an account of his death and revival. Shakefpear too mentions the garden of Adonis, 1 Part of Henry VI. Act I. The Dauphin fpeaks to Pucelle, Thy promifes are like Adonis garden, That one day bloom'd, and fruitful were the next.

445

The

Waxing well of his deep wound
In flumber foft:

And in his Defenfio Secunda he mentions both the gardens of Alcinous and Adonis, and here calls them feign'd, which fufficiently distinguishes thefe gardens of Adonis from thofe little earthen pots which were really exhibited at his feftival. And the gardens of Alcinous he has alluded to before V. 341. Alcinous, boft to old Laertes fon, that is to Ulyffes whom he entertain'd in his return from Troy, as Homer informs us Odyffey book the 7th, where he gives us a charming defcription of his gardens; which Mr. Pope felected from other parts of Homer's works, and tranflated and publish'd in the Guardian before he attempted fabulous as the reft, not allegorical the reft. Or that, not myftic, not as fome have fancied, but a real garden, which Solomon made for his wife the daughter of Pharaoh king of Egypt. See Canticles. And thus, as the moft beautiful countries in the world, IV. 268. 285.

And Milton himfelf in the Mask could not vy with Paradife, fo neifpeaks of

Beds of hyacinth and rofes,

Where young Adonis oft rèposes,

ther could the most delicious gardens equal this flow'ry plat, the fweet recess of Eve.

479

Of pleasure not for him ordain'd: then foon
Fierce hate he recollects, and all his thoughts
Of mischief, gratulating, thus excites,

Thoughts, whither have ye led me! with what sweet Compulfion thus tranfported to, forget

What hither brought us! hate, not love, nor hope

Of Paradise for Hell, hope here to tafte

Of pleasure, but all pleasure to deftroy,
Save what is in destroying; other joy
To me is loft. Then let me not let pafs
Occafion which now smiles; behold alone
The woman, opportune to all, attempts,
Her husband, for I view, far, round, not nigh,
Whose higher intellectual more I shun,
And strength, of courage haughty, and of limb.

God came to prefent themselves before
the Lord, and Satan came alfo among
them to prefent himself before the
Lord. And Satan peaks to the
fame purpose in Paradife Regain'd,
I. 366.

nor from the Heav'n of Heav'ns Hath he excluded any refort fometimes &c.

T

476

480

Heroic

Eve had faid before that they were not capable of death or pain, ver. 283, that is as long as they continued innocent.

490. Not terrible, though terror be in love

And beauty, not approached by

ftronger bate,] Satan had been faying that he dreaded Adam, fuch was his ftrength of body and mind and his own fo debas'd from what it was in Heaven: but Eve (he goes on to fay) is lovely, not terrible, though terror be in love and beauty, unless 'tis approach'd by a mind arm'd with hate as his is; a hate

the

Heroic built, though of terrestrial möld,

485

Foe not informidable, exempt from wound,
I not; so much hath Hell debas'd, and pain'
Infeebled me, to what I was in Heaven.
She fair, divinely fair, fit love for Gods,
Not terrible, though terror be in love

The

And beauty, not approach'd by stronger hate,
Hate ftronger, under show of love well feign'd,
which to her ruin now I tend.
So fpake the enemy' of mankind, inclos'd
In ferpent, inmate bad, and toward Eve

way

Addrefs'd his way, not with indented wave,
Prone on the ground, as fince, but on his rear,
Circular bafe of rifing folds, that tower'd
Fold above fold a furging maze, his head

the greater, as 'tis disguis'd under'
diffembled love. An excellent writer
(Dr. Pearce) hath obferved on this
paffage that "A beautiful woman
" is approach'd with terror, unless
"he who approaches her has a
ftronger hatred of her than her
"beauty can beget love in him."

Richardfon. Something like this in Paradife Regain'd. II. 159.

- virgin majefty with mild And fweet allay'd, yet terrible t'ap proach. Thyer.

496. not with indented wave,] Indented is of the fame derivation as

490

495

Crefted

indenture, notched and going in and out like the teeth of a faw: and Shakespear applies it likewise to the motions of a fnake in As you like it, A& IV.

And with indented glides did flip

away.

499. Fold above fold &c.] We have the defcription of fuch a fort of fer pent in Ovid. Met. III. 32.

criftis præfignis & auro;

Igne micant oculi

Ille volubilibus fquamofos nexibus"

orbes Torquet, et immenfos faltu finuatur in arcus:

Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes;
With burnish'd neck of verdant gold, erect
Amidst his circling fpires, that on the grafs

Ac media plus parte leves erectus

in auras,

Defpicit omne nemus &c.
Fire broke in flashes when he glanc'd

his eyes;

His tow ring creft was glorious to
behold,

were

His fhoulders and his fides
fcal'd with gold-
Spire above fpire uprear'd in air
he stood,
And gazing round him overlook'd
the wood.
Addifon.

But our author has not only imitated
Ovid, but has ranfack 'd all the good
poets, who have ever made a re
markable defcription of a ferpent;
and the reader may observe some
touches very
like Grotius's defcrip.
tion of the fame, ferpent in his tra-
gedy of Adamus Exul. Act IV.

oculi ardent duo, Carbunculorum luce certantes rubra: Adrecta cervix furgit, et maculis nitet

Pectus fuperbis: cærulis piti notis
Sinuantur orbes: tortiles fpira mi-

cant

Auri colore &c.

504. never fince of Serpent kind &c. Satan is not here compar'd and preferr'd to the finest and moft memorable ferpents of antiquity, the Python and the reft; but only to the most memorable of thofe ferpents into which others were transform'd; and with the

500

Floted

greater propriety, as he was himfelf now transform'd into a serpent. And in this view it is faid that none were

lovelier, not those that in Illyria chang'd Hermione and Cadmus. Cadmus and his wife Harmonia or Hermione, for the is called by either name, and I prefume Milton thought Hermione and Cadmus more mufical in verfe as it certainly is than Harmonia and Cadmus. This Cadmus together with his wife leaving Thebes in Boeotia, which he had founded and coming into, Illyria, they were and for diverfe misfortunes quitted, both turned into ferpents for having flain one facred to Mars, as we read in the fourth book of Ovid's Metamorphofis. But the expreffion, those that chang'd Hermione and Cadmus, has occafion'd fome difficulty. Did thofe ferpents, fays Dr. Bentley, change Hermione and Cadmus? or were not thefe, who were man and woman once, chang'd into ferpents? And Dr. Pearce replies, We may excufe this as a poetical liberty of expreffion; 'tis much the fame as

the critics have obferved in Ovid's Metam. I. 1. where formas mutatas in nova corpora lands for corpora mutata in novas formas. In both places the changing is attributed, not to the perfons chang'd, but to the forms or fhapes into which they were chang'd. Which chang'd Hermione and Cadmus, that is into which Hermione and Cadmus were chang'd. So Horace fays, Sat. II. VIII. 49.

Floted redundant: pleafing was his shape, And lovely; never fince of ferpent kind Lovelier, not thofe that in Illyria chang'd