Appear'd, with gay enamel'd colors mix'd:

151

On which the fun more glad impress'd his beams
Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,
When God hath show'rd the earth; fo lovely feem'd
That landskip: And of pure now purer air

Meets his approach, and to the heart infpires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
All fadness but defpair: now gentle gales

in the firft verfe, because fruits follows in the next: but I fhould choose to read fruit in both places; because I obferve that when Milton fpeaks of what is hanging on the trees, he calls it fruit in the fingular number (when gather'd, in the plural) as in V. 341. fruit of all kinds. See alfo VIII. 307. and IV. 422. and in IV. 249. he repeats this very thought again thus,

155

Fanning

Dr. Bentley reads Than on fair evening cloud.

152.

-fo lovely feem'd

That landfkip:] And now if we compare our poet's topography of Paradife with Homer's defcription of Alcinous's gardens, or with that of Calypfo's fhady grotto, we may without affectation affirm, that in half the number of verfes that they confift of, our author has outdone them. But to make a comparison more obvious to moft un

Others whofe fruit burnish'd with derftandings, read the defcription golden rind &'c.

and in the Mask we have

Pearce.

her fruit. We may add another instance from the Paradife Loft, VII. 324.

of the bower of blifs by a poet of our own nation and famous in his time; but 'tis impar congreffus, and

To fave her blooms, and defend rime fetter'd his fancy. Spenfer's Fairy Queen, B. 2. Cant. 12. St. 42. &c. Hume. This defcription exceeds any thing I ever met with of the fame kind, but the Italians, in my opinion, approach the nearest to our English poet; and if the reader will give himself the trouble to read over Ariofto's picture of the garden of

and fpread

Their branches hung with copious fruit, or gemm'

Their blooms.

'd

151. Than in fair evening cloud,] Paradife, Tafio's garden of Ar

Fanning their odoriferous wings dispense

Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy fpoils. As when to them who fail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea north-eaft winds blow
Sabean odors from the spicy shore

Of Araby the bleft; with fuch delay

160

Well pleas'd they flack their course, and many a league

mida, and Marino's garden of Ve-
nus, he will, I think, be perfuaded
that Milton imitates their manner,
but yet that the copy greatly excels
the originals. Thyer.

158.-—and whisper whence they
ftole

Thofe balmy spoils.] This fine paf-
fage is undoubtedly taken from as
fine a one in Shakespear's Twelfth
Night at the beginning

- like the sweet fouth
That breathes upon a bank of
violets,

Stealing and giving odor.

Mr. Thyer is ftill of opinion, that
Milton rather alluded to the fol-

lowing lines of Ariofto's defcrip-
tion of Paradife, where fpeaking
of the dolce aura he fays

E quella à i fiori, à i pomi, e à

la verzura

Gli odor diverfi depredando giva,
E di tutti facera una miftura,
Che di foavità à l'alma notriva.
Orl. Fur, C. 34. St. 51.

VOL. I.

2

Chear'd with the grateful smell old Ocean fmiles :

166

So entertain'd those odorous fweets the Fiend
Who came their bane, though with them better pleas'd
Than Afmodeus with the fifhy fume

170

That drove him, though enamour'd, from the spouse
Of Tobit's fon, and with a vengeance fent
From Media poft to Egypt, there faft bound.
Now to th' ascent of that steep favage hill
Satan had journey'd on, penfive and flow;
But further way found none, fo thick intwin'd,
As one continued brake, the undergrowth
Of fhrubs and tangling bushes had perplex'd

175

All

173. Satan had journey'd on, &c.] The evil Spirit proceeds to make his discoveries concerning our firft parents, and to learn after what manner they may be beft attack'd. His bounding over the walls of Paradife; his fitting in the fhape of a cormorant upon the tree of life, which stood in the center of it and overtopped all the other trees of the garden; his alighting among the herd of animals, which are fo beautifully reprefented as playing about Adam and Eve, together with his transforming himself into different fhapes, in order to hear their converfation, are circumftances that give an agreeable farprife to the reader, and are devised with great art to connect that feries

of

All path of man or beast that pass'd that way:
One gate there only was, and that look'd eaft
On th'other fide: which when th' arch-felon faw,
Due entrance he difdain'd, and in contempt, 180
At one flight bound high over leap'd all bound
Of hill or highest wall, and sheer within
Lights on his feet. As when a prowling wolf,
Whom hunger drives to feek new haunt for prey,
Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve 185
In hurdled cotes amid the field fecure,

Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold:
Or as a thief bent to unhord the cash

of adventures, in which the poet has engaged this artificer of fraud.

Addifon. 177. All path of man or beaft

that pass'd that way:] Satan

is now come to the afcent of the

hill of Paradife, which was fo overgrown with thicket and underwood, that neither man nor beast

could pass that way. That pafi'd that way, that would have pafs'd that way, a remarkable manner of fpeaking, fomewhat like that in II. 642. So feem'd far off the flying Fiend, that is (fpeaking ftrictly) would have feem'd if any one had been there to have feen him. And the like manner of fpeaking we may obferve in the beft claffic authors, as in Virg. Æn. VI. 467.

Of fome rich burgher, whofe fubftantial doors,
Cross-barr'd and bolted faft, fear no affault,

In at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles :
So clomb this firft grand thief into God's fold;
So fince into his church lewd hirelings climb.
Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life,
The middle tree and highest there that grew,
Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life

Thereby regain'd, but fat devifing death
To them who liv'd; nor on the virtue thought

ftronger refemblance; and the hint of this and the additional fimile of

a thief feems to have been taken from those words of our Saviour in St. John's gofpel, X. 1. He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up fome other way, the fame is a thief and a robber.

193. lewd hirelings] The word lewd was formerly underftood in a larger acceptation than it is at prefent, and fignified profane, impious, wicked, vicious, as well as wanton: and in this larger fense it is employ'd by Milton in the other places where he uses it, as well as here; I. 490.

190

195

Of

195. The middle tree and highest

there that grew,] The tree of life alfo in the midst of the garden, Gen. II. 9. In the midft is a Hebrew phrafe, expreffing not only the local fituation of this inlivening tree, but denoting its excellency, as being the most confiderable, the talleft, goodlieft, and moft lovely tree in that beauteous garden planted by God himself: So Scotus, Duran, Valefius, &c. whom our poet follows, affirming it the highest there that grew. Tobim that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradife of God, Rev. II. 7.

Hume.

than whom a Spirit more lewd: thought of Satan's transformation 196. Sat like a cormorant ;] The

and VI. 182.

into a cormorant, and placing himfelf on the tree of life, feems raifed

Yet lewdly dar'ft our miniftring upon that paffage in the Iliad, where two deities are described, as perching

upbraid.