Had it been only coveting to eye That facred fruit, facred to abftinence, Much more to tafte it under ban to touch. 923 But past who can recall, or done undo? Nor yet on him found deadly, he yet lives, Proportional afcent, which cannot be 928. Perhaps thou shalt not die, &c.] How just a picture does Milton here give us of the natural imbecillity of the human mind, and its aptness to be warp'd into falfe judgments and reafonings by paflion and inclination? Adam had but juft condemn'd the 930 935 940 1 For action of Eve in eating the forbid den fruit, and yet drawn by his fondnefs for her immediately fummons all the force of his reafon to prove what she had done to be right. This may probably appear a fault to fuperficial readers, but all intelligent ones For us created, needs with us must fail, Not well conceiv'd of God, who though his power Us to abolish, left the Adversary 946 Triumph and fay; Fickle their state whom God Certain to undergo like doom; if death 955 The bond of nature draw me to my own, us. Thyer. ones will, I dare fay, look upon it fentment have made agreeable to as a proof of our author's exquifite knowledge of human nature. Reafon is but too often little better than a flave ready at the beck of the will to dress up in plaufible colors any opinions that our intereft or re 929. bainous] So Milton spells this word, which is right and agreeable to its derivation from the French haineux. It is wrong to write it, as it is commonly written, heinous. We take 1000 With liberal hand: he fcrupled not to eat 998. charm.] According to the hiftorical relation of Mofes, he did not plead for himself, that he was deceiv'd (the excufe of Eve cheated by the Serpent) but rather entic'd and perfuaded by her: The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, fhe gave me of the tree, and I did eat. Gen. III. 12. Whence St. Paul, Adam was not deceived, but the wo man being deceived was in the tranf greffion, 1 Tim. II. 14. Overcome with female charm, which the holy page ftiles, Hearkening unto the voice of his wife, Gen. III. 17. Improbe amor, quid non mortalia pectora cogis? Virg An, IV. 412, Hume. Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her feat Sighing, through all her works gave figns of woe, That all was lost. Upon Adam's falling into the fame They fwim in mirth, and fancy that they feel 1010 Wherewith to fcorn the earth: but that false fruit Far other operation first display'd, Carnal defire inflaming; he on Eve Began to caft lafcivious eyes, fhe him guilt, the whole creation appears a fecond time in convulfions. As all Nature fuffer'd by the guilt of our firft parents, these symptoms of trouble and confternation are wonderfully imagin'd, not only as prodigies, but as marks of her fympathizing in the fall of Man. Addifon. 1002. Sky lour'd, and muttering thunder,] It is not meant that thunder alfo lour'd, but Sky lour'd, and muttering thunder in the ablative cafe abfolute, some fad drops wept at completing of the mortal fin. It was not loud claps of thunder, but muttering thunder, melancholy and mournful. The paffage alluded to in Virgil is this. Æn. IV. 166. Prima et Tellus et pronuba Juno Dant fignum: fulfere ignes et confcius æther 1015 1020 Yield Yield thee, fo well this day thou haft purvey'd. In things to us forbidd'n, it might be wish'd, 1025 But come, fo well refresh'd, now let us play, For never did thy beauty fince the day apply it to the understanding as well as to the palate: as in Cicero de Fin. II. 8. Nec enim fequitur, ut cui cor fapiat, ei non fapiat palatum. 1027. now let us play, As meet is, after fuch delicious fare;] He feems to allude to Exod. XXXII. 6. 1 Cor. X. 7. And the people fat down to eat, and to drink, and rose up to play; understanding the word play with feveral commentators, not of dancing after the facrifices as it ought probably to be understood in these texts, but of committing uncleannefs, as when we fay to play the whore, and as the word is often used in the learned languages. 1029. For never did thy beauty &c.] Adam's converfe with Eve, after having eaten the forbidden fruit, is an exact copy of that between Ju my fenfe 1030 With piter and Juno in the fourteenth Iliad. Juno there approaches Jupiter with the girdle which the had received from Venus; upon which he tells her, that the appear'd more charming and defirable than she had ever done before, even when their loves were at the higheft. The poet afterwards defcribes them as repofing on a fummet of mount Ida, which produced under them a bed of flowers, the lotos, the crocus and the hyacinth; and concludes his defcription with their falling asleep. Let the reader compare this with the following paffage in Milton, which begins with Adam's fpeech to Eve. As no poet feems ever to have ftudied Homer more, or to have more refembled him in the greatness of genius than Milton, I think I should have given a very imperfect account of his beauties, if I had not obferved the |
