Goodliest of all the forest, hart and hind; Direct to th' eastern gate was bent their flight. O Eve, some further change awaits us nigh, Which Heav'n by these mute signs in nature shows, Forerunners of his purpose, or to warn Us haply too secure of our discharge Some days; how long, and what till then our life, 190 195 200 205 And slow descends, with something heav'nly fraught? He err'd not, for by this the heav'nly bands A glorious apparition, had not doubt And carnal fear that day dimm'd Adam's eye. 210 204. Darkness ere day's mid- I would refer the curious reader course,] Et noctis faciem nebulas fecisse volucres Sub nitido mirata die. Ov. Met. i. 602. Hume. to Marino's description of the descent of the three goddesses upon mount Ida, c. ii. st. 67. which is a scene of the same sort with this, and painted, I think, even in livelier colours Not that more glorious, when the Angels met The field pavilion'd with his guardians bright; 215 War unproclaim'd. The princely Hierarch 220 In their bright stand there left his pow'rs to seize Possession of the garden; he alone, To find where Adam shelter'd, took his way, 213. Not that more glorious, &c.] That was not a more glorious apparition of angels, which appeared to Jacob in Mahanaim. Gen. xxxii. 1, 2. And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him: and when Jacob saw them, he said, This is God's host; and he called the name of that place Mahanaim. Nor that which appeared on the flaming mount in Dothan against the king of Syria, when he levied war against a single man not like a generous enemy, but like a base assassin endeavoured to take him by surprise, namely Elisha, for having disclosed the designs of the king of Syria to the king of Israel, 2 Kings vi. 13, &c. And it was told him, saying, Behold he is in Dothan. Therefore sent he thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about. And when 225 the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold an host compassed the city, both with horses and chariots: and his servant said unto him, Alas, my master, how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw and be hold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round Eve, now expect great tidings, which perhaps Of us will soon determine, or impose New laws to be observ'd; for I descry From yonder blazing cloud that veils the hill But solemn and sublime, whom not to' offend, 230. by his gait None of the meanest,] The deities of the heathen mythology had a peculiar species of motion ascribed to them by the poets. Thus Virgil makes Eneas discover his mother by the single circumstance of her gait: vera incessu patuit Dea. En. i. 405. Juno likewise describes herself, Ast ego quæ Divûm incedo regina. Æn. i. 46. And, Æn. v. 647, we find among the distinguishing marks of divinity, the gressus eunti: -divini signa decoris Ardentesque notate oculos; qui spiritus illi, Qui vultus, vocisque sonus, vel gressus eunti. The most ancient statues represent the Dii Majores with their feet even; not as walking, but as smooth-sliding without step. P. L. viii. 802. The gracefulness of their motion was supposed proportionate to their 230 235 rank: the supremacy of majestic grace was attributed to Juno; Athenæus has the phrase 'Heaton Bad, and Propertius, 1. ii. el. 2. says of his mistress, incedit vel Jove digna soror. Milton in the same manner ascribes to the angels a gait proportioned to their rank. When Satan, in the third book, assumes the form of a stripling cherub, previous to his conference with Uriel, he has decent, that is graceful, steps. And so here. I descry One of the heavenly host, and by his gait None of the meanest, some great potentate Or of the thrones above, such majesty Dunster 238.-th' archangel soon drew nigh, &c.] I need not observe how properly this author, who always suits his parts to the Not in his shape celestial, but as man actors whom he introduces, has employed Michael in the expulsion of our first parents from Paradise. The archangel on this occasion neither appears in his proper shape, nor in that familiar manner with which Raphael the sociable spirit enter tained the father of mankind before the fall. His person, his post, and behaviour are suitable to a spirit of the highest rank, and exquisitely described in the following passage. Addison. 242. Livelier than Melibean,] Of a livelier colour and richer dye than any made at Meliboa, a city of Thessaly, famous for a fish called ostrum, there caught and used in dying the noblest purple. -Quam plurima circum Purpura Mæandro duplici Meliba a cucurrit. Virg. En. v. 251. Or the grain of Sarra, or the dye of Tyre, named Sarra of Sar, the Phoenician name of a fish there taken, whose blood made the purple colour. Georg. ii. 506. Sarrano indormiat ostro. Hume. 240 245 244. -Iris had dipt the woof;] A most poetical expression. He had said before, that it was livelier than the Meliban grain, or than that of Sarra; it excelled the most precious purple but now he says that Iris herself had given the colour, the most beautiful colours being in the rainbow; nay Iris had dipt the very woof He had before made use of a like expression in the Mask. The attendant spirit says, -But I must first put off These my sky robes spun out of Iris' woof. Adam bow'd low; he kingly from his state Adam, Heav'n's high behest no preface needs: Giv'n thee of grace, wherein thou may'st repent, Permits not; to remove thee I am come, stance, iv. 509. pines agrees to desire only. Markland on Statius's Sylv. i. i. 79. gives several instances of this in the ancients. Richardson. 261. And send thee from the garden forth to till The ground whence thou wast taken, fitter soil.] It is after the manner of Homer, that the angel is here made to deliver the order he had received in the very words he had received it. Homer's exactness is so great in this kind, that sometimes I know not whether it is not rather a fault. He observes this method not only when orders are given by a superior power, but also when messages are sent between equals. Nay in the heat and hurry of a battle a man delivers a message word for word as he received it: and sometimes a thing is repeated so often that it becomes almost tedious. Jupiter delivers a com 250 255 260 mission to a dream, the dream delivers it exactly in the same words to Agamemnon, and Agamemnon repeats it a third time to the council, though it be a tautology of five or six verses together. But in the passage before us, here is all the beauty and simplicity of Homer, without any of his faults. Here are only two lines repeated out of one speech, and a third out of another; ver. 48. and here again ver. 259. But longer in this Paradise to dwell. And it is a decree pronounced solemnly by the Almighty, and certainly it would not have become the angel, who was sent to put it in execution, to deliver it in any other words than those of the Almighty. And let me add, that it was the more proper and necessary to repeat the words in this place, as the catastrophe of the poem depends |