Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd an abridgment of the whole story as collected out of the ancient historians, and as it was received among the Romans, in Dionysius Halicarnasseus. Since none of the critics have considered Virgil's fable, with relation to this history of Æneas; it may not perhaps be amiss to examine it in this light, so far as regards my present purpose. Whoever looks into the abridgment above mentioned, will find that the character of Eneas is filled with piety to the gods, and a superstitious observation of prodigies, oracles, and predictions. Virgil has not only preserved this character in the person of Æneas, but has given a place in his poem to those particular prophecies, which he found recorded of him in history and tradition. The poet took the matters of fact as they came down to him, and circumstanced them after his own manner, to make them appear the more natural, agreeable, or surprising. I believe very many readers have been shocked at that ludicrous prophecy which one of the Harpies pronounces to the Trojans in the third book, namely, that before they had built their intended city, they should be reduced by hunger to eat their very tables. But when they hear that this was one of the circumstances that had been transmitted to the Romans in the history of Æneas, they will think the poet did very well in taking notice of it. The historian above mentioned acquaints us, a pro 55 phetess had foretold Æneas, that he should take his voyage westward, till his companions should eat their tables; and that accordingly, upon his landing in Italy, as they were eating their flesh upon cakes of bread, for want of other conveniences, they afterwards fed on the cakes themselves; upon which one of the company said merrily, We are eating our tables. They immediately took the hint, says the historian, and concluded the prophecy to be fulfilled. As Virgil did not think it proper to omit so material a particular in the history of Æneas, it may be worth while to consider with how much judgment he has qualified it, and takes off every thing that might have appeared improper for a passage in an heroic poem. The prophetess who foretells it is an hungry Harpy, as the person who discovers it is young Ascanius: Heus etiam mensas consumimus, inquit Iülus. Such an observation, which is beautiful in the mouth of a boy, would have been ridiculous from any other of the company. I am apt to think that the changing of the Trojan fleet into waternymphs, which is the most violent machine in the whole Æneid, and has given offence to several critics, may be accounted for the same way. Virgil himself, before he begins that relation, premises, that what he was going to tell appeared incredible, but that it was justified by tradition. On man's destruction, maugre what might hap Of heavier on himself, fearless return'd. What farther confirms me that this change of the fleet was a celebrated circumstance in the history of Æneas is, that Ovid has given a place to the same metamorphosis in his account of the heathen mythology. None of the critics I have met with having considered the fable of the Eneid in this light, and taken notice how the tradition, on which it was founded, authorizes those parts in it which appear most exceptionable; I hope the length of this reflection will not make it unacceptable to the curious part of my readers. The history, which was the basis of Milton's poem, is still shorter than either that of the Iliad or Æneid. The poet has likewise taken care to insert every circumstance of it in the body of his fable. The ninth book, which we are here to consider, is raised upon that brief account in Scripture, wherein we are told that the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, that he tempted the woman to eat of the forbidden fruit, that she was overcome by this temptation, and that Adam followed her example. From these few particulars, Milton has formed one of the most entertaining fables that invention ever produced. He has disposed of these several circumstances among so many beautiful and natural fictions of his own, that his whole story looks only like a comment upon sacred writ, or rather seems to be a full and complete rela tion of what the other is only an epitome. I have insisted the longer on this consideration, as I look upon the disposition and contrivance of the fable to be the principal beauty of the ninth book, which has more story in it, and is fuller of incidents, than any other in the whole poem. Satan's traversing the globe, and still keeping within the shadow of the night, as fearing to be discovered by the angel of the sun, who had before detected him, is one of those beautiful imaginations, with which he introduces this his second series of adventures. Having examined the nature of every creature, and found out one which was the most proper for his purpose, he again returns to Paradise; and to avoid discovery, sinks by night with a river that ran under the garden, and rises up again through a fountain that issued from it by the tree of life. The poet, who, as we have before taken notice, speaks as little as possible in his own person, and after the example of Homer fills every part of his work with manners and characters, introduces a soliloquy of this infernal agent, who was thus restless in the destruction of man. then described as gliding through the garden, under the resemblance of a mist, in order to find out that creature in which he designed to tempt our first parents. This description has something in it very poetical and surprising. Addison. He is By night he fled, and at midnight return'd His entrance, and forewarn'd the cherubim 63. The space of sev'n continued nights he rode With darkness, &c.] It was about noon that Satan came to the earth, and having been discovered by Uriel, he was driven out of Paradise the same night, as we read in book the fourth. From that time he was a whole week in continual darkness for fear of another discovery. Thrice the equinoctial line he circled; he travelled on with the night three times round the equator; he was three days moving round from east to west as the sun does, but always on the opposite side of the globe in darkness. Four times crossed the car of night from pole to pole; did not move directly on with the night as before, but crossed over from the northern to the southern, and from the southern to the northern pole. Traversing each colure. As the equinoctial line or equator is a great circle encompassing the earth from east to west and from west to east 60 65 again; so the colures are two great circles, intersecting each other at right angles in the poles of the world, and encompassing the earth from north to south, and from south to north again: and therefore as Satan was moving from pole to pole, at the same time the car of night was moving from east to west, if he would keep still in the shade of night as he desired, he could not move in a straight line, but must move obliquely, and thereby cross the two colures. We have expressed ourselves plainly as we can for the sake of those readers, who are not acquainted with these astronomical terms; and the fact in short is, that Satan was three days compassing the earth from east to west, and four days from north to south, but still kept always in the shade of night; and after a whole week's peregrination in this manner, on the eighth night returned by stealth into Paradise. as Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change, Where Tigris at the foot of Paradise Into a gulf shot under ground, till part Rose up a fountain by the tree of life; In with the river sunk, and with it rose Satan involv'd in rising mist, then sought 71 75 Where to lie hid; sea he had search'd and land 80 75. —-involv'd in rising mist,] agxtos the bear, the most conHomer, liiad. i. 359. πανιου πολιής άλος ηὔτ ̓ ομιχλη. 77. From Eden over Pontus, &c.] As we had before an astronomical, so here we have a geographical, account of Satan's peregrinations. He searched both sea and land, northward from Eden over Pontus, Pontus Euxinus, the Euxine Sea, now the Black Sea, above Constantinople, and the pool Mæotis, Palus Mæotis above the Black Sea, up beyond the river Ob, Ob or Oby, a great river of Muscovy near the northern pole. Downward as far antarctic, as far southward; the northern hemisphere being elevated on our globes, the north is called up and the south downwards; antarctic south the contrary to arctic north from spicuous constellation near the north pole; but no particular place is mentioned near the south pole, there being all sea or land unknown. And in length, as north is up and south is down, so in length is east or west; west from Orontes, a river of Syria, westward of Eden, running into the Mediterranean, to the ocean barred at Darien, the isthmus of Darien in the WestIndies, a neck of land that joins North and South America together, and hinders the ocean as it were with a bar from flowing between them; and the metaphor of the ocean barred is an allusion to Job xxxviii. 10. and set bars to the sea. Thence to the land where flows Ganges and Indus, thence to the East-Indies: thus the orb he roamed. Most opportune might serve his wiles, and found Of thoughts revolv'd, his final sentence chose Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom To enter, and his dark suggestions hide 86. The serpent subtlest beast 85 90 95 imitating all they see and hear. I reckon this panegyric upon the earth among the less perfect parts of the poem. The beginning is extravagant, and what follows is not consistent with what the author had said before in his description of Satan's passage among the stars and planets, which are said then to appear to him as other worlds inhabited. See iii. 566. The imagination that all the heavenly bodies were created for the sake of the earth was natural to human ignorance, and human vanity might find its account in it: but neither of these could influence Satan. Heylin. As it is common with people |