The ground whence thou wast taken, fitter soil.

He added not, for Adam at the news
Heart-struck with chilling gripe of sorrow stood,
That all his senses bound; Eve, who unseen
Yet all had heard, with audible lament
Discover'd soon the place of her retire.

O unexpected stroke, worse than of Death!
Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave
Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades,
Fit haunt of Gods? where I had hope to spend,
Quiet though sad, the respite of that day

That must be mortal to us both. O flowers,
That never will in other climate grow,

My early visitation, and my last

At even, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names,
Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank

so much upon them, and by
them the fate of Man is deter-
mined, and Paradise is lost.

263. He added not, for Adam at the news &c.] How naturally and justly does Milton here describe the different effects of grief upon our first parents! Mr. Addison has already remarked upon the beauty and propriety of Eve's complaint, but I think there is an additional beauty to be observed when one considers the fine contrast which there is betwixt that and Adam's sorrow, which was silent and thoughtful, as Eve's was loud and hasty, both consistent with the different characters of the sexes, which Milton has indeed kept up with

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great exactness through the whole poem. Thyer.

268. O unexpected stroke, &c.] Eve's complaint upon hearing that she was to be removed from the garden of Paradise, is wonderfully beautiful: the sentiments are not only proper to the subject, but have something in them particularly soft and womanish. Addison.

270.-native soil,] Natale solum, as the Latins say,

Nescio qua natale solum dulcedine tangit

Humanos animos.

Paradise was the native place of Eve, but Adam was formed out of the dust of the ground, and was afterwards brought into. Paradise.

Your tribes, and water from th' ambrosial fount?
Thee lastly, nuptial bow'r, by me adorn'd

With what to sight or smell was sweet, from thee
How shall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this obscure

And wild? how shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustom'd to immortal fruits?

Whom thus the Angel interrupted mild.
Lament not, Eve, but patiently resign

What justly thou hast lost; nor set thy heart,
Thus over-fond, on that which is not thine;
Thy going is not lonely; with thee goes
Thy husband; him to follow thou art bound;
Where he abides, think there thy native soil.

Adam by this from the cold sudden damp
Recovering, and his scatter'd spi'rits return'd,
To Michael thus his humble words address'd.

Celestial, whether among the Thrones, or nam'd Of them the high'est, for such of shape may seem

296. Celestial, whether &c.] Adam's speech abounds with thoughts, which are equally moving, but of a more masculine and elevated turn. Nothing can be conceived more sublime and poetical than the following passage in it,

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the twenty-second book of the
Iliad, where the sentiments are
excellently adapted to the dif-
ferent characters of the father
and mother.
And this, says
Mr. Pope, puts me in mind of
a judicious stroke in Milton,
with regard to the several cha-
racters of Adam and Eve. When

This most afflicts me, that departing the angel is driving them both

hence &c.

Addison.

There is the same propriety in these speeches of Adam and Eve, as the critics have observed in the speeches of Priam and Hecuba to dissuade Hector from fighting with Achilles, in

out of Paradise, Adam grieves that he must leave a place where he had conversed with God and his angels; but Eve laments that she shall never more behold the fine flowers of Eden: here Adam mourns like a man, and Eve like a woman.

Prince above princes, gently hast thou told

Thy message, which might else in telling wound,
And in performing end us; what besides
Of sorrow and dejection and despair
Our frailty can sustain, thy tidings bring,
Departure from this happy place, our sweet
Recess, and only consolation left
Familiar to our eyes, all places else
Inhospitable' appear and desolate,

Nor knowing us nor known: and if by prayer
Incessant I could hope to change the will
Of him who all things can, I would not cease
him with my assiduous cries:

weary

To
But pray'r against his absolute decree

No more avails than breath against the wind,
Blown stifling back on him that breathes it forth :
Therefore to his great bidding I submit.
This most afflicts me, that departing hence,
As from his face I shall be hid, depriv'd

His blessed count'nance; here I could frequent
With worship place by place where he vouchsaf'd
Presence divine, and to my sons relate,
On this mount he appear'd, under this tree

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"stood, this was his stature, and "thus he went habited, and O "happy this house that harboured "him, and that cold stone whereon "he rested, this village wherein "he wrought such a miracle, and "that pavement bedewed with the "warm effusion of his last blood, "that sprouted up into eternal

roses to crown his martyrdom." Of Prelatical Episcopacy, p. 34.

Stood visible, among these pines his voice

I heard, here with him at this fountain talk'd:
So many grateful altars I would rear

Of grassy turf, and pile up every stone

Of lustre from the brook, in memory,

Or monument to ages, and thereon

Offer sweet smelling gums and fruits and flowers:
In yonder nether world where shall I seek
His bright appearances, or foot-step trace?
For though I fled him angry, yet recall'd
To life prolong'd and promis'd race, I now
Gladly behold though but his utmost skirts
Of glory, and far off his steps adore.
To whom thus Michael with regard benign.

vol. i. edit. 1738. And both passages very much resemble the following in Pliny's Panegyric to Trajan. xv. Veniet ergo tempus, quo posteri visere, visendum tradere minoribus suis gestient, quis sudores tuos hauserit campus, quæ refectiones tuas arbores, quæ somnum saxa prætexerint, quod denique tectum magnus hospes impleveris, &c.

325. in memory Or monument to ages,] Dr. Bentley asks what difference there is between memorial and monument, that or must se

parate them. I think that by in memory Adam means for a memorial to himself, for marks by which he might remember the places of God's appearance: but because his sons (who had not seen God's appearing there) could not be said to remember

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Adam, thou know'st heav'n his, and all the earth,
Not this rock only'; his omnipresence fills
Land, sea, and air, and every kind that lives,
Fomented by his virtual pow'r and warm'd:
All th' earth he gave thee to possess and rule,
No despicable gift; surmise not then

His

presence to these narrow bounds confin'd

Of Paradise or Eden: this had been

Perhaps thy capital seat, from whence had spread
All generations, and had hither come
From all the ends of th' earth, to celebrate

337. and every kind that lives,] The construction is, his omnipresence fills every kind that lives: which, if true, says Dr. Bentley, was not the author's intention. But how it can be proved that it was not the author's intention, when his words so clearly express it, I am at a loss to apprehend: and if the Doctor could really question the truth of the assertion, it must be said that the poet had nobler and more worthy conceptions of God's omnipresence than the divine; for in him we live, and move, and have our being, Acts xvii. 28. Another poet has enlarged upon the same sentiment, with great sublimity of thought, and as great force of language. Essay on Man, i. 259, &c.

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