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Or of reviv'd Adonis, or renown'd Alcinous, host of old Laertes' son,

death, and concluded with singing and rejoicing for his revival. It is very true, as Dr. Bentley says, that Κηποι Αδωνίδος, the gardens of Adonis, so frequently mentioned by Greek writers, Plato, Plutarch, &c. were nothing but portable earthen pots with some lettuce or fennel growing in them, and thrown away the next day after the yearly festival of Adonis: whence the gardens of Adonis grew to be a proverb of contempt for any fruitless, fading, perishable affair. But, as Dr. Pearce replies, Why did the Grecians on Adonis's festival carry these small earthen gardens about in honour of him? was it not because they had a tradition, that when he was alive he delighted in gardens, and had a magnificent one? Pliny mentions the gardens of Adonis and Alcinous together as Milton does. There is nothing that the ancients admired more than the gardens of the Hesperides, and those of the kings Adonis and Alcinous. Antiquitas nihil prius mirata est quàm Hesperidum hortos, ac regum Adonidis et Alcinoi. Plin. Nat. Hist. lib. xix. cap. 4. The Italian poet Marino in his L'Adone, cant. vi. describes the gardens of Adonis at large: and Huetius in his Demonstr. Evangel. prop. iv. cap. iii. sect. 3. says of the Greeks, Regem Adonidem hortorum curæ impensè fuisse deditum narrantes. Our countryman Spenser celebrates the gardens of Adonis in his Faery

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Queen, book iii. cant. 6. the title of which is

The gardens of Adonis, fraught With pleasures manifold; where he likewise gives an account of his death and revival. Shakespeare too mentions the garden of Adonis, 1 Part of Henry VI. act i. The Dauphin speaks to Pucelle,

Thy promises are like Adonis' garden,

That one day bloom'd, and fruitful were the next.

And Milton himself in the Mask speaks of

Beds of hyacinth and roses,

Where young Adonis oft reposes,
Waxing well of his deep wound
In slumber soft:

And in his Defensio Secunda he mentions both the gardens of Alcinous and Adonis, and here calls them feigned, which sufficiently distinguishes these gardens of Adonis from those little earthen pots which were really exhibited at his festival. And the gardens of Alcinous he has alluded to before, v. 341. Alcinous, host to old Laertes' son, that is, to Ulysses, whom he entertained in his return from Troy, as Homer informs us, Odyssey, book vii. where he gives us a charming description of his gardens; which Mr. Pope selected from other parts of Homer's works, and translated and published in the Guardian before he attempted the rest. Or that, not mystic, not fabulous as the rest, not alle

Or that, not mystic, where the sapient king
Held dalliance with his fair Egyptian spouse.
Much he the place admir'd, the person more.
As one who long in populous city pent,
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,
Forth issuing on a summer's morn to breathe
Among the pleasant villages and farms
Adjoin'd, from each thing met conceives delight,
The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine,
Or dairy', each rural sight, each rural sound;
If chance with nymphlike step fair virgin pass,
What pleasing seem'd, for her now pleases more,
She most, and in her look sums all delight:
Such pleasure took the Serpent to behold
This flow'ry plat, the sweet recess of Eve
Thus early, thus alone; her heav'nly form

gorical as some have fancied, but a real garden, which Solomon made for his wife, the daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. See Canticles. And thus, as the most beautiful countries in the world, iv. 268 -285. could not vie with Paradise, so neither could the most delicious gardens equal this flowery plat, the sweet recess of Eve.

450.-tedded grass,] Grass just mowed and spread for drying. Richardson.

See likewise Lye's Junii Etymologicum under the word Tede.

453. What pleasing seem'd, for her now pleases more,] Did not the beautiful assemblage of proper circumstances in this charm

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ingly natural and familiar simile lead one to think, that Milton took the hint of it from some real scene of this sort, which had some time or other smit his fancy, I should be apt to think that he alluded to this same thought in Spenser, who, describing his hero Guyon with a fair lady upon a little island adorned with all the beauties of nature, adds, Faery Queen, b. ii. cant. vi. st. 24.

And all though pleasant, yet she made much more. Thyer.

457. her heav'nly form &c.] This is a scene of much the same nature with that betwixt the Saracen king Aladin and the Italian virgin Sophronia in the

Angelic, but more soft, and feminine,

Her graceful innocence, her

every air Of gesture or least action overaw'd

His malice, and with rapine sweet bereav'd
His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought :
That space the evil-one abstracted stood

2d canto of Tasso's Jerusalem:
and though perhaps it would be
going too far to say that Milton
has borrowed from thence, yet
I think it must give the reader
some pleasure to see, how two
great geniuses naturally fall into
the same thoughts upon similar
subjects. Milton speaking of
Eve says,

-Her every air
Of gesture or least action overaw'd
His malice, &c.

Tasso speaking of Sophronia's
addressing herself to the fierce
Aladin says,

A l'honesta baldanza, a l'improviso
Folgorar di bellezze altere, e sante,
Quasi confuso il re, quasi conquiso
Frenò lo sdegno, e placò il fier

sembiante.

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It must be owned, however, that notwithstanding this similitude of circumstances, the English poet vastly excels the Italian both in strength of sentiments and beauty of expression. It may be further observed, that there never was a finer or juster compliment paid to beauty than is here by Milton, as it is not made up of rant and rhapsody as most of this kind are, but only saying what one may easily imagine might have really happened upon the sight of so de

How like again is what Milton lightful a scene. Thyer. says of Satan,

That space the evil-one abstracted stood

From his own ev'il, and for the time remain'd

Stupidly good,—

to what Tasso says of the state of Aladin's mind,

Fù stupor, fù vaghezza, e fù diletto, S'amor non fù, che mosse il cor villano !

They both also agree in making each of them immediately to

461. -with rapine sweet bereav'd, &c.] Compare Spenser, Astrophel, st. vii.

That all men's hearts with secret ravishment

He stole away.

T. Warton.

462. His fierceness of the fierce intent] Though Dr. Bentley thinks it jejune, yet such a repetition is not uncommon in the best poets.

Et nostro doluisti sæpe dolore.
Virg. En. i. 669.

From his own ev'il, and for the time remain'd
Stupidly good, of enmity disarm'd,

465

Of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge;

But the hot hell that always in him burns,
Though in mid heav'n, soon ended his delight,
And tortures him now more, the more he sees
Of pleasure not for him ordain'd: then soon
Fierce hate he recollects, and all his thoughts
Of mischief, gratulating, thus excites.

470

Thoughts, whither have ye led me! with what sweet Compulsion thus transported to forget

What hither brought us! hate, not love, nor hope 475
Of Paradise for hell, hope here to taste
Of pleasure, but all pleasure to destroy,
Save what is in destroying; other joy
To me is lost. Then let me not let pass
Occasion which now smiles; behold alone
The woman, opportune to all attempts,
Her husband, for I view far round, not nigh,
Whose higher intellectual more I shun,

468. Though in mid heav'n,] That is, would do though he were in heaven, or it may be understood as if he were sometimes in heaven, and justified by Job i. 6. ii. 1. There was a day, when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. And Satan speaks to the same purpose in Paradise Regained, i. 366.

-nor from the heav'n of heav'ns Hath he excluded my resort sometimes, &c.

468. Compare Comus, 382.

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And strength, of courage haughty, and of limb
Heroic built, though of terrestrial mould,
Foe not informidable, exempt from wound,
I not; so much hath hell debas'd, and pain
Infeebled me, to what I was in heaven.
She fair, divinely fair, fit love for Gods,
Not terrible, though terror be in love
And beauty, not approach'd by stronger hate,
Hate stronger, under show of love well feign'd,
way which to her ruin now I tend.

The

So spake the enemy' of mankind, inclos'd
In serpent, inmate bad, and toward Eve
Address'd his way, not with indented wave,
Prone on the ground, as since, but on his rear,
Circular base of rising folds, that tower'd
Fold above fold a surging maze, his head

486. -exempt from wound,] As Eve had said before that they were not capable of death or pain, ver. 283. that is, as long as they continued innocent.

490. Not terrible, though terror be in love

And beauty, not approach'd by stronger hate,] Satan had been saying that he dreaded Adam, such was his strength of body and mind, and his own so debased from what it was in heaven: but Eve (he goes on to say) is lovely, not terrible, though terror be in love and beauty, unless it is approached by a mind armed with hate as his is; a hate the greater, as it is disguised under dissembled love. An excellent writer (Dr. Pearce) hath observed on this passage, "that a

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"beautiful woman is approached "with terror, unless he who ap

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proaches her has a stronger “ hatred of her than her beauty can beget love in him." Richardson.

Something like this in Paradise Regained, ii. 159.

-virgin majesty with mild And sweet allay'd, yet terrible t' approach.

Thyer.

496. not with indented wave,] Indented is of the same derivation as indenture, notched and going in and out like the teeth of a saw: and Shakespeare applies it likewise to the motions of a snake in As you like it, act iv.

And with indented glides did slip

away.

499. Fold above fold &c.] We

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