810

That death be not one stroke, as I suppos’d
Bereaving sense, but endless misery
From this day onward, which I feel begun
Both in me, and without me, and so last
To perpetuity ; Aye me, that fear
Comes thund’ring back with dreadful revolution
On
my

defenceless head; both Death and I
Am found eternal, and incorporate both,
Nor I in my part single, in me all
Posterity stands curs'd : Fair patrimony
That I must leave ye, Sons; O were I able
To waste it all myself, and leave ye none !
So disinherited how would

you

bless

815

820

-that fear

never

813. -Aye me, that fear This must be the printer's blun&c.] This is somewhat like the der, though all editions patronfamous soliloquy of Hamlet, ize it. All languages agree, that act iii.

when singular and plural are so Aye, there's the rub, &c.

joined, the latter must govern.

He gave it therefore, Comes thundring back with

-both Death and I dreadful revolution

Are found eternal. On my defenceless head ;]

Bentley. The thought is fine as it is na

816. and incorporate both,] tural. The sinner may invent Lodged both together in one

so many arguments in mortal body, as St. Paul says, favour of the annihilation and Rom. vii. 20. O wretched man utter extinction of the soul; that I am, who shall deliver me but after all his subterfuges and from the body of this death ? evasions, the fear of a future Hume. state and the dread of everlast- 817. Nor I on my part single, ing punishment will still pursue

in me all him: he may put it off for a Posterity stands curs'd :] time, but it will return with And this curse was the patrimony dreadful revolution ; and let him which he was to leave his sons. affect what serenity and gaiety The author had in view 2 Esdr. he pleases, will notwithstanding vii. 48. O thou Adam, what hast in the midst of it all come thun- thou done? for though it was dering back on his defenceless head. thou that sinned, ou art not

815. -both Death and I fallen alone, but we all that come Am found eternal,]

of thee.

825

Me now your curse! Ah, why should all mankind
For one man's fault thus guiltless be condemn’d,
If guiltless ? But from me what can proceed,
But all corrupt, both mind and will deprav'd
Not to do only, but to will the same
With me? how can they then acquitted stand
In sight of God ? Him after all disputes
Forc'd I absolve: all my evasions vain,
And reasonings, though through mazes, lead me still 830
But to my own conviction : first and last
On me, me only, as the source and spring
Of all corruption, all the blame lights due;
So might the wrath. Fond wish! could'st thou support
That burden heavier than the earth to bear,
Than all the world much heavier, though divided
With that bad Woman? Thus what thou desir'st
And what thou fear'st, alike destroys all hope
Of refuge, and concludes thee miserable
Beyond all past example and future,

835

840

825. But all corrupt,] For, in the other : and that much is as Job says, xiv. 4. Who can well thrown in, and raises the bring a clean thing out of an sense greatly; the burden is not unclean ?

only heavier than the earth to 834. So might the wrath.) So bear, it is heavier than all the is used in the sense of wishing, world, nay, it is much heavier. as in iii. 34.

840. Beyond all past example and So were I equalld with thein in futúre,] As Adam is here speak

ing in great agonies of mind,

he aggravates his own misery, 835. -heavier than the earth and concludes it to be greater to bear,

and worse than that of the fallen Than all the world much hea- angels or all future men, as hayvier, ]

ing in himself alone the source We quote this only that the of misery for all his posterity ; reader

may observe the beauti- whereas both angels and men ful turn of the words, heavier had only their own to bear. the first in one line and the last Satan was only like him, as

renown.

845

To Satan only like both crime and doom.
O conscience, into what abyss of fears
And horrors hast thou driv'n me; out of which
I find no way, from deep to deeper plung'd !

Thus Adam to himself lamented loud
Through the still night, not now, as ere Man fell
Wholesome and cool, and mild, but with black air
Accompanied, with damps and dreadful gloom,
Which to his evil conscience represented
All things with double terror : on the ground
Outstretch'd he lay, on the cold ground, and oft
Curs'd his creation, death as oft accus'a
Of tardy execution, since denounc'd
The day of his offence. Why comes not death,
Said he, with one thrice acceptable stroke
To end me? shall truth fail to keep her word,

850

855

being the ringleader, and this Sat in their sad discourse, and va. added very much to his remorse,

rious plaint,

Thence gather'd his own doom; as we read in i. 605. The accent upon the word future is and the next morning, while the indeed very uncommon, but it sun in Aries rose, ver. 329. he is the Latin accent, and there met Sin and Death in their way is a like instance in Fairfax's to earth; they discourse togeTasso, cant. xvii. st. 88.

ther, and it was after Sin and

Death were arrived in Paradise, But not by art or skill, of things that the Almighty made that

futúre Can the plain troth revealed be and

speech from ver. 616, to ver. told.

641. and after that the angels

are ordered to make the changes 846. Through the still night,] in nature: so that this, we conWe can hardly suppose this to ceive, must be some other night be the night immediately after than that immediately after the the fall; for that night Satan fall. overheard Adam and Eve dis- 854. —why comes not death, coursing together, ver. 341. But death comes not at call,)

Sophocles Philoctetes, 793. -return'd By night, and list’ning where the Ω Θανατι, θανατε, πως αει καλυμένος hapless pair

Outw nat' nuag, ev duen pou Ters;

Justice divine not hasten to be just ?
But death comes not at call, justice divine
Mends not her slowest pace for pray’rs or cries.
O woods, O fountains, hillocs, dales, and bowers, 860
With other echo late I taught your shades
To answer, and resound far other

song. Whom thus afflicted when sad Eve beheld,

your shades

859. her slowest pace] Pede had now gained the dominion pæna claudo. Hor. Od. iii. ii. 32.

over him. The following pasThe most beautiful passages sage, wherein she is described commonly want the

the fewest as renewing her addresses to notes: and for the beauties of him, with the whole speech this passage, we are sure, the that .follows it, have something reader must not only perceive in them exquisitely moving and them, but must really feel them, pathetic : if he has any feeling at all.

He added not, and from her turn'd; Nothing in all the ancient tra

but Eve &c. gedies is more moving and pathetic.

Adam's reconcilement to her is 860. O woods, fountains, worked up in the same spirit of

hillocs, dales, and bowers, tenderness. Eve afterwards proWith other echo late I taught poses to her husband, in the

blindness of her despair, that to To answer, and resound far prevent their guilt from descendother song.)

ing upon posterity they should Alluding to this part of Adam's resolve to live childless; or if morning hymn, v. 202.

that could not be done, they Witness if I be silent, morn or even,

should seek their own deaths by To hill, or valley, fountain or fresh violent methods.

As those senshade

timents naturally engage the Made vocal by my song, and taught reader to regard the mother of his praise.

mankind with more than ordiThyer.

nary commiseration, they lik 863. Whom thus afflicted when wise contain a very fine moral. sad Eve beheld, &c.] The part The resolution of dying to end of Eve in this book is no less our miseries, does not show such passionate, and apt to sway the a degree of magnanimity as a reader in her favour. She is resolution to bear them, and represented with great tender submit to the dispensations of ness as approaching Adam, but Providence. Our author has is spurned from him with a therefore, with great delicacy, spirit of upbraiding and indig- represented Eve as entertaining nation, conformable to the na- this thought, and Adam as disture of man, whose passions approving it. Addison.

865

Desolate where she sat, approaching nigh,
Soft words to his fierce passion she assay’d:
But her with stern regard he thus repell’d.

Out of my sight, thou serpent; that name best
Befits thee with him leagu’d, thyself as false
And hateful; nothing wants, but that thy shape,
Like his, and colour serpentine may show

870
Thy inward fraud, to warn all creatures from thee
Henceforth ; lest that too heav'nly form, pretended
To hellish falsehood, snare them. But for thee
I had persisted happy', had not thy pride
And wand'ring vanity, when least was safe, 875
Rejected my forewarning, and disdain’d
Not to be trusted, longing to be seen
Though by the Dev'il himself, him overweening
To over-reach, but with the serpent meeting
Fool'd and beguil’d, by him thou, I by thee,
To trust thee from my side, imagind wise,
Constant, mature, proof against all assaults,
And understood not all was but a show
Rather than solid virtue', all but a rib
Crooked by nature, bent, as now appears,

880

a

885

872. -lest that too heav'nly Milton himself explains this form, pretended

phrase, p. 809. Tol. Edit. - but To hellish falsehood ,snare them.] ecclesiastical is ever pretended to Pretended to signifies here, as in political. Thus Quintil. Pref. the Latin tongue, held or placed to 1. i. Vultum et tristitiam et before : so we have in Virgil's dissentientem a cæteris habitum Georg. i. 270. segeti prætendere pessimis moribus prætendebant, sepem; and in Æn. vi. 60. pre- speaking of the false philosotentaque Syrtibus arva. So Pliny phers. Richardson. in his Epistles, lib. i. ep. 16. 883. And understood not] The says, nec desidiæ nostræ præten- construction is, I was fooled and damus alienam. Pearce.

beguiled by thee, and understood Prelended to, held before. So not &c.