By quick instinctive motion up I sprung, 260 Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains, Both are beautiful, but we will adhere to the first, not only because it is in Milton's own editions, which we would never alter in the least pointing, unless it is manifestly an error of the printer, but this sense is the best. Moreover the period is rounder, the cadence more musical, and the expression more poetical. By fragrance Milton has endeavoured to give an idea of that exquisite and delicious joy of heart Homer so often expresses by antal, a word that signifies the fragrance that flowers emit after a shower or dew. Milton has used a like expression in his treatise of Reformation, p. 2. Edit. 1738. "Me"thinks a sovran and reviving "joy must needs rush into the "bosom of him that reads or "the returning Gospel imbathe "his soul with the fragrance of "heaven." Richardson. Mr. Richardson might have further observed, that Milton himself had expressed the same thought with more beauty if possible in iv. 153. where, speaking of Satan's approach to the garden of Paradise, he says, -And of pure now purer air Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires Vernal delight and joy, able to drive Thyer. 267. Myself I then perus'd,] So in Hamlet, act ii. sc. 1. He falls to such perusal of my face. And in the last scene of Romeo and Juliet, -Let me peruse this face! It Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes I have with exact view perused thee, may be observed, that the Latin verb lego is used in the same sense. Thus Virgil, Er. vi. 754. Survey'd, and sometimes went, and sometimes ran But who I was, or where, or from what cause, 270 275 From whom I have that thus I move and live, Et tumulum capit, unde omnes longo ordine possit Adversus legere, et venientum discere vultus. Dunster. 269. -as lively vigour led:] We have printed it after the first edition, though the second represents it thus, -and sometimes ran With supple joints, and lively vigour led. This reading is followed likewise in some other editions, but we conceive it to be plainly an error of the press. 272. -and readily could name Whate'er I saw.] 280 285 There is a contradiction between this and ver. 352, &c. In the first passage Adam says that he could name whatever he saw, the second, he says, that God before he got into Paradise. In gave him that ability when the beasts came to him in Paradise. For this last passage alludes to the rabbinical opinion, that he gave names according to their natures, (clearer expressed, ver. 438, &c.) and the knowledge of their natures, he says, God then suddenly endued him with. Warburton. Pensive I sat me down; there gentle sleep 290 And liv'd: one came, methought, of shape divine, 295 First father, call'd by thee I come thy guide 289. untroubled, though I I then was passing to my former state, &c.] It is surely remarkable that Adam is described as untroubled, though he thought he then was passing into dissolution. But perhaps Milton only intended to describe the soothing nature of sleep, which is pleasing notwithstanding its resemblance to death; according to the Epigram; Somne levis, quanquam certissima mortis imago, Consortem cupio te tamen esse tori; Alma quies optata veni-nam sic sine vitâ Vivere quam suave est, sic sine E. 292. stood at my head a dream,] Where busy fancy, in which those strange dark scenes 300 are laid, has its seat and residence, according to Homer's philosophic observation, Iliad. ii. 16, 20. -Βη δ' αρ' ονειρος, επει τον μύθον ακέσε, Στη δ' αρ' ὑπερ κεφαλής. Hume. 296. Thy mansion wants thee,] As in v. 365. Those happy places thou hast deign'd a while To want. Pearce. 300. So saying, by the hand he took me rais'd,] It is said, Gen. ii. 15. that the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. Some commentators say, that man was not formed in Paradise, but was placed there after he was formed, to shew that he had no title to it by nature but by grace: and our author poetically supposes that And over fields and waters, as in air Smooth sliding without step, last led me up To pluck and eat; whereat I wak'd, and found he was carried thither sleeping, At Venus Ascanio placidam per Irrigat, et fotum gremio dea tollit in altos Idaliæ lucos; ubi mollis amaracus 805 310 315 Or if our poet had Scripture still in view, he had authority for such a removal of a person, Acts viii. 39. when the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, and he was found at Azotus. 314.-Rejoicing, but with awe,} There should most certainly be a comma after the word awe, although there be no printed Floribus, et dulci aspirans comple- authorities to justify it. It gives ctitur umbra. a greater strength to the sense, as it confines the awe to the rejoicing, and thereby expresses that mixture of joy and reverence, which the Scriptures so often recommend to us in our approaches to the divine Being. Thyer. Submiss he rear'd me', and whom thou sought'st I am, 316. I am,] These words make very good sense here in the common acceptation of them: but by Milton's placing them in such an emphatical manner at the end of the verse, I am of opinion that he might possibly allude to the name, which God gave himself to Moses, when he appeared to him in the bush. Exod. iii. 14. God said unto Moses I am that I am; and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you. John viii. 58. Before Abraham was, I am. Greenwood. $20. To till and keep,] Dr. Bentley says that Paradise was not to be tilled, but the common earth after the fall: he therefore says that Milton designed it to dress and keep, as in Gen. ii. 15. to dress it and to keep it. This looks like a just objection, and yet is not so in reality; for if he had consulted the original, he would have found that Adam was to till as well before as after the fall: while he continued in that garden, he was to till that; after his expulsion from thence he was to till the common earth. Our poet seems here to have approved of the opinion of Fagius, (a favourite annotator of his,) who, in his note on Gen. ii. 9. thinks that Adam was to have ploughed and sowed in Paradise, 820 if he had continued there: and Milton here follows Ainsworth's translation, which has in Gen. ii. 15. to till it and to keep it: and Ainsworth's translation is more exact than that of our common Bible; for not only the original word y here used is the very same with that used in chap. iii. 23. and which is there rendered to till: but the LXX likewise employ one and the same word εργαζεσθαι in both places, as the Vulgar Latin does operari: and the Hebrew, the Greek, the Latin word alike signify to labour, cultivate, or till. In chap. iii. 23. our translators render it till, and they might as well have rendered it so chap. ii. 15. since that word in the common acceptation signifies no more than to cultivate; and therefore Ainsworth has till, and Le Clerc colere in both places. Our English translators chose to use dress here, as imagining it (I suppose) more applicable to a garden. to a garden. But Dr. Bentley should have consulted the ancient versions and the original, and not have trusted to our English translation, especially before he found fault with an author who understood the original so well as Milton did. Pearce. |