By quick instinctive motion up I sprung, 260 265. all things smild, “ the returning Gospel imbathe. With fragrance and with joy “ his soul with the fragrance of my heart o'er flow'd.] “ heaven." Richardson. So Milton's own and most other Mr. Richardson might have editions have this passage. Others further observed, that Milton have it thus, himself had expressed the same all things smil'd thought with more beauty if With fragrance, and with joy my possible in iv. 153. where, speakheart o'erflow'd. ing of Satan's approach to the Both are beautiful, but we will garden of Paradise, he says, adhere to the first, not only be -And of pure now purer air cause it is in Milton's own edi Meets his approach, and to the heart tions, which we would never inspires alter in the least pointing, unless Vernal delight and joy, able to drive All sadness but despair. it is manifestly an error of the Thyer. printer, but this sense is the best. Moreover the period is rounder, 267. Myself I then perus’d,] the cadence more musical, and So in Hamlet, act ii. sc. i. the expression more poetical. He falls to such perusal of my face. By fragrance Milton has endea- And in the last scene of Romeo voured to give an idea of that and Juliet, exquisite and delicious joy of heart Homer so often expresses -Let me peruse this face ! by arritas, a word that signi- And again in the fourth act of fies the fragrance that flowers Troilus and Cressida, emit after a shower or dew. Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes Milton has used a like expres on thee, sion in his treatise of Reforma I have with exact view perused thee, Hector. tion, p. 2. Edit. 1738. “ thinks a sovran and reviving It may be observed, that the “ joy must needs rush into the Latin verb lego is used in the « bosom of him that reads or same sense. Thus Virgil, Ær. “ hears, and the sweet odour of vi. 754. - Me Survey'd, and sometimes went, and sometimes ran 275 And ye that live and move, fair creatures tell, Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus, how here? Not of myself; by some great Maker then, In goodness and in pow'r preeminent; Tell me, how may I know him, how adore, From whom I have that thus I move and live, And feel that I am happier than I know. While thus I call’d, and stray'd I knew not whither, From where I first drew air, and first beheld This happy light, when answer none return'd On a green shady bank profuse of flowers 280 285 first passage Et tumulum capit, unde omnes longo There is a contradiction between ordine possit this and ver. 352, &c. In the Adversus legere, et venientum di. Adam scere vultus. that he says Dunster. could name whatever he saw, 269. —as led before he got into Paradise. In We have printed it after the the second, he says, that God first edition, though the second gave him that ability when the beasts came to him in Paradise. represents it thus, For this last passage alludes to --and sometimes ran the rabbinical opinion, that he With supple joints, and lively vigour led. gave names according to their This reading is followed like- natures, (clearer expressed, ver. wise in some other editions, but 438, &c.) and the knowledge of we conceive it to be plainly an their natures, he says, God then error of the press. suddenly endued him with. War burton. 272. —and readily could name Whate'er I san.] Pensive I sat me down; there gentle sleep 290 yet And liv'd: one came, methought, of shape divine, 295 And said, Thy mansion wants thee, Adam rise, First man, of men innumerable ordain'd First father, call'd by thee I come thy guide To the garden of bliss, thy seat prepar'd. So saying, by the hand he took me rais'd, had being, 300 289. -untroubled, though I are laid, has its seat and resi. thought dence, according to Homer's I then was passing to my for- philosophic observation, Iliad. mer state, &c.] ji. 16, 20. It is surely remarkable that Adam is described as untroubled, -Βη δ' αρ' ονειρος, επει τον μυθον ακεσε, Στη δ' αρ' υπιρ κεφαλης. though he thought he then was Hume. passing into dissolution. But perhaps Milton only intended to 296. Thy mansion wants thee,] As in v. 365. describe the soothing nature of sleep, which is pleasing not Those happy places thou hast deign'd withstanding its resemblance to a while To want. death ; according to the Epi Pearce. gram; 300. So saying, by the hand Somne levis, quanquam certissima he took me rais'd,] It is said, mortis imago, Gen. ii. 15. that the Lord God tori; took the man, and put him into Alma guies optata veni-nam sic the garden of Eden to dress it and sine vita to keep it. Some commentators Vivere quam suave cst, sic sine say, that man was not formed in inorte mori! Paradise, but was placed there E. after he was formed, to shew 292. - stood at my head a that he had no title to it by dream,] Where busy fancy, in nature but by grace: and our which those strange dark scenes author poetically supposes that 305 And over fields and waters, as in air 310 315 he was carried thither sleeping, Then with a wreath of myrtle crowns and was first made to see that his head, happy place in vision. Our And softly lays him on a flow'ry bed. Dryden. poet had perhaps in mind that passage of Virgil, where Venus Or if our poet had Scripture still lays young Ascanius asleep, and in view, he had authority for removes him from Carthage to such a removal of a person, Acts the Idalian groves, Æn. i. 691. viii. 39. when the Spirit of the Lord cuught uway Philip, and he At Venus Ascanio placidam per was found at Azołus. membra quietem 314. -Rejoicing, but with awe,] Irrigat, et fotum gremio dea tollit in There should most certainly be altos Idaliæ lucos; ubi mollis amaracus a comma after the word aue, illum although there be no printed Floribus, et dulci aspirans comple- authorities to justify it. It gives ctitur umbra. a greater strength to the sense, The Goddess then to young Asca as it confines the awe to the nius Ries, rejoicing, and thereby expresses And in a pleasing slumber seals his that mixture of joy and reeyes ; verence, which the Scriptures Lull'd in her lap, amidst a train of loves, so often recommend to us in She gently bears him to her blissful our approaches to the divine groves : Being. Thyer. Submiss: he rear'd me', and whom thou sought'st I am, tree that in the garden grows 820 am. 316. I am,] These words if he had continued there: and make very good sense here in Milton here follows Ainsworth's the common acceptation of them: translation, which has in Gen. but by Milton's placing them in ii. 15. to till it and to keep it : such an emphatical manner at and Ainsworth's translation is the end of the verse, I am of more exact than that of our opinion that he might possibly common Bible; for not only the allude to the name, which God original word tay here used is gave himself to Moses, when he the very same with that used in appeared to him in the bush. chap. iii. 23. and which is there Exod. iii. 14. God said unto Moses rendered to till: but the LXX I am that I am ; and he said, likewise employ one and the Thus shalt thou say unto the chil same word εργαζεσθαι in both dren of Israel, I am hath sent me places, as the Vulgar Latin does unto you. John viji. 58. Before operari: and the Hebrew, the Abraham was, I Greenwood. Greek, the Latin word alike sig. $20. To till and keep,] Dr. nify to labour, cultivate, or till. Bentley says that Paradise was In chap. iii. 23. our translators not to be tilled, but the common render it till, and they might as earth after the fall: he therefore well have rendered it so chap. says that Milton designed it to ii. 15. since that word in the dress and keep, as in Gen. ii. 15. common acceptation signifies no to dress it and to keep it. This more than to cultivate; and looks like a just objection, and therefore Ainsworth has till, and yet is not so in reality; for if Le Clerc colere in both places. he had consulted the original, Our English translators chose he would have found that Adam to use dress here, as imagining was to till as well before as after it (I suppose) more applicable the fall: while he continued in to a garden. But Dr. Bentley that garden, he was to till that; should have consulted the anafter his expulsion from thence cient versions and the original, he was to till the common earth. and not have trusted to our Our poet seems here to have English translation, especially approved of the opinion of Fa- before he found fault with an gius, (a favourite annotator of author who understood the orihis,) who, in his note on Gen. ii. ginal so well as Milton did. 9. thinks that Adam was to have Pearce. ploughed and sowed in Paradise, |