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Not in his shape celestial, but as man
Clad to meet man; over his lucid arms
A military vest of purple flow'd,
Livelier than Melibœan, or the grain
Of Sarra, worn by kings and heroes old
In time of truce; Iris had dipt the woof;
His starry helm unbuckled shew'd him prime
In manhood where youth ended; by his side
As in a glist'ring zodiac hung the sword,
Satan's dire dread, and in his hand the spear.

actors whom he introduces, has employed Michael in the expulsion of our first parents from Paradise. The archangel on this occasion neither appears in his proper shape, nor in that familiar manner with which Raphael the sociable spirit entertained the father of mankind before the fall. His person, his post, and behaviour are suitable to a spirit of the highest rank, and exquisitely described in the following passage. Addison.

242. Livelier than Melibean,] Of a livelier colour and richer dye than any made at Melibaa, a city of Thessaly, famous for a fish called ostrum, there caught and used in dying the noblest purple.

-Quam plurima circum Purpura Mæandro duplici Melibaa cucurrit. Virg. En. v. 251.

Or the grain of Sarra, or the dye of Tyre, named Sarra of Sar, the Phoenician name of a fish there taken, whose blood made the purple colour. Georg. ii. 506.

Sarrano indormiat ostro.

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Hume.

244. -Iris had dipt the woof;] A most poetical expression. He had said before, that it was livelier than the Melibean grain, or than that of Sarra; it excelled the most precious Iris herself had given the colour, purple but now he says that the most beautiful colours being in the rainbow; nay Iris had dipt the very woof. He had before made use of a like expression in the Mask. The attendant spirit says,

-But I must first put off These my sky robes spun out of Iris' woof.

248. and in his hand the spear.] The construction of this, and the former part of the period, is indeed thus: By his side hung the sword, and the spear in his hand. It is common with the ancients for the verb not to be applicable to all the members of the period. So here hung may be restrained to the sword only. There is another like in

Adam bow'd low; he kingly from his state
Inclin'd not, but his coming thus declar'd.

Adam, Heav'n's high behest no preface needs:
Sufficient that thy pray'rs are heard, and Death,
Then due by sentence when thou didst transgress,
Defeated of his seisure many days

Giv'n thee of grace, wherein thou may'st repent,
And one bad act with many deeds well done
May'st cover: well may then thy Lord appeas'd
Redeem thee quite from Death's rapacious claim;
But longer in this Paradise to dwell

Permits not; to remove thee I am come,
And send thee from the garden forth to till

stance, iv. 509. pines agrees to desire only. Markland on Statius's Sylv. i. i. 79. gives several instances of this in the ancients. Richardson.

261. And send thee from the

garden forth to till The ground whence thou wast

tuken, filter soil.] It is after the manner of Homer, that the angel is here made to deliver the order he had received in the very words he had received it. Homer's exactness is so great in this kind, that sometimes I know not whether it is not rather a fault. He observes this method not only when orders are given by a superior power, but also when messages are sent between equals. Nay in the heat and hurry of a battle a man delivers a message word for word as he received it: and sometimes a thing is repeated so often that it becomes almost tedious. Jupiter delivers a com

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mission to a dream, the dream delivers it exactly in the same words to Agamemnon, and Agamemnon repeats it a third time to the council, though it be a tautology of five or six verses together. But in the passage before us, here is all the beauty and simplicity of Homer, without any of his faults. Here are only two lines repeated out of one speech, and a third out of another; ver. 48. and here again ver. 259.

But longer in this Paradise to dwell. And it is a decree pronounced solemnly by the Almighty, and certainly it would not have become the angel, who was sent to put it in execution, to deliver it in any other words than those of the Almighty. And let me add, that it was the more proper and necessary to repeat the words in this place, as the catastrophe of the poem depends

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.
To weary him with my assiduous cries:
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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