3 I WHO ere while the happy garden sung, By one man's disobedience loft, ncw fing Recover'd Paradife to all mankind, Milton's Paradife Regain'd has not met with the approbation that it deferves. It has not the harmony of numbers, the fublimity of thought, and the beauties of diction, which are in Paradife Loft. It is compofed in a lower and less ftriking ftile, a ftile fuited to the fubject. Artful fophiftry, false reafoning, fet off in the moft fpecious manner, and refuted by the Son of God with ftrong unaffected eloquence, is the peculiar excellence of this poem. Satan there defends a bad caufe with great skill and fubtlety, as one thoroughly versed in that craft; Qui facere affuerat dentibus atra. His character is well drawn. Fortin. 1. I who ere while &c] Milton begins his Paradife Regain'd in the fame manner as the Paradife Loft; first proposes his fubject, and then invokes the affiftance of the Holy Spirit. The beginning I who ere By while &c is plainly an allufion to the Ille ego qui quondam &c attributed to Virgil: but it doth not therefore follow, that Milton had no better taste than to conceive these lines to be genuin. Their being fo well known to all the learned was reafon fufficient for his imitation of them, as it was for Spenfer's before him: Lo, I the man, whose Muse whileom did mask, As time her taught, in lowly fhepherds weeds, Am now enforc'd a far unfitter task, For trumpets ftern to change mine oaten reeds &c. 2. By one man's difobedience] The oppofition of one man's difobedience in this verfe to one man's obedience in ver. 4. is fomewhat in the stile and manner of St. Paul. Rom. V. 19. For as by one man's disobedience many were made finners; fo by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. 3. Recover'd Paradife] It may B 2 feem By one man's firm obedience fully try'd Through all temptation, and the tempter foil'd feem a little odd at first, that Milton fhould impute the recovery of Paradife to this fhort fcene of our Saviour's life upon earth, and not rather extend it to his agony, crucifixion &c; but the reason no doubt was, that Paradise regain'd by our Saviour's refifting the temptations of Satan might be a better contraft to Paradife loft by our first parents too eafily yielding to the fame feducing Spirit. Befides he might very probably, and indeed very reafonably, be apprehenfive, that a fubject fo extenfive as well as fublime might be too great a burden for his declining conftitution, and a task too long for the short term of years he could then hope for. Even in his Paradife Loft he expreffes his fears, left he had begun too late, and left an age too late, or cold climate, or years should have damp'd his intended wing; and furely he had much greater caufe to dread the fame now, and be very cautious of lanching out too far. Thyer. It is hard to fay whether Milton's wrong notions in divinity led him 5 By to this defective plan; or his fondnefs for the plan influenced those notions. That is whether he indeed fuppofed the redemption of mankind (as he here represents it) was procured by Chrift's triumph over the Devil in the wilderness; or whether he thought that the fcene of the defert opposed to that of Paradife, and the action of a temptation with flood to a temptation fallen under, made Paradife Regain'd a more regular fequel to Paradife Loft. Or if neither this nor that, whether it was his being tired out with the labor of compofing Paradife Loft made him averse to another work of length (and then he would never be at a lofs for fanciful reafons to determin him in the choice of his plan) is very uncertain. All that we can be fure of is, that the plan is a very unhappy, one, and defective even in that narrow view of a fequel, for it affords the poet no opportunity of driving the Devil back again to Hell from his new conquefts in the air. In the mean time nothing II By proof th' undoubted Son of God, inspire, And unrecorded left through many an age, nothing was eafier than to have invented a good one, which should end with the resurrection, and comprise these four books, fomewhat contracted, in an epifode, for which only the fubject of them is fit. Warburton. 7. And Eden rais'd in the wafte wilderness.] 'There is, I think, a particular beauty in this line, when one confiders the fine allufion in it to the curfe brought upon the Paradifiacal earth by the fall of Adam, Curfed is the ground for thy fake Thorns alfo and thiftles fhall it bring forth. Thyer. 8. Thou Spirit who ledft this glo rious eremite] The invocation is properly addrefs'd to the Holy Spirit, not only as the infpirer of every good work, but as the leader of our Saviour upon this occafion into the wilderness. For it is faid Mat. IV. 1. Then was Jefus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the Devil. And from the Greek original epnuos the defert, and epnurns an inhabitant of the defert, is rightly formed the word 15 Now eremite, which was used before by Milton in his Paradife Loft III, 474 Embryo's and idiots, eremites and friers: and by Fairfax in his tranflation of Taffo, Cant. 11. St. 4. Next morn the bishops twain, the eremite: and in Italian as well as in Latin there is eremita, which the French, and we after them, contract into hermite, hermit. 13. of nature's bounds] To which he confines himself in this poem, not as in Paradife Loft, where he foars above and without the bounds of nature. VII. 21. Richardfon. 14. With profprous wing full fumm'd,] We had the like expreffion in Paradise Lost VII. 421. They fumm'd their pens and it was noted there that it is a term in falconry. A hawk is faid to be full fumm'd, when all his feaB 3 thers Now had the great Proclamer, with a voice More awful than the found of trumpet, cry'd Repentance, and Heav'n's kingdom nigh at hand 20 To all baptiz'd: to his great baptism flock'd With awe the regions round, and with them came From Nazareth the fon of Jofeph deem'd To the flood Jordan, came as then obfcure, Unmark'd, unknown; but him the Baptift foon 25 Defcry'd, divinely warn'd, and witness bore As to his worthier, and would have refign'd 30 35 Nigh the Baptift had notice given him before, that he might certainly know the Meffiah by the Holy Ghoft defcending and abiding upon him. And I knew him not, but he that fent me to baptize with water, the fame faid unto me, Upon whom thou shalt fee the Spirit defcending and remaining on him, the fame is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghoft. John I. 33. But it appears from St. Matthew, that the Baptift knew he was baptized and before the him and acknowledged him, before Holy Ghoft defcended upon him. Mat. III. 14. I have need to be bap tized of thee, and comeft thou to me? To account for which we must admit with Milton, that another divine revelation was made to him at this very time, fignifying that this was the perfon, of whom he had had fuch notice before. 26. divinely warn'd] To comprehend the propriety of this word divinely the reader must have B 4 his |