Of that life-giving plant, but only us'd For profpect, what well us'd had been the pledge Any, but God alone, to value right 201 The good before him, but perverts best things In narrow room Nature's whole wealth, yea more, perching on the top of an oak in the fhape of vulturs. Addifon. The poet had compared Satan to a vultur before, III. 431. and here again he is well liken'd to a cormorant, which being a very voracious fea-fowl, is a proper emblem of this destroyer of mankind. 196. - yet not true life &c.] The poet here moralizes, and reprehends Satan for making no better use of the tree of life. He fat upon it, but did not thereby regain true life to himself, but fat devifing death to others who were alive. Neither did he think at all on the virtues of the tree, but used it only for the convenience of profpect, when it might have been ufed fo as to have been a pledge of immortality. And fo he perverted the best of things to werft abufe, by fitting upon the tree of life devifing death, or to meanest Of ufe, by ufing it only for profpect, when he might have applied it to nobler purposes. But what ufe then would our author have had Satan to have made of the tree of life? Would eating of it have alter'd his condition, or have render'd him more immortal than he was already? What other use then could he have made of it, unless he had taken occafion from thence to reflect duly on life and immortality, and thereby had put himself in a condition to regain true life and a happy immortality? If the poet had not fome fuch meaning as this, it is not easy to say what is the fenfe of the paffage. Mr. Thyer thinks that the well us'd in this paffage relates to our firft parents, and not to Satan: but I conceive that well us'd and only us'd muft both refer to the fame perfon; and what ill ufe did our first parents Cc 3 maka Of God the garden was, by him in th`east Of Eden planted; Eden ftretch'd her line make of the tree of life? They did not use it ill before the fall, and after the fall they were not permitted to use or eat of it at all. 209. Of God the garden was, by him in th' caft Of Eden planted;] So the facred text, Gen. II. 8. And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, that is eastward of the place where Mofes writ his hiftory, tho' Milton fays in th' east of Eden; and then we have in a few lines our author's topography of Eden. This province (in which the terreftrial Paradife was planted) extended from Auran or Haran or Charran or Charra, a city of Mefopotamia near the river Euphrates, extended, I fay, from thence eaftward to Seleucia, a city built by Seleucus one of the fucceffors of Alexander the great, upon the river Tigris. Or in other words, this province was the fame, where the children of Eden dwelt in Telassar (as Isaiah 210 215 And fays Chap. XXXVII. 12.) which Telaffar or Talatha was a province and a city of the children of Eden, placed by Ptolomy in Babylonia, upon the common ftream of Ti gris and Euphrates. See Sir Ifaac Newton's Chronol. p. 275. So that our author places Eden, agreeably to the accounts in Scripture, fomewhere in Mefopotamia. 215. His far more pleasant garden] In the defcription of Paradife, the poet has obferved Ariftotle's rule of lavishing all the ornaments of diction on the weak unactive parts of the fable, which are not fupported by the beauty of fentiments and characters. Accordingly the reader may obferve, that the expreffions are more florid and elaborate in these defcriptions, than in most other parts of the poem. I muft farther add, that tho' the drawings of gardens, rivers, rainbows, and the like dead pieces of nature, are justly cenfured in an And all amid them ftood the tree of life, 220 Our death the tree of knowledge grew faft by, heroic poem, when they run out into an unneceffary length; the defcription of Paradife would have been faulty, had not the poet been very particular in it, not only as it is the fcene of the principal action, but as it is requifite to give us an idea of that happinefs from which our firft parents fell. The plan of it is wonderfully beautiful, and formed upon the fhort fketch which we have of it in holy Writ. Milton's exuberance of imagination has poured forth fuch a redundancy of ornaments on this feat of happiness and innocence, that it would be endless to point out each particular. I muft not quit this head without further obferving, that there is fcarce a fpeech of Adam and Eve in the whole poem, wherein the fentiments and allufions are not taken from this their delightful habitation. The reader, during their whole courfe of action, always finds himself in the Upon the rapid current, which through veins Rofe a fresh fountain, and with Down the fteep glade, and met the nether flood, 230 Runs diverfe, wand'ring many a famous realm How poet expreffes it as if the river had been parted into four other rivers below the garden; but there is no being certain of these particulars, and Milton, fenfible of the great uncertainty of them, wifely avoids giving any farther defcription of the countries thro' which the rivers flow'd, and fays in the general that no account needs to be given of them here. 233. And now divided into four main ftreams,] This is grounded upon the words of Mofes, Gen. II. 1o. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. Now the most probable account that is given of these four rivers we conceive to be this. The river that water'd the garden of Eden was, as we think, the river formed by the junction of 238. Rolling on orient pearl and Euphrates and Tigris; and this river was parted into four other main streams or rivers; two above the garden, namely Euphrates and Tigris before they are join'd, and two below the garden, namely Euphrates and Tigris after they are parted again; for Euphrates and Tigris they were ftill called by the Greeks and Romans, though in the time of Mofes they were named Pifon and Gihon. Our fands of gold.] Pactolus, Hermus, and other rivers are described by the poets as having golden fands; but the defcription is made richer here, and the water rolls on the choiceft pearls as well as fands of gold. So in III. 507. we have orient gems; fee the note there. We have likewife orient pearl in Shakefpear, Richard III. A&t IV. and in Beaumont and Fletcher, The faithful Shepherdefs, A&t III. And in the How from that faphir fount the crifped brooks, Rolling on orient pearl and fands of gold, With mazy error under pendent shades 240 Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed the Fox Mofca asks Corvino, who had brought a rich pearl as a prefent to old Volpone; Is your pearl orient, Sir? A& I. 244. Both where the morning fun firft warmly (mote The open field,] This is a manner of expreffion unusual in our language, and plainly borrow'd from the Italian poets, with whom it is very common. Ariofto Orl. Fur. Cant. 8. St. 20, A of to defcribe any thing fhaded. Thus Boiardo describing a fleet of fhips going to put to fea. Orl. Inam. Cant. 29. De le fue vele e tanto fpeffa l'om bra Che fotto a quelle il mar e fatto bruno So alfo Ariofto I remember upon a like occafion, fotto le vele il mar s'imbruni. Percote il fole ardente il vicin colle. To these instances may be added Cant. 10. St. 35. Percote il fol nel colle, e fa ritorno. Thyer. 246. Imbrown'd the noontide bow'rs:] A person muft be acquainted with the Italian language to difcern the force and exact propriety of this term. It is a word which their poets make ufe from Taffo Gier. Lib. Cant. 14. St. 70. Quinci ella in cima à una mon tagna afcende Difhabitata, e d'ombre ofcura, e bruna. In like manner to exprefs the approach of the evening they fay fu Timbrunir, or if they would fay it grows |