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By quick instinctive motion up I sprung,
As thitherward endevoring, and upright
Stood on my feet; about me round I saw

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Hill, dale, and shady woods, and sunny plains,
And liquid lapse of murm'ring streams; by these,
Creatures that liv'd and mov'd, and walk'd, or flew,
Birds on the branches warbling; all things smil'd, 265
With fragrance and with joy my heart o'erflow'd.
Myself I then perus'd, and limb by limb

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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

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"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
All sadness but despair.

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!
And again in the fourth act of
Troilus and Cressida,

It

Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes
on thee,

I have with exact view perused thee,
Hector.

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
With supple joints, as lively vigour led:

But who I was, or where, or from what cause,
Knew not; to speak I tried, and forthwith spake ;
My tongue obey'd, and readily could name
Whate'er I saw. Thou sun, said I, fair light,
And thou enlighten'd earth, so fresh and gay,
Ye hills, and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains,
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,

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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

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.]

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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
First found me, and with soft oppression seiz'd
My drowsed sense, untroubled, though I thought
I then was passing to my former state
Insensible, and forthwith to dissolve:
When suddenly stood at my head a dream,
Whose inward apparition gently mov'd
My fancy to believe I yet had being,

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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,

289. untroubled, though I
thought

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
inorte mori!

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
A woody mountain; whose high top was plain,
A circuit wide, inclos'd, with goodliest trees
Planted, with walks, and bow'rs, that what I saw
Of earth before scarce pleasant seem'd. Each tree
Loaden with fairest fruit that hung to th' eye
Tempting, stirr'd in me sudden appetite

To pluck and eat; whereat I wak'd, and found
Before mine eyes all real, as the dream
Had lively shadow'd: here had new begun
My wand'ring, had not he who was my guide
Up hither, from among the trees appear'd,
Presence divine. Rejoicing, but with awe,
In adoration at his feet I fell

he was carried thither sleeping,
and was first made to see that
Our
happy place in vision.
poet had perhaps in mind that
passage of Virgil, where Venus
lays young Ascanius asleep, and
removes him from Carthage to
the Idalian groves, Æn. i. 691.

At Venus Ascanio placidam per
membra quietem

Irrigat, et fotum gremio dea tollit in

altos

Idaliæ lucos; ubi mollis amaracus
illum

805

310

315

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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.

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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,
Said mildly, Author of all this thou seest
Above, or round about thee, or beneath.
This Paradise I give thee, count it thine
To till and keep, and of the fruit to eat:
Of every tree that in the garden grows

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.

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