SCENE 4. The Serpent, Spirits, and Volano.-Volano arrives from hell, and declares that the confederate powers of the abyss defigned to fend a goddess from the deep, entitled Vain Glory, to vanquish Man.

SCENE 5. Vain Glory, drawn by a giant, Volano, the Serpent, Satan, and Spirits.-The Serpent welcomes Vain Glory as his confederate, then hides himself in the tree to watch and tempt Eve.

SCENE 6. The Serpent and Vain Glory at first concealed, the Serpent discovers himself to Eve, tempts and feduces her.Vain Glory clofes the act with expreffions of triumph.

ACT III. SCENE I. Adam and Eve.-After a dialogue of tenderness she produces the fruit.-Adam expreffes horror, but at last yields to her temptation.-When both have tasted the fruit, they are overwhelmed with remorse and terror: they fly to conceal themselves.

SCENE 2. Volano proclaims the Fall of Man, and invites the powers of darkness to rejoice, and pay their homage to the prince of hell.

SCENE 3. Volano, Satan, chorus of Spirits, with enfigns of victory.-Expreffion of their joy.

SCENE 4. Serpent, Vain Glory, Satan, and Spirits.-The Serpent commands Canoro, a musical spirit, to fing his triumph, which is celebrated with fongs and dances in the 4th and 5th scenes; the latter clofes with expreffions of horror from the triumphant demons, on the approach of God.

SCENE 6. God the Father, Angels, Adam and Eve.-God fummons and rebukes the finners, then leaves them, after pronouncing his malediction.

SCENE

SCENE 7. An Angel, Adam and Eve.-The Angel gives them rough skins for clothing, and exhorts them to penitence.

SCENE 8. The archangel Michael, Adam and Eve.-Michael drives them from Paradise with a scourge of fire. Angels close the act with a chorus, exciting the offenders to hope in repentance.

ACT IV. SCENE 1. Volano, chorus of fiery, airy, earthly, and aquatic Spirits.-They express their obedience to Lucifer. SCENE 2. Lucifer rifes, and utters his abhorrence of the light; the demons confole him-he questions them on the meaning of God's words and conduct towards Man-He spurns their conjectures, and announces the incarnation, then proceeds to new machinations against Man.

SCENE 3. Infernal Cyclops, fummoned by Lucifer, make a new world at his command.-He then commiffions three demons against Man, under the characters of the World, the Flesh, and Death.

SCENE 4. Adam alone.-He laments his fate, and at last feels his fufferings aggravated, in beholding Eve flying in terror from the hoftile animals.

SCENE 5. Adam and Eve.-She excites her companion to fuicide.

SCENE 6. Famine, Thirst, Laffitude, Defpair, Adam and Eve. -Famine explains her own nature, and that of her affociates.

SCENE 7. Death, Adam and Eve.-Death reproaches Eve with the horrors she has occafioned-Adam closes the act by exhorting Eve to take refuge in the mountains.

ACT V. SCENE I. The Flesh, in the shape of a woman, and Adam. He refifts her temptation.

SCENE

SCENE 2. Lucifer, the Flesh, and Adam.-Lucifer pretends to be a man, and the elder brother of Adam.

SCENE 3. A Cherub, Adam, the Flefh, and Lucifer.-The Cherub fecretly warns Adam against his foes; and at last defends him with manifeft power,

SCENE 4. The World, in the shape of a man, exulting in his own finery.

SCENE 5. Eve and the World.-He calls forth a rich palace from the ground, and tempts Eve with fplendor.

SCENE 6. Chorus of Nymphs, Eve, the World, and Adam.He exhorts Eve to refift thefe allurements-the World calls the demons from hell to enchain his victims-Eve prays for mercy: Adam encourages her.

SCENE 7. Lucifer, Death, chorus of Demons.-They prepare to feize Adam and Eve.

SCENE 8. The archangel Michael, with a chorus of good Angels.-After Angels. After a fpirited altercation, Michael fubdues and triumphs over Lucifer.

SCENE 9. Adam, Eve, chorus of Angels.-They rejoice in the victory of Michael: he animates the offenders with a promife of favour from God, and future refidence in heaven: -they exprefs their hope and gratitude.-The Angels close the drama, by finging the praise of the Redeemer.

After this minute account of Andreini's plan, the reader may be curious to fee fome fpecimens of his poetry in an English verfion. I fhall felect three: First, the chorus of angels, which ferves as a prologue to the drama, and has been so ludicrously described by Voltaire; fecondly, the foliloquy of Lucifer on his first appearance; and,

thirdly, the scene in which Eve induces Adam to taste the fruit. I fhall prefix to them the preface of Andreini; but as these specimens of his compofition might feem tedious here, and too much interrupt the courfe of this Effay, I shall detach them from it, and infert them as an Appendix.

The majesty of Milton appears to the utmost advantage when he is fully compared with every writer, whose poetical powers have been exercised on the fubject, to which only his genius was equal.

Let me obferve, however, for the credit of Andreini, that although he has been contemptuously called a stroller, he had fome tincture of claffical learning, and confiderable piety. He occafionally imitates Virgil, and quotes the fathers. He was born in Florence, 1578; his mother was an actress, highly celebrated for the excellence of her talents, and the purity of her life; she appeared also as an authoress, and printed a volume of letters and effays, to which two great poets of her country, Taffo and Marini, contributed each a fonnet. Her memory was celebrated by her fon, who published, at her death, a collection of poems in her praife. Having diftinguished himself as a comedian at Milan, he travelled into France, in the train of the famous Mary de Medeci, and obtained, as an actor, the favour of Lewis the XIIIth. The biographical work of Count Mazzuchelli on the writers of Italy, includes an account of Andreini, with a lift of his various productions; they amount to the number of thirty,

and

and form a fingular medley of comedies and devout poems. His Adamo alone feems likely to preferve his name from oblivion; and that indeed can never cease to be regarded as a literary curiofity, while it is believed to have given a fortunate impulfe to the fancy of Milton.

If it is highly probable, as I think it will appear to every poetical reader, who peruses the Adamo, that Andreini turned the thoughts of Milton from Alfred to Adam, and led him to sketch the firft outlines of Paradife Loft in various plans of allegorical dramas, it is poffible that an Italian writer, lefs known than Andreini, first threw into the mind of Milton the idea of converting Adam into an epic perfonage. I have now before me a literary curiofity, which my accomplished friend, Mr. Walker, to whom the literature of Ireland has many obligations, very kindly fent me, on his return from an excurfion to Italy, where it happened to ftrike a traveller, whose mind is peculiarly awakened to elegant purfuits. The book I am speaking of is entitled La Scena Tragica d'Adamo ed Eva, Eftratta dalli primi tre capi della Sacra Genefi, e ridotta a fignificato Morale da Troilo Lancetta, Benacense. Venetia 1644. This little work is dedicated to Maria Gonzaga, Dutchefs of Mantua, and is nothing more than a drama in profe, of the ancient form, entitled a morality, on the expulfion of our first parents from Paradife. The author does not mention Andreini, nor has he any mixture of verfe in his compofition; but, in his address to the reader, he has the following very remarkable