l to deliver his Message in the mildest Terms, lest the
Spirit of Man, which was already broken with the Sense of his Guilt and
Misery, should fail before him.

--Yet lest they faint
At the sad Sentence rigorously urg'd,
For I behold them softned, and with Tears
Bewailing their Excess, all Terror hide,

The Conference of Adam and Eve is full of moving Sentiments. Upon their
going abroad after the melancholy Night which they had passed together,
they discover the Lion and the Eagle pursuing each of them their Prey
towards the Eastern Gates of Paradise. There is a double Beauty in this
Incident, not only as it presents great and just Omens, which are always
agreeable in Poetry, but as it expresses that Enmity which was now
produced in the Animal Creation. The Poet to shew the like Changes in
Nature, as well as to grace his Fable with a noble Prodigy, represents
the Sun in an Eclipse. This particular Incident has likewise a fine
Effect upon the Imagination of the Reader, in regard to what follows;
for at the same time that the Sun is under an Eclipse, a bright Cloud
descends in the Western Quarter of the Heavens, filled with an Host of
Angels, and more luminous than the Sun it self. The whole Theatre of
Nature is darkned, that this glorious Machine may appear in all its
Lustre and Magnificence.

--Why in the East
Darkness ere Days mid-course, and morning Light
More orient in that Western Cloud that draws
O'er the blue Firmament a radiant White,
And slow descends, with something Heavnly fraught?
He err'd not, for by this the heavenly Bands
Down from a Sky of Jasper lighted now
In Paradise, and on a Hill made halt;
A glorious Apparition--

I need not observe how properly this Author, who always suits his Parts
to the 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 Port, and Behaviour, are suitable to a
Spirit of the highest Rank, and exquisitely describd in the following
Passage.

--Th' Archangel soon drew nigh,
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 Meliboean, or the Grain
Of Sarra, worn by Kings and Heroes old,
In time of Truce: Iris had