pon their
looking back on Paradise, wonderfully strikes the Reader's Imagination,
as nothing can be more natural than the Tears they shed on that
Occasion.

They looking back, all th' Eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy Seat,
Wav'd over by that flaming Brand, the Gate
With dreadful Faces throng'd and fiery Arms:
Some natural Tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
The World was all before them, where to chuse
Their Place of Rest, and Providence their Guide.

If I might presume to offer at the smallest Alteration in this divine
Work, I should think the Poem would end better with the Passage here
quoted, than with the two Verses which follow:

They hand in hand, with wandering Steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary Way.

These two Verses, though they have their Beauty, fall very much below
the foregoing Passage, and renew in the Mind of the Reader that Anguish
which was pretty well laid by that Consideration,

The world was all before them, where to chuse
Their Place of Rest, and Providence their Guide.

The Number of Books in Paradise Lost is equal to those of the AEneid.
Our Author in his first Edition had divided his Poem into ten Books, but
afterwards broke the seventh and the eleventh each of them into two
different Books, by the help of some small Additions. This second
Division was made with great Judgment, as any one may see who will be at
the pains of examining it. It was not done for the sake of such a
Chimerical Beauty as that of resembling Virgil in this particular, but
for the more just and regular Disposition of this great Work.

Those who have read Bossu, and many of the Criticks who have written
since his Time, will not pardon me if I do not find out the particular
Moral which is inculcated in Paradise Lost. Though I can by no means
think, with the last mentioned French Author, that an Epick Writer first
of all pitches upon a certain Moral, as the Ground-Work and Foundation
of his Poem, and afterwards finds out a Story to it: I am, however, of
opinion, that no just Heroick Poem ever was or can be made, from whence
one great Moral may not be deduced. That which reigns in Milton, is the
most universal and most useful that can be imagined; it is in short
this, That Obedience to the Will of God makes Men happy, and that
Disobedience makes them miserable. This is visibly the Moral of the
principal Fable, which turns upon Adam and Eve, who continued