the Garden
of Paradise, is wonderfully beautiful: The Sentiments are not only
proper to the Subject, but have something in them particularly soft and
womanish.

Must I then leave thee, Paradise? Thus leave
Thee, native Soil, these happy Walks and Shades,
Fit haunt of Gods? Where I had hope to spend
Quiet, though sad, the respite of that Day
That must be mortal to us both. O Flowrs,
That never will in other Climate grow,
My early Visitation, and my last
At Even, which I bred up with tender Hand
From the first opening Bud, and gave you Names;
Who now shall rear you to the Sun, or rank
Your Tribes, and water from th' ambrosial Fount?
Thee, lastly, nuptial Bower, by me adorn'd
With what to Sight or Smell was sweet; from thee
How shall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower World, to this obscure
And wild? how shall we breathe in other Air
Less pure, accustomd to immortal Fruits?

Adam's Speech abounds with Thoughts which are equally moving, but of a
more masculine and elevated Turn. Nothing can be conceived more Sublime
and Poetical than the following Passage in it.

This most afflicts me, that departing hence
As from his Face I shall be hid, deprived
His blessed Countnance: here I could frequent,
With Worship, place by place where he vouchsaf'd
Presence Divine; and to my Sons relate,
On this Mount he appear'd, under this Tree
Stood visible, among these Pines his Voice
I heard, here with him at this Fountain talk'd;
So many grateful Altars I would rear
Of grassy Turf, and pile up every Stone
Of lustre from the Brook, in memory
Or monument to Ages, and thereon
Offer sweet-smelling Gums and Fruits and Flowers.
In yonder nether World--where shall I seek
His bright Appearances, or Footsteps trace?
For though I fled him angry, yet recalled
To Life prolonged and promised Race, I now
Gladly behold though but his utmost Skirts
Of Glory, and far off his Steps adore.

The Angel afterwards leads Adam to the highest Mount of Paradise, and
lays before him a whole Hemisphere, as a proper Stage for those Visions
which were to be represented on it. I have before observed how the Plan
of Milton's Poem is in many Particulars greater than that of the Iliad
or AEneid. Virgil's Hero, in the last of these Poems, is entertained with
a Sight of all those who are to descend from him; but though that
Episode is justly admired as one of the noblest Designs i