he Advantage. The Skys being
overcharged with Clouds, the descending of the Rains, the rising of the
Seas, and the Appearance of the Rainbow, are such Descriptions as every
one must take notice of. The Circumstance relating to Paradise is so
finely imagined, and suitable to the Opinions of many learned Authors,
that I cannot forbear giving it a Place in this Paper.

--Then shall this Mount
Of Paradise by might of Waves be mov'd
Out of his Place, pushed by the horned Flood
With all his Verdure spoil'd, and Trees adrift
Down the great River to the opning Gulf,
And there take root, an Island salt and bare,
The haunt of Seals and Orcs and Sea-Mews clang.

The Transition which the Poet makes from the Vision of the Deluge, to
the Concern it occasioned in Adam, is exquisitely graceful, and copied
after Virgil, though the first Thought it introduces is rather in the
Spirit of Ovid.

How didst thou grieve then, Adam, to behold
The End of all thy Offspring, End so sad,
Depopulation! thee another Flood
Of Tears and Sorrow, a Flood thee also drowned,
And sunk thee as thy Sons; till gently rear'd
By th' Angel, on thy Feet thou stoodst at last,
Tho' comfortless, as when a Father mourns
His Children, all in view destroyed at once.

I have been the more particular in my Quotations out of the eleventh
Book of Paradise Lost, because it is not generally reckoned among the
most shining Books of this Poem; for which Reason the Reader might be
apt to overlook those many Passages in it which deserve our Admiration.
The eleventh and twelfth are indeed built upon that single Circumstance
of the Removal of our first Parents from Paradise; but tho' this is not
in itself so great a Subject as that in most of the foregoing Books, it
is extended and diversified with so many surprising Incidents and
pleasing Episodes, that these two last Books can by no means be looked
upon as unequal Parts of this Divine Poem. I must further add, that had
not Milton represented our first Parents as driven out of Paradise, his
Fall of Man would not have been compleat, and consequently his Action
would have been imperfect.

L.

[Footnote 1: Nat. Quaest. Bk. III. Sec.27.]

[Footnote 2: [this]]

* * * * *

No. 364. Monday, April 28, 1712. Steele.

'[--Navibus [1]] atque
Quadrigis petimus bene vivere.'

Hor.

Mr. SPECTATOR,