is glory was not arrayed like one of these." All things seem to
acquire fresh sweetness, and to be clothed with fresh beauty in their
sight. They tasted as it were for themselves and us, of all that there
ever was pure in human bliss. "In them the burthen of the mystery, the
heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world, is
lightened." They stood awhile perfect, but they afterwards fell, and were
driven out of Paradise, tasting the first fruits of bitterness as they had
done of bliss. But their pangs were such as a pure spirit might feel at
the sight--their tears "such as angels weep." The pathos is of that mild
contemplative kind which arises from regret for the loss of unspeakable
happiness, and resignation to inevitable fate. There is none of the
fierceness of intemperate passion, none of the agony of mind and
turbulence of action, which is the result of the habitual struggles of the
will with circumstances, irritated by repeated disappointment, and
constantly setting its desires most eagerly on that which there is an
impossibility of attaining. This would have destroyed the beauty of the
whole picture. They had received their unlooked-for happiness as a free
gift from their Creator's hands, and they submitted to its loss, not
without sorrow, but without impious and stubborn repining.

"In either hand the hast'ning angel caught
Our ling'ring parents, and to th' eastern gate
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain; then disappear'd.
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 dropt, but wip'd them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide."

VI

POPE

The question, whether Pope was a poet, has hardly yet been settled, and is
hardly worth settling; for if he was not a great poet, he must have been a
great prose-writer, that is, he was a great writer of some sort. He was a
man of exquisite faculties, and of the most refined taste; and as he chose
verse (the most obvious distinction of poetry) as the vehicle to express
his ideas, he has generally passed for a poet, and a good one. If, indeed,
by a great poet, we mean one who gives the utmost grandeur to our
conceptions of nature, or the utmost force to the passions of the heart,
Pope