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There is a fine Spirit of Poetry in the Lines which follow, wherein they are described as sitting on a Bed of Flowers by the side of a Fountain, amidst a mixed Assembly of Animals.

The Speeches of these two first Lovers flow equally from Passion and Sincerity. The Professions they make to one another are full of Warmth: but at the same time founded on Truth. In a Word, they are the Gallantries of Paradise:

–When Adam first of Men–
Sole partner and sole part of all these joys,
Dearer thy self than all;–
But let us ever praise him, and extol
His bounty, following our delightful Task,
To prune these growing plants, and tend these flowrs;
Which were it toilsome, yet with thee were sweet.

To whom thus Eve reply’d. O thou for whom,
And from whom I was form’d, flesh of thy flesh,
And without whom am to no end, my Guide
And Head, what thou hast said is just and right.
For we to him indeed all praises owe.
And daily thanks; I chiefly, who enjoy
So far the happier Lot, enjoying thee
Preeminent by so much odds, while thou
Like consort to thy self canst no where find, etc.

The remaining part of Eves Speech, in which she gives an Account of her self upon her first Creation, and the manner in which she was brought to Adam, is I think as beautiful a Passage as any in Milton, or perhaps in any other Poet whatsoever. These Passages are all worked off with so much Art, that they are capable of pleasing the most delicate Reader, without offending the most severe.

That Day I oft remember, when from Sleep, etc.

A Poet of less Judgment and Invention than this great Author, would have found it very difficult to have filled [these [7]] tender Parts of the Poem with Sentiments proper for a State of Innocence; to have described the Warmth of Love, and the Professions of it, without Artifice or Hyperbole: to have made the Man speak the most endearing things, without descending from his natural Dignity, and the Woman receiving them without departing from the Modesty of her Character; in a Word, to adjust the Prerogatives of Wisdom and Beauty, and make each appear to the other in its proper Force and Loveliness. This mutual Subordination of the two Sexes is wonderfully kept up in the whole Poem, as particularly in the Speech of Eve I have before mentioned, and upon the Conclusion of it in the following Lines.

So spake our general Mother, and with eyes
Of Conjugal attraction unreproved,
And meek surrender, half embracing lean’d
On our first father; half her swelling breast
Naked met his under the flowing Gold
Of her loose tresses hid: he in delight
Both of her beauty and submissive charms
Smil’d with superior Love.–

The Poet adds, that the Devil turned away with Envy at the sight of so much Happiness.

We have another View of our first Parents in their Evening Discourses, which is full of pleasing Images and Sentiments suitable to their Condition and Characters. The Speech of Eve, in particular, is dressed up in such a soft and natural Turn of Words and Sentiments, as cannot be sufficiently admired.

I shall close my Reflections upon this Book, with observing the Masterly Transition which the Poet makes to their Evening Worship in the following Lines.

Thus at their shady Lodge arriv’d, both stood,
Both turn’d, and under open Sky, ador’d
The God that made both [Sky,] Air, Earth and Heaven,
Which they beheld, the Moons resplendent Globe,
And Starry Pole: Thou also madst the Night,
Maker Omnipotent, and thou the Day, etc.

Most of the Modern Heroick Poets have imitated the Ancients, in beginning a Speech without premising, that the Person said thus or thus; but as it is easie to imitate the Ancients in the Omission of two or three Words, it requires Judgment to do it in such a manner as they shall not be missed, and that the Speech may begin naturally without them. There is a fine Instance of this Kind out of Homer, in the Twenty Third Chapter of Longinus.