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In this great Review which Adam takes of all his Sons and Daughters, the first Objects he is presented with exhibit to him the Story of Cain and Abel, which is drawn together with much Closeness and Propriety of Expression. That Curiosity and natural Horror which arises in Adam at the Sight of the first dying Man, is touched with great Beauty.

But have I now seen Death? is this the way
I must return to native Dust? O Sight
Of Terror foul, and ugly to behold,
Horrid to think, how horrible to feel!

The second Vision sets before him the Image of Death in a great Variety of Appearances. The Angel, to give him a general Idea of those Effects which his Guilt had brought upon his Posterity, places before him a large Hospital or Lazar-House, filled with Persons lying under all kinds of mortal Diseases. How finely has the Poet told us that the sick Persons languished under lingering and incurable Distempers, by an apt and judicious use of such Imaginary Beings as those I mentioned in my last Saturday’s Paper.

Dire was the tossing, deep the Groans. Despair
Tended the Sick, busy from Couch to Couch;
And over them triumphant Death his Dart
Shook, but delayed to strike, though oft invoked
With Vows, as their chief Good and final Hope.

The Passion which likewise rises in Adam on this Occasion, is very natural.

Sight so deform, what Heart of Rock could long
Dry-eyed behold? Adam could not, but wept,
Tho’ not of Woman born; Compassion quell’d
His best of Man, and gave him up to Tears.

The Discourse between the Angel and Adam, which follows, abounds with noble Morals.

As there is nothing more delightful in Poetry than a Contrast and Opposition of Incidents, the Author, after this melancholy Prospect of Death and Sickness, raises up a Scene of Mirth, Love, and Jollity. The secret Pleasure that steals into Adams Heart as he is intent upon this Vision, is imagined with great Delicacy. I must not omit the Description of the loose female Troop, who seduced the Sons of God, as they are called in Scripture.

For that fair female Troop thou sawst, that seemed
Of Goddesses, so Blithe, so Smooth, so Gay,
Yet empty of all Good wherein consists
Woman’s domestick Honour and chief Praise;
Bred only and compleated to the taste
Of lustful Appetence, to sing, to dance,
To dress, and troule the Tongue, and roll the Eye:
To these that sober Race of Men, whose Lives
Religious titled them the Sons of God,
Shall yield up all their Virtue, all their Fame
Ignobly, to the Trains and to the Smiles
Of those fair Atheists–

The next Vision is of a quite contrary Nature, and filled with the Horrors of War. Adam at the Sight of it melts into Tears, and breaks out in that passionate Speech,

–O what are these!
Death’s Ministers, not Men, who thus deal Death
Inhumanly to Men, and multiply
Ten Thousandfold the Sin of him who slew
His Brother: for of whom such Massacre
Make they but of their Brethren, Men of Men?

Milton, to keep up an agreeable Variety in his Visions, after having raised in the Mind of his Reader the several Ideas of Terror which are conformable to the Description of War, passes on to those softer Images of Triumphs and Festivals, in that Vision of Lewdness and Luxury which ushers in the Flood.

As it is visible that the Poet had his Eye upon Ovid’s Account of the universal Deluge, the Reader may observe with how much Judgment he has avoided every thing that is redundant or puerile in the Latin Poet. We do not here see the Wolf swimming among the Sheep, nor any of those wanton Imaginations, which Seneca found fault with, [1] as unbecoming [the [2]] great Catastrophe of Nature. If our Poet has imitated that Verse in which Ovid tells us that there was nothing but Sea, and that this Sea had no Shore to it, he has not set the Thought in such a Light as to incur the Censure which Criticks have passed upon it. The latter part of that Verse in Ovid is idle and superfluous, but just and beautiful in Milton.
‘Jamque mare et tellus nullum discrimen habebant,
Nil nisi pontus erat, deerant quoque littora ponto.’