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(Ovid.)

‘–Sea cover’d Sea,
Sea without Shore–‘

(Milton.)

In Milton the former Part of the Description does not forestall the latter. How much more great and solemn on this Occasion is that which follows in our English Poet,
–And in their Palaces
Where Luxury late reign’d, Sea-Monsters whelp’d
And stabled–

than that in Ovid, where we are told that the Sea-Calfs lay in those Places where the Goats were used to browze? The Reader may find several other parallel Passages in the Latin and English Description of the Deluge, wherein our Poet has visibly the 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]]