in it is the fault of the reader, not of the poet, is that when any interest of a practical kind take a shape that can be at all turned into this, (and there is little doubt that Milton had some such in his eye in writing it,) each party converts it to its own purposes, feels the absolute identity of these abstracted and high speculations; and that, in fact, a noted political writer of the present day has exhausted nearly the whole account of Satan in the Paradise Lost, by applying it to a character whom he considered as after the devil, (though I do not know whether he would make even that exception) the greatest enemy of the human race.  This may serve to shew that Milton’s Satan is not a very insipid personage.

Of Adam and Eve it has been said, that the ordinary reader can feel little interest in them, because they have none of the passions, pursuits, or even relations of human life, except that of man and wife, the least interesting of all others, if not to the parties concerned, at least to the by-standers.  The preference has on this account been given to Homer, who, it is said, has left very vivid and infinitely diversified pictures of all the passions and affections, public and private, incident to human nature—­the relations of son, of brother, parent, friend, citizen, and many others.  Longinus preferred the Iliad to the Odyssey, on account of the greater number of battles it contains; but I can neither agree to his criticism, nor assent to the present objection.  It is true, there is little action in this part of Milton’s poem; but there is much repose, and more enjoyment.  There are none of the every-day occurrences, contentions, disputes, wars, fightings, feuds, jealousies, trades, professions, liveries, and common handicrafts of life; “no kind of traffic; letters are not known; no use of service, of riches, poverty, contract, succession, bourne, bound of land, tilth, vineyard none; no occupation, no treason, felony, sword, pike, knife, gun, nor need of any engine.”  So much the better; thank Heaven, all these were yet to come.  But still the die was cast, and in them our doom was sealed.  In them

      “The generations were prepared; the pangs,
      The internal pangs, were ready, the dread strife
      Of poor humanity’s afflicted will,
      Struggling in vain with ruthless destiny.”

In their first false step we trace all our future woe, with loss of Eden.  But there was a short and precious interval between, like the first blush of morning before the day is overcast with tempest, the dawn of the world, the birth of nature from “the unapparent deep,” with its first dews and freshness on its cheek, breathing odours.  Theirs was the first delicious taste of life, and on them depended all that was to come of it.  In them hung trembling all our hopes and fears.  They were as yet alone in the world, in the eye of nature, wondering at their new being, full of enjoyment and enraptured with one