The Subject propofed. Invocation of the Holy Spirit. -The Poem opens with John baptizing at the river Jordan. Jefus coming there is baptized; and is attefted, by the defcent of the Holy Ghoft, and by a voice from Heaven, to be the Son of God. Satan, who is prefent, upon this immediately flies up into the regions of the air: where, fummoning his Infernal Council, he acquaints them with his apprehenfions that Jefus is that feed of the Woman, deftined to destroy all their power, and points out to them the immediate neceffity of bringing the matter to proof, and of attempting, by fnares and fraud, to counteract and defeat the perfon, from whom they have fo much to dread. This office he offers himself to undertake; and, his offer being accepted, fets out on his enterprise.-In the mean time God, in the affembly of holy Angels, declares that he has given up his Son to be tempted by Satan; but foretels that the Tempter shall be completely defeated by him:-upon which the Angels fing a hymn of triumph. Jefus is led up by the Spirit into the wilderness, while he is meditating on the commencement of his great office of Saviour of Mankind. Purfuing his meditations he narrates, in a foliloquy, what divine and philanthropick impulfes he had felt from his early youth, and how his mother Mary, on perceiving thefe difpofitions in him, had acquainted him with the circumfiances of his birth, and informed him that he was no less a person than the Son of God; to which he adds what his own inquiries and reflections had fupplied (a) No edition of Paradife Regained had ever appeared with Arguments to the Books, before that which was published in 1795 by Mr. Dunfter; from which they are adopted in this edition. Peck indeed endeavoured to fupply the deficiency, in his Memoirs of Milton, 1740, p. 70, &c. But the arguments, which he has there given, are too diffufe; and want that concife. pefs and energy which diftinguifh Mr. Dunfter's. in confirmation of this great truth, and particu larly dwells on the recent atteftation of it at the river Jordan. Our Lord paffes forty days, fafting, in the wilderness; where the wild beasts become mild and harmless in his prefence. Satan now appears under the form of an old peafant; and enters into difcourfe with our Lord, wondering what could have brought him alone into fo dangerous a place, and at the fame time profeffing to recognize him for the perfon lately acknowledged by John, at the river Jordan, to be the Son of God. Jefus briefly replies. Satan rejoins with a defcription of the difficulty of fupporting life in the wilderness; and entreats Jefus, if he be really the Son of God, to manifeft his divine power, by changing fome of the ftones into bread. Jefus reproves him, and at the fame time tells him that he knows who he is. Satan inftantly avows himfelf, and offers an artful apology for himself and his conduct. Our bleffed Lord fecerely reprimands him, and refutes every part of his juftification. Satan, with much femblance of humility, still endeavours to justify himself; and, profeffing his admiration of Jefus and his regard for virtue, requefts to be permitted at a future time to hear more of his converfation; but is answered, that this must be as he fhall find permiffion from above. Satan then disappears, and the Book clofes with a fhort defcription of night coming on in the defart, PARADISE REGAINED. 1. BOOK I. who ere while the happy garden fung I, Sing Recover'd Paradife to all mankind, Ver. 1. I, who ere while the happy fung By one Man's disobedience loft, now fing Recover'd Paradife to all mankind,]. This is plainly an allufion to the Ille ego qui quondam, &c. attributed to Virgil. Thus alfo Spenfer: "Lo, I the man, whofe Mufe whilom did mask, "For trumpets ftern to change mine oaten reeds, &c." Ver. 2. By one Man's disobedience &c.] The oppofition of one Man's disobedience in this verfe to one Man's obedience in ver. 4. is fomewhat in the ftyle and manner of St. Paul, Rom. v. 19. "For as by ONE MAN'S DISOBEDIENCE many were made finners; fo by THE OBEDIENCE OF ONE hall many be made righteous." NEWTON. The argument of Paradife Loft was Man's firft difobedience" We may here compare part of a ftanza of Giles Fletcher, Chrift's Triumph over Death, ft. xv. "A Man was the first author of our fall, By one Man's firm obedience fully tried "And the old Serpent with a new device "Is now by one Man caught, beguil'd with his own guile." DUNSTER. 6 Ver. 3. Recover'd Paradife] It may seem a little odd, that Milton should impute the recovery of Paradife to this short scene of our Saviour's life upon earth, and not rather extend it to his agony, crucifixion, &c. But the reafon no doubt was, that Paradife, regained by our Saviour's refifting the temptations of Satan, might be a better contraft to Paradife, loft by our first parents too easily yielding to the fame feducing fpirit. Befides he might, very probably, and indeed very reasonably, be appre henfive, that a fubject, so extensive as well as fublime, might be too great a burden for his declining constitution, and a task too long for the short term of years he could then hope for. Even in his Paradife Loft he expreffes his fears, left he had begun too late, and left an age too late, or cold climate, or years, should have damped his intended wing; and furely he had much greater cause to dread the fame now, and to be very cautious of launching out too far. THYER. Ver. 7. And Eden rais'd in the wafte wilderness.] There is, I think, a particular beauty in this line, when one confiders the fine allufion in it to the curfe brought upon the Paradisiacal earth by the fall of Adam,-" Curfed is the ground for thy fakeThorns alfo and thiftles shall it bring forth to thee," THYER, Thus in the fourth Book of this poem, ver. 523; "And follow'd thee ftill on to this waste wild.” Waste is an epithet which our author had annexed to wilderneft, at an early period of his life. In his tranflation of the cxxxvith Pfalm, written when he was only fifteen, he has |