Free in thine own arbitrement it lies. So saying, he arose; whom Adam thus Thy condefcenfion, and shall be' honor'd ever Be good and friendly still, and oft return. 644.-whom Adam thus] Adam's speech at parting with the Angel has in it a deference and gratitude agreeable to an inferior nature, and at the fame time a certain dignity and greatness suitable to the father of mankind in his state of innocence. Addison. 645. Follow'd with benediction. Since to part,] What's here? says Dr. Bentley: Adam give benediction, his blessing to an ArchAngel, when the less is blessed of the better? But benediction does not fignify blessing here in the sense which the Doctor gives to the word. Benedicere Domino, to bless God is a common phrase in religious offices. And fo in a lower sense men may be faid to blefs Angels; for benediction is (properly speaking) only giving them good words, or wishing them well. See Pial. CIX. 17. In 645 650 So this sense therefore it is not improper Follow'd with valediction, loath to Benediction here is not blessing, as 'tis 652. Se So parted they, the Angel up to Heaven From the thick shade, and Adam to his bower. 652. So parted they, the Angel up From the thick shade, and Adam to bis bower.] It is very true, as Dr. Bentley says, that this conversation between Adam and the Angel was held in the bower. For thither Adam had invited him. V. 367. But by bower in this place is meant his inmost bower, as it is call'd in IV. 738. his place of rest. There was a shady walk that led to Adam's bower. When the Angel arose ver. Vouchsafe with us in yonder shady 644. Adam follow'd him into this shady walk: and it was from this thick shade that they parted, and bower To reft. 5. And the Angel had accepted the the Angel went up to Heaven, and invitation, ver. 375. Adam to his bower, Satan having compass'd the Earth, with meditated guile returns as a mist by night into Paradise, enters into the ferpent sleeping. Adam and Eve in the morning go forth to their labors, which Eve proposes to divide in several places, each laboring apart : Adam consents not, alledging the danger, left that enemy, of whom they were forewarn'd, should attempt her found alone: Eve loath to be thought not circumspect or firm enough, urges her going apart, the rather defirous to make trial of her strength; Adam at last yields: The Serpent finds her alone; his fubtle approach, first gazing, then speaking, with much flattery extolling Eve above all other creatures. Eve wond'ring to hear the Serpent speak, asks how he attain'd to human speech and such understanding not till now; the Serpent answers, that by tasting of a certain tree in the garden he attain'd both to speech and reason, till then void of both: Eve requires him to bring her to that tree, and finds it to be the tree of knowledge forbidden: The Serpent now grown bolder, with many wiles and arguments induces her at length to eat; she pleas'd with the taste deliberates a while whether to impart thereof to Adam or not, at last brings him of the fruit, relates what perfuaded her to eat thereof: Adam at first amaz'd, but perceiving her loft, resolves through vehemence of love to perish with her; and extenuating the trespass eats also of the fruit: The effects thereof in them both; they seek to cover their nakedness; then fall to variance and accufation of one another. 65 He circled, four times cross'd the car of night change, Where Tigris at the foot of Paradise Rose up a fountain by the tree of life; With darkness, &c.] It was about noon that Satan came to the earth, and having been discover'd by Uriel, he was driven out of Paradise the fame night, as we read in book the fourth. From that time he was a whole week in continual darkness 79 In each other at right angles in the poles of the world, and incompafsing the earth from north to fouth, and from south to north again: and therefore as Satan was moving from pole to pole, at the same time the car of night was moving from east for fear of another discovery. Thrice to west, if he would keep ftill in the equinoctial line he circled; he tra- the shade of night as he defir'd, he vel'd on with the night three times could not move in a strait line, but round the equator; he was three must move obliquely, and thereby days moving round from east to west cross the two colures. We have exas the fun does, but always on the press'd ourselves as plainly as we oppofit fide of the globe in dark- can for the sake of those readers, nels. Four times cross'd the car of who are not acquainted with these nigbt from pole to pole; did not move astronomical terms; and the fact in directly on with the night as before, short is that Satan was three days but crossed over from the northern to compassing the earth from east to the fouthern, and from the southern west, and four days from north to to the northern pole. Traverfing each fouth, but still kept always in the colure. As the equinoctial line or shade of night, and after a whole equator is a great circle incompassing the earth from east to west and from west to east again; so the colures are two great circles, interfecting week's peregrination in this manner on the eighth night return'd by stealth into Paradise. 13 75.-או In with the river sunk, and with it rose 75 80 Ganges and Indus: thus the orb he roam'd Most opportune might serve his wiles, and found 85 The ferpent fubtlest beast of all the field. 75.- involv'd in rising mist, Hom. Iliad. I. 359. ανεδυ πολιης άλΘ, ηύτ' ομιχλη. 77. From Eden over Pontus, &c.] As we had before an astronomical, fo here we have a geographical, account of Satan's peregrinations. He Search'd both fea and land, north ward from Eden over Pontus, Pontus Euxinus, the Euxine Sea, now the Black Sea, above Constantinople, and the pool Mæotis, Palus Mæotis above the Black Sea, up beyond the river Ob, Ob or Oby a great river of Muscovy near the northern pole. Downward as far antarctic, as far fouthward; the northern nemisphere being elevated on our globes, the Him north is called up and the south downward; antarctic fouth the contrary to arctic north from 20x10 the bear, the most confpicuous constellation near the north pole; but no particular place is mention'd near the south pole, there being all fea or land unknown. And in length, as north is up and fouth is down, so in length is east or welt; west from Orontes, a river of Syria, westward of Eden, running into the Mediterranean, to the ocean barr'd at Darien, the ifthmus of Darien in the West Indies, a neck of land that joins North and South America together, and hinders the ocean as it were with a bar from flowing between them; and the metaphor of the |