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And thou their natures know'ft, and gav'ft them names,
Needless to thee repeated; nor unknown

The serpent subtlest beast of all the field,
Of huge extent fometimes, with brazen eyes
And hairy mane terrific, though to thee

Not noxious, but obedient at thy call.

Now Heav'n in all her glory fhone, and roll'd Her motions, as the great first Mover's hand

Paris 1744. wherein the curious author has collected all that Swammerdam and others have written upon the fubject. He fays that in a hive there is commonly one queen, and perhaps a thousand males called drones, and near 20000 working bees of no fex that can be diftinguifh'd. The queen or mother bee is longer than the rest, and will produce one year with another from thirty to forty thousand bees. The drones or husbands of this queen, except when they are paying their

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500 Firft

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Os homini fublime dedit; cœlumque tueri

vultus.

A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was

duty to her, live idly and luxurioufly Juffit, et erectos ad fidera tollere upon the finest honey, whereas the common bees live in great measure upon wax; and the queen herself will condefcend to wait upon the drones, and bring them honey; and fo, as Milton expreffes it, feeds ber busband drone deliciously.

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Man defign'd:

Conscious of thought, of more capacious breaft,

For empire form'd, and fit to rule the reft.

--Thus while the mute creation downward bend

Their fight, and to their earthly mother tend,

Man

First wheel'd their courfe; earth in her rich attire
Confummate lovely fmil'd; air, water, earth,
By fowl, fish, beaft, was flown, was fwum, was walk'd
Frequent; and of the fixth day yet remain'd;
There wanted yet the mafter work, the end
Of all yet done; a creature who not prone
And brute as other creatures, but indued
With fanctity of reafon, might erect

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His

dancy of ftile had exprefs'd by two more words fpetent terram. Any good Latin dictionary will furnish the reader with examples of pronus us'd in this fenfe without any additional word; and Milton himfelf ufes it fo again in VIII. 433. Why, as other creatures? fays the Doctor, when the Angels are creatures neither prone, nor brute. But does not Ovid's animalia cætera and Cicero's

cæteras animantes in his De Leg. L. 1. warrant Milton's faying as other creatures? Thofe other creatures can be none but fuch as Raphael had been defcribing the creation of; and therefore Angels are excluded fufficiently from being underftood here. [And Milton, I fuppofe, made use of the word creatures

as creature went before; a creature not as other creatures.] With fanctity of reafon: what does of do here? fays the Doctor; he would have us read With fanctity and reason. Ovid's words are these,

Sanctius his animal, mentifque capacius alta.

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Wallowing unwieldy', enormous in their gate
Tempeft the ocean: there leviathan,
Hugest of living creatures, on the deep
Stretch'd like a promontory fleeps or swims
And seems a moving land, and at his gills
Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out a fea.
Mean while the tepid caves, and fens and shores
Their brood as numerous hatch, from th' egg that foon

And how fmooth is the verfe that defcribes the feal and dolphin fporting upon the smooth water!

on fmooth the feal, And bended dolphins play: It is much finer than if it had all been exprefs'd in a fingle line. The verfe is bent, as I may fay, to be better fuited to the bended dolphin: as in the rough measures following one almoft fees porpoites and other unwieldy creatures tumbling about in the ocean.

412. Tempeft the ocean:] Milton has here with very great art and propriety adopted the Italian verb tempeftare. He could not poffibly have expreffed this idea in mere English without fome kind of circumlocution, which would have weaken'd and enervated that energy of expreflion which this part of his defcription requir'd. Befides no word could be more proper in the beginning of the verfe to make it labor like the troubled ocean, which he is painting out. 412.

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In profpe&t;] That is, the birds were fo many that the ground, from whence they rofe, would have appeared to be under a cloud, if one had feen Thyer. it at a diftance: in this fenfe we have there leviathan,] The ver. 555 bow it (the world) show'd

Bursting with kindly rupture forth disclos'd

Their callow young, but feather'd foon and fledge 420
They fumm'd their pens, and foaring th' air fublime
With clang defpis'd the ground, under a cloud
In profpect; there the eagle and the stork
On cliffs and cedar tops their eyries build:
Part loofly wing the region, part more wife
In common, rang'd in figure wedge their way,

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Intelligent in profpect from his throne. Pearce. dentibus: feffos duces ad terga reciUnder a cloud, the ground being fhaded by the multitude of birds feem'd as when a cloud paffes over

it.

piunt. Nat. Hift. L. 10. Sect. 32. But as this migration of birds is one of the most wonderful inftincts of Richardfon. nature, it may be proper to add 423.-there the eagle and the ftork some better authorities to explain On cliffs and cedar tops their eyries and juftify our author than Pliny. build:] Thefe birds build their Jerem. VIII. 7. takes notice of this eyries, that is their nefts in fuch high remarkable inftinct; Yea the fork in places. In Job XXXIX, 27, 28. the Heaven knoweth her appointed it is faid particularly of the eagle, times, and the turtle, and the crane, Doth the eagle mount up at thy com- and the fwallow obferve the time of mand, and make her neft on high? their coming, &c. So very intelligent She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, are they of feafons. And as Milton upon the crag of the rock, and the inftances in the crane particularly, frong place. And Pliny fays of them, we will quote what the ingenious Nidificant in petris et arboribus. author of Spectacle de la Nature fays L. 10. Sect. 4. upon this occafion. Dial. XI. " Ás 426. ——rang'd in figure wedge" to wild ducks and cranes, both the their way,] Pliny has de- " one and the other at the approach fcribed certain birds of paffage, fly- "of winter fly in queft of more ing in the form of a wedge, and "favorable climates. They all affpreading wider and wider. Thofe "femble at a certain day like swalbehind rest upon thofe before, till "lows and quails. They decamp the leaders being tir'd are in their "at the fame time, and 'tis very turn receiv'd into the rear. A tergo agreeable to obferve their flight. fenfim dilatante fe cuneo porrigitur They generally range themselves agmen, largèque impellenti præbe-" in a long column like an I, or tur aura. Colla imponunt præce- "in two lines united in a point like

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Others on filver lakes and rivers bath'd

Their downy breaft; the fwan with arched neck
Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows
Her ftate with oary feet; yet oft they quit

The dank, and rising on stiff pennons, tower
The mid aereal sky: Others on ground

440

Walk'd firm; the crefted cock whofe clarion founds
The silent hours, and th' other whose gay train
Adorns him, color'd with the florid hue

Of rainbows and starry' eyes. The waters thus
With fish replenish'd, and the air with fowl,
Evening and morn folemniz'd the fifth day.

438.-the fwan with arched neck] The ancient poets have not hit upon this beauty, fo lavish as they have been in their defcriptions of the fwan. Homer calls the fwan longneck'd deniyode pov, but how much more pittorefque if he had arched this length of neck! her wings mantling proudly, her wings are then a little detach'd from her fides, rais'd and spread as a mantle, which she does with an apparent pride, as is also seen in her whole figure, attitude, and motion. Richardfon. Dr. Bentley wonders that he fhould make the fwan of the feminine gender, contrary to both Greek and Latin. I fuppofe he did it, because be thought it would be more agreeable to the ear. Rows his fate founds rather too rough.

445

The

450. when God faid, &c.] So Gen. I. 24. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind. We obferv'd before, that when Milton makes the divine Perfon fpeak, he keeps clofely to Scripture. Now what we render living creature is living soul in the Hebrew, which Milton ufually follows rather than our tranflation; and foul it fhould be here as in ver. 388. living foul, and 392. foul living. It is indeed fowl in all the printed copies, Let th' earth bring forth fowl living

in her kind:

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