Such whispering wak’d her, but with startled Eye
  On Adam, whom embracing, thus she spake: 

  O Sole, in whom my Thoughts find all Repose,
  My Glory, my Perfection! glad I see
  Thy Face, and Morn return’d——­

I cannot but take notice that Milton, in the Conferences between Adam and Eve, had his Eye very frequently upon the Book of Canticles, in which there is a noble Spirit of Eastern Poetry; and very often not unlike what we meet with in Homer, who is generally placed near the Age of Solomon.  I think there is no question but the Poet in the preceding Speech remember’d those two Passages which are spoken on the like occasion, and fill’d with the same pleasing Images of Nature.

My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my Love, my Fair one, and come away; for lo the Winter is past, the Rain is over and gone, the Flowers appear on the Earth, the Time of the singing of Birds is come, and the Voice of the Turtle is heard in our Land.  The Fig-tree putteth forth her green Figs, and the Vines with the tender Grape give a good Smell.  Arise my Love, my Fair-one and come away.

  Come, my Beloved, let us go forth into the Field; let us get up early
  to the Vineyards, let us see if the Vine flourish, whether the tender
  Grape appear, and the Pomegranates bud forth.

His preferring the Garden of Eden, to that

 —­Where the Sapient King
  Held Dalliance with his fair Egyptian Spouse,

shews that the Poet had this delightful Scene in his mind.

Eves Dream is full of those high Conceits engendring Pride, which, we are told, the Devil endeavour’d to instill into her.  Of this kind is that Part of it where she fancies herself awaken’d by Adam in the following beautiful Lines.

  Why sleepst thou Eve? now is the pleasant Time,
  The cool, the silent, save where Silence yields
  To the night-warbling Bird, that now awake
  Tunes sweetest his love-labour’d Song; now reigns
  Full orb’d the Moon, and with more [pleasing [1]] Light
  Shadowy sets off the Face of things:  In vain,
  If none regard.  Heavn wakes with all his Eyes,
  Whom to behold but thee, Natures Desire,
  In whose sight all things joy, with Ravishment,
  Attracted by thy Beauty still to gaze!

An injudicious Poet would have made Adam talk thro the whole Work in such Sentiments as these:  But Flattery and Falshood are not the Courtship of Milton’s Adam, and could not be heard by Eve in her State of Innocence, excepting only in a Dream produc’d on purpose to taint her Imagination.  Other vain Sentiments of the same kind in this Relation of her Dream, will be obvious to every Reader.  Tho the Catastrophe of the Poem is finely presag’d on this Occasion, the Particulars of it are so artfully shadow’d, that they do not anticipate the Story which follows in the ninth Book.  I shall only add, that tho the Vision it self is founded upon Truth, the Circumstances of it are full of that Wildness and Inconsistency which are natural to a Dream.  Adam, conformable to his superior Character for Wisdom, instructs and comforts Eve upon this occasion.