Now when as sacred Light began to dawn
  In Eden on the humid Flowers, that breathed
  Their Morning Incense, when all things that breathe
  From th’ Earth’s great Altar send up silent Praise
  To the Creator, and his Nostrils fill
  With grateful Smell; forth came the human Pair,
  And join’d their vocal Worship to the Choir
  Of Creatures wanting Voice—­

The Dispute which follows between our two first Parents, is represented with great Art:  It [proceeds [4]] from a Difference of Judgment, not of Passion, and is managed with Reason, not with Heat:  It is such a Dispute as we may suppose might have happened in Paradise, had Man continued Happy and Innocent.  There is a great Delicacy in the Moralities which are interspersed in Adams Discourse, and which the most ordinary Reader cannot but take notice of.  That Force of Love which the Father of Mankind so finely describes in the eighth Book, and which is inserted in my last Saturdays Paper, shews it self here in many fine Instances:  As in those fond Regards he cast towards Eve at her parting from him.

  Her long with ardent Look his Eye pursued
  Delighted, but desiring more her stay: 
  Oft he to her his Charge of quick return
  Repeated; she to him as oft engaged
  To be return’d by noon amid the Bower.

In his Impatience and Amusement during her Absence

 —­Adam the while,
  Waiting desirous her return, had wove
  Of choicest Flowers a Garland, to adorn
  Her Tresses, and her rural Labours crown: 
  As Reapers oft are wont their Harvest Queen. 
  Great Joy he promised to his thoughts, and new
  Solace in her return, so long delay’d.

But particularly in that passionate Speech, where seeing her irrecoverably lost, he resolves to perish with her rather than to live without her.

 —­Some cursed Fraud
  Or Enemy hath beguil’d thee, yet unknown,
  And me with thee hath ruin’d; for with thee
  Certain my Resolution is to die! 
  How can I live without thee; how forego
  Thy sweet Converse and Love so dearly join’d,
  To live again in these wild Woods forlorn? 
  Should God create another Eve, and I
  Another Rib afford, yet loss of thee
  Would never from my Heart! no, no!  I feel
  The Link of Nature draw me:  Flesh of Flesh,
  Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State
  Mine never shall be parted, Bliss or Woe!

The Beginning of this Speech, and the Preparation to it, are animated with the same Spirit as the Conclusion, which I have here quoted.

The several Wiles which are put in practice by the Tempter, when he found Eve separated from her Husband, the many pleasing Images of Nature which are intermix’d in this part of the Story, with its gradual and regular Progress to the fatal Catastrophe, are so very remarkable that it would be superfluous to point out their respective Beauties.