The History, which was the Basis of Milton’s Poem, is still shorter than either that of the Iliad or AEneid.  The Poet has likewise taken care to insert every Circumstance of it in the Body of his Fable.  The ninth Book, which we are here to consider, is raised upon that brief Account in Scripture, wherein we are told that the Serpent was more subtle than any Beast of the Field, that he tempted the Woman to eat of the forbidden Fruit, that she was overcome by this Temptation, and that Adam followed her Example.  From these few Particulars, Milton has formed one of the most Entertaining Fables that Invention ever produced.  He has disposed of these several Circumstances among so many beautiful and natural Fictions of his own, that his whole Story looks only like a Comment upon sacred Writ, or rather seems to be a full and compleat Relation of what the other is only an Epitome.  I have insisted the longer on this Consideration, as I look upon the Disposition and Contrivance of the Fable to be the principal Beauty of the ninth Book, which has more Story in it, and is fuller of Incidents, than any other in the whole Poem.  Satan’s traversing the Globe, and still keeping within the Shadow of the Night, as fearing to be discovered by the Angel of the Sun, who had before detected him, is one of those beautiful Imaginations with which he introduces this his second Series of Adventures.  Having examined the Nature of every Creature, and found out one which was the most proper for his Purpose, he again returns to Paradise; and, to avoid Discovery, sinks by Night with a River that ran under the Garden, and rises up again through a Fountain that [issued [3]] from it by the Tree of Life.  The Poet, who, as we have before taken notice, speaks as little as possible in his own Person, and, after the Example of Homer, fills every Part of his Work with Manners and Characters, introduces a Soliloquy of this infernal Agent, who was thus restless in the Destruction of Man.  He is then describ’d as gliding through the Garden, under the resemblance of a Mist, in order to find out that Creature in which he design’d to tempt our first Parents.  This Description has something in it very Poetical and Surprizing.

  So saying, through each Thicket Dank or Dry,
  Like a black Mist, low creeping, he held on
  His Midnight Search, where soonest he might find
  The Serpent:  him fast sleeping soon he found
  In Labyrinth of many a Round self-roll’d,
  His Head the midst, well stor’d with subtle Wiles.

The Author afterwards gives us a Description of the Morning, which is wonderfully suitable to a Divine Poem, and peculiar to that first Season of Nature:  He represents the Earth, before it was curst, as a great Altar, breathing out its Incense from all Parts, and sending up a pleasant Savour to the Nostrils of its Creator; to which he adds a noble Idea of Adam and Eve, as offering their Morning Worship, and filling up the Universal Consort of Praise and Adoration.