[Footnote 3: 

 —­wiser than they:  Is not this the Carpenters Son, is not his Mother
  called Mary, his Brethren, James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?  They could
  not—­

Christian Hero.]

[Footnote 4: 

  He had compassion on em, commanded em to be seated, and with Seven
  Loaves, and a few little Fishes, Fed four thousand Men, besides Women
  and Children:  Oh, the Ecstatic—­

Christian Hero.]

[Footnote 5:  [Good God] in first Issue and in Christian Hero.]

[Footnote 6:  In the Christian Hero this passage was: 

become a Secular Prince, or in a Forcible or Miraculous Manner to cast off the Roman Yoke they were under, and restore again those Disgraced Favourites of Heavn, to its former Indulgence, yet had not hitherto the Apostles themselves (so deep set is our Natural Pride) any other than hopes of worldly Power, Preferment, Riches and Pomp:  For Peter, who it seems ever since he left his Net and his Skiff, Dreamt of nothing but being a great Man, was utterly undone to hear our Saviour explain to em that his Kingdom was not of this World; and was so scandalized—­]

[Footnote 7: 

Throne of David?  Such were the unpleasant Forms that ran in the Thoughts of the then Powerful in Jerusalem, upon the most Truly Glorious Entry that ever Prince made; for there was not one that followed him who was not in his Interest; their Proud—­

Christian Hero.]

[Footnote 8: 

  Putrified with the—­

Christian Hero.]

* * * * *

No. 357.  Saturday, April 19, 1712.  Addison.

  [Quis talia fando
  Temperet a lachrymis?

  Virg.] [1]

The Tenth Book of Paradise Lost has a greater variety of Persons in it than any other in the whole Poem.  The Author upon the winding up of his Action introduces all those who had any Concern in it, and shews with great Beauty the Influence which it had upon each of them.  It is like the last Act of a well-written Tragedy, in which all who had a part in it are generally drawn up before the Audience, and represented under those Circumstances in which the Determination of the Action places them.

I shall therefore consider this Book under four Heads, in relation to the Celestial, the Infernal, the Human, and the Imaginary Persons, who have their respective Parts allotted in it.

To begin with the Celestial Persons:  The Guardian Angels of Paradise are described as returning to Heaven upon the Fall of Man, in order to approve their Vigilance; their Arrival, their Manner of Reception, with the Sorrow which appear’d in themselves, and in those Spirits who are said to Rejoice at the Conversion of a Sinner, are very finely laid together in the following Lines.