Adams Reconcilement to her is workd up in the same Spirit of Tenderness.  Eve afterwards proposes to her Husband, in the Blindness of her Despair, that to prevent their Guilt from descending upon Posterity they should resolve to live Childless; or, if that could not be done, they should seek their own Deaths by violent Methods.  As those Sentiments naturally engage the Reader to regard the Mother of Mankind with more than ordinary Commiseration, they likewise contain a very fine Moral.  The Resolution of dying to end our Miseries, does not shew such a degree of Magnanimity as a Resolution to bear them, and submit to the Dispensations of Providence.  Our Author has therefore, with great Delicacy, represented Eve as entertaining this Thought, and Adam as disapproving it.

We are, in the last place, to consider the Imaginary Persons, or [Death and Sin [3]] who act a large Part in this Book.  Such beautiful extended Allegories are certainly some of the finest Compositions of Genius:  but, as, I have before observed, are not agreeable to the Nature of an Heroick Poem.  This of Sin and Death is very exquisite in its Kind, if not considered as a Part of such a Work.  The Truths contained in it are so clear and open, that I shall not lose time in explaining them; but shall only observe, that a Reader who knows the Strength of the English Tongue, will be amazed to think how the Poet could find such apt Words and Phrases to describe the Action[s] of those two imaginary Persons, and particularly in that Part where Death is exhibited as forming a Bridge over the Chaos; a Work suitable to the Genius of Milton.

Since the Subject I am upon, gives me an Opportunity of speaking more at large of such Shadowy and Imaginary Persons as may be introduced into Heroick Poems, I shall beg leave to explain my self in a Matter which is curious in its Kind, and which none of the Criticks have treated of.  It is certain Homer and Virgil are full of imaginary Persons, who are very beautiful in Poetry when they are just shewn, without being engaged in any Series of Action.  Homer indeed represents Sleep as a Person, and ascribes a short Part to him in his Iliad, [4] but we must consider that tho we now regard such a Person as entirely shadowy and unsubstantial, the Heathens made Statues of him, placed him in their Temples, and looked upon him as a real Deity.  When Homer makes use of other such Allegorical Persons, it is only in short Expressions, which convey an ordinary Thought to the Mind in the most pleasing manner, and may rather be looked upon as Poetical Phrases than Allegorical Descriptions.  Instead of telling us, that Men naturally fly when they are terrified, he introduces the Persons of Flight and Fear, who, he tells us, are inseparable Companions.  Instead of saying that the time was come when Apollo ought to have received his Recompence, he tells us, that the Hours brought him his Reward.  Instead of describing the Effects which Minervas AEgis produced