Satan and his host, that they found the task insuperable until, on the third day the Messiah, in the power of His Father, unaided by His 'host on either hand,' drove his enemies to the wall of heaven, which opening, caused them to plunge with confusion into the bottomless pit.

'Hell at last

Yawning received them whole, and on them clos'd;

Hell their fit habitation fraught with fire
Unquenchable, the house of woe and pain.'

Book VII. is occupied with Raphael's narrative of the creation of the world.

Book VIII.—Adam's enquiries of Raphael concerning celestial motions are met by the reply:

'Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid,

Leave them to God above, him serve and fear.'

Adam relates to the angel all he remembers since his creation, and Raphael, after admonition, leaves him.

Book IX.-Satan returns into Eden as a mist and enters into the serpent. Eve having elected to pursue her daily work alone, is accosted by him. Surprised at hearing the serpent speak, she enquires how he became possessed of such understanding, and is informed that he obtained the wisdom by eating of the fruit of a tree which Eve discovers to be the tree of Knowledge. She is at length persuaded to eat of the fruit, and Adam, though he knew her to be lost, resolves, for the love he bears her, to perish with her, and eats also of the forbidden fruit. The book ends with their mutual accusations and their attempt to cover their newly-discovered nakedness.

Book X.-The guardian angels return from Paradise to Heaven and the Son of God descends to judge the transgressors, and having clothed them, returns to Heaven. Sin and Death, resolved to sit no longer at the gates of Hell, make a bridge over Chaos to this world. Satan returns to Pandemonium, where both he and his attendants are transformed into serpents. God the Father foretells the victory of His Son over Sin and Death. Adam, after bewailing his lost condition, exhorts Eve to seek, with him, their peace with God.

BOOK XI.-The Son of God intercedes with His Father on behalf of suppliant Man, whose prayers are, therefore, accepted. Adam and Eve are nevertheless expelled from Paradise by the angel Michael, who afterwards takes Adam to a high hill and shows him in vision what shall take place before the Flood, and the appearance of the 'triple-coloured bow' in the clouds.

Book XII.-The angel, continuing his prophetic narrative, explains to Adam who that Christ shall be whose God-like act'

• Shall bruise the head of Satan, crush his strength,
Defeating Sin and Death.'

Adam, much comforted by the relation, is then led with Eve cut of
Paradise by Michael.*

'High in front advanc't,

The brandish't sword of God before them blaz'd,
Fierce as a comet; which with torrid heat,
And vapour as the Libyan air adust,

Began to parch that temperate clime; whereat
In either hand the hast'ning angel caught
Our ling'ring parents, and to th' eastern gate
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain; then disappear'd.
They, looking back, all th' eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Wav'd over by that flaming brand; the gate
With dreadful faces throng'd, and fiery arms:

Some natural tears they dropt but wip'd them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They, hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.'

·

[11.632-649.]

The temptation of our Lord is the subject of Milton's shorter poem, Paradise Regained, which, as we have already said, was called into existence by the question put to the poet by his Quakerfriend Ellwood. (See p. 87, s. 57.) Coleridge pronounces the work to be in its kind the most perfect poem extant.' There is no doubt that Milton's consummate art in its descriptive power is here developed in its highest form. There is not a hollow or a vague sentiment, not a useless word, in the whole poem,' though we cannot but feel with Southey that, owing, perhaps, to the fact of the entire subject being but an incident in the many incidents in the life of our Saviour, it had been grander as an episode in a longer work. The Death for Death,' alluded to in Paradise Lost, is not realised in Paradise Regained, in which the wilderness instead of Calvary is the appendage to Eden,' and this alone has been suggested as a theological deficiency which has affected its popularity. That the poem has never attained its just fame because forced into comparison with Paradise Lost is probably the key to its being so often unduly disparaged by readers of the present day.

It may not here be out of place to note the idea which Addison comments on, of the misery of Satan in the midst of his transient triumph contrasted with the triumphant hope of Adam in the excess of his wretchedness.

Paradise Regained is contained in four books of which the first presents Jesus-'this man of men attested Son of God,' retiring to the wilderness to be tempted of the devil,' who, having previously announced his plans to his peers in council, appears to Him in the disguise of a peasant.

Book II. shows Mary bewailing the absence of her son, Jesus. Satan, in the garb of a courtier, tempts the Saviour with a feast and the offer of riches.

Book III. continues the temptation, and the kingdoms of Asia are exhibited.

Book IV. introduces Rome and Athens in their architectural and intellectual greatness, and our Lord, after being exposed to a raging storm, is brought back to the desert to be conveyed to the pinnacle of the Temple, from which Satan, defeated in his plans, falls, while angels bear Jesus away. Their hymn of triumph ends the poem. The following are the lines on Athens (236-284):—

'Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount,
Westward, much nearer by south-west, behold;

Where on the Egean shore a city stands

Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil;

Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts

And eloquence, native to famous wits

Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,

City or suburban, studious walks and shades.

See there the olive grove of Academe,

Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird

Trills her thick-warbl'd notes the summer long;

There flowery hill Hymettus, with the sound

Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites

To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls

His whispering stream: within the walls then view

The schools of ancient sages; his who bred

Great Alexander to subdue the world,

Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next:

There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power

Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit

By voice or hand; and various-measur'd verse,

Folian charms and Dorian lyric odes,

And his, who gave them breath, but higher sung

Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer call'd,
Whose poem Phoebus challeng'd for his own.
Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught
In chorus or Iambic, teachers best

Of moral prudence, with delight receiv'd

In brief sententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life,
High actions and high passions best describing:

Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democraty,

Shook the Arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece
To Macedon, and Artaxerxes' throne:

To sage Philosophy next lend thine ear,
From Heaven descended to the low-roof't house
Of Socrates; see there his tenement,
Whom well inspir'd the oracle pronounc'd
Wisest of men; from whose mouth issued forth
Mellifluous streams, that water'd all the schools
Of Academics old and new, with those
Surnam❜d Peripatetics, and the sect
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe;

These here revolve, or, as thou lik'st, at home,
Till time mature thee to a kingdom's weight;
These rules will render thee a king complete
Within thyself, much more with empire join'd.'

APPENDIX E.

DICTIONARY OF MINOR AUTHORS.

This... abridgement

Hath to it circumstantial branches.-Cymbeline, Act v. sc. 5.

[IN the following Appendix a number of deceased authors whose names are not included in the body of the foregoing Handbook are arranged in alphabetical order. The reader is requested to bear in mind that the reigns given are those during which they published or produced their works, and do not necessarily include the reign in which they were born. The works cited are usually not all those produced, but only the best or best-known works. The letter p signifies PROSE WORKS; the letter m, METRICAL (or POETICAL) WORKS; and the letter d DRAMATIC WORKS.]*

Adam, Jean, 1710-1765. Scottish poetess. (GEORGE II., GEORGE III.) The ballad There's nae luck about the House has been doubtfully attributed to her. (See Mickle.) [It was sung in the streets about 1772, and printed in Herd's collection 1776.]

Adams, Sarah Flower, 1805-1848. Poetess. (VICTORIA.) m Vivia Perpetua, a dramatic poem, 1841. She wrote the familiar hymn Nearer, my God, to Thee. [See Moncure Conway's Centenary History of South Place Society, 1894.]

Adams, Thomas, fl. 1612-1653. Puritan divine. (JAMES I. to COMMONWEALTH.) ' Works' in Nichol's Puritan Divines, 3 vols. 1862, with a 'Life,' by Joseph Angus, D.D. [Southey calls him' the prose Shakespeare of the puritan theologians.']

Aikin, Lucy, 1781-1864. Historical writer. (GEORGE IV. to VICTORIA.) p Memoirs of the Court of Elizabeth, 1818; James I., 1822; Charles I., 1833; Life of Addison, 1843 (reviewed by Macaulay); also some verse and 'Lorimer,' a tale. [Life and Letters, by P. H. Le Breton, 1864.]

Ainsworth, William Harrison.

1805-1882.

Novelist.

To anticipate the objection that many 'Dramatic' works are metrical, it should be stated that the term 'Metrical' has been adopted here more for the sake of its initial letter than with a view to precise classification.