Much he the place admir'd, the person more. rides, and thofe of the kings Allonis and Alcinous. Antiquitas nihil prius mirata eft quam Hefperidum hortos, ac regum Adonidis & Alcinoi. Plin. Nat. Hift. Lib. XIX, cap. 4. The Italian poet Marino in his L'Adone, Cant. VI. defcribes the gardens of Adonis at large: and Huetius in his Demonftr. Evangel. Prop. 4. cap. 3. fect. 3. fays of the Greeks, Regem Adonidem hortorum curæ impense fuiffe deditum narrantes. Our countryman Spenfer celebrates the gardens of Adohis in his Fairy Queen, Book 3. Cant. 6. the title of which is The gardens of Adonis, fraught With pleasures manifold; where he likewife gives an account of his death and revival. Shakefpear too mentions the garden of Adonis, 1 Part of Henry VI. Act I. The Dauphin fpeaks to Pucelle, Thy promifes are like Adonis garden, That one day bloom'd, and fruitful were the next. 445 The Waxing well of his deep wound And in his Defenfio Secunda he mentions both the gardens of Alcinous and Adonis, and here calls them feign'd, which fufficiently distinguishes thefe gardens of Adonis from thofe little earthen pots which were really exhibited at his feftival. And the gardens of Alcinous he has alluded to before V. 341. Alcinous, boft to old Laertes fon, that is to Ulyffes whom he entertain'd in his return from Troy, as Homer informs us Odyffey book the 7th, where he gives us a charming defcription of his gardens; which Mr. Pope felected from other parts of Homer's works, and tranflated and publish'd in the Guardian before he attempted fabulous as the reft, not allegorical the reft. Or that, not myftic, not as fome have fancied, but a real garden, which Solomon made for his wife the daughter of Pharaoh king of Egypt. See Canticles. And thus, as the moft beautiful countries in the world, IV. 268. 285. And Milton himfelf in the Mask could not vy with Paradife, fo neifpeaks of Beds of hyacinth and rofes, Where young Adonis oft rèposes, ther could the most delicious gardens equal this flow'ry plat, the fweet recess of Eve. 479 Of pleasure not for him ordain'd: then foon Thoughts, whither have ye led me! with what sweet Compulfion thus tranfported to, forget What hither brought us! hate, not love, nor hope Of Paradise for Hell, hope here to tafte Of pleasure, but all pleasure to deftroy, God came to prefent themselves before nor from the Heav'n of Heav'ns Hath he excluded any refort fometimes &c. T 476 480 Heroic Eve had faid before that they were not capable of death or pain, ver. 283, that is as long as they continued innocent. 490. Not terrible, though terror be in love And beauty, not approached by ftronger bate,] Satan had been faying that he dreaded Adam, fuch was his ftrength of body and mind and his own fo debas'd from what it was in Heaven: but Eve (he goes on to fay) is lovely, not terrible, though terror be in love and beauty, unless 'tis approach'd by a mind arm'd with hate as his is; a hate the Heroic built, though of terrestrial möld, 485 Foe not informidable, exempt from wound, The And beauty, not approach'd by stronger hate, way Addrefs'd his way, not with indented wave, the greater, as 'tis disguis'd under' Richardfon. Something like this in Paradife Regain'd. II. 159. - virgin majefty with mild And fweet allay'd, yet terrible t'ap proach. Thyer. 496. not with indented wave,] Indented is of the fame derivation as 490 495 Crefted indenture, notched and going in and out like the teeth of a faw: and Shakespear applies it likewise to the motions of a fnake in As you like it, A& IV. And with indented glides did flip away. 499. Fold above fold &c.] We have the defcription of fuch a fort of fer pent in Ovid. Met. III. 32. criftis præfignis & auro; Igne micant oculi Ille volubilibus fquamofos nexibus" orbes Torquet, et immenfos faltu finuatur in arcus: Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes; Ac media plus parte leves erectus in auras, Defpicit omne nemus &c. his eyes; His tow ring creft was glorious to were His fhoulders and his fides But our author has not only imitated oculi ardent duo, Carbunculorum luce certantes rubra: Adrecta cervix furgit, et maculis nitet Pectus fuperbis: cærulis piti notis cant Auri colore &c. 504. never fince of Serpent kind &c. Satan is not here compar'd and preferr'd to the finest and moft memorable ferpents of antiquity, the Python and the reft; but only to the most memorable of thofe ferpents into which others were transform'd; and with the 500 Floted greater propriety, as he was himfelf now transform'd into a serpent. And in this view it is faid that none were lovelier, not those that in Illyria chang'd Hermione and Cadmus. Cadmus and his wife Harmonia or Hermione, for the is called by either name, and I prefume Milton thought Hermione and Cadmus more mufical in verfe as it certainly is than Harmonia and Cadmus. This Cadmus together with his wife leaving Thebes in Boeotia, which he had founded and coming into, Illyria, they were and for diverfe misfortunes quitted, both turned into ferpents for having flain one facred to Mars, as we read in the fourth book of Ovid's Metamorphofis. But the expreffion, those that chang'd Hermione and Cadmus, has occafion'd fome difficulty. Did thofe ferpents, fays Dr. Bentley, change Hermione and Cadmus? or were not thefe, who were man and woman once, chang'd into ferpents? And Dr. Pearce replies, We may excufe this as a poetical liberty of expreffion; 'tis much the fame as the critics have obferved in Ovid's Metam. I. 1. where formas mutatas in nova corpora lands for corpora mutata in novas formas. In both places the changing is attributed, not to the perfons chang'd, but to the forms or fhapes into which they were chang'd. Which chang'd Hermione and Cadmus, that is into which Hermione and Cadmus were chang'd. So Horace fays, Sat. II. VIII. 49. Floted redundant: pleafing was his shape, And lovely; never fince of ferpent kind Lovelier, not thofe that in Illyria chang'd aceto Quod Methymnæam vitio mutaverit uvam, for in quod vitio mutata eft uva Methymnæa. If this may not be allow'd to pafs, yet I fee no reason (fays Dr. Pearce) why the conftruction may not be this, not those that in Illyria (were) chang'd, viz. Hermione and Cadmus &c. Or perhaps this; not thofe that Hermione and Cadmus chang'd, where chang'd ftands for chang'd to, as in X. 540. we have the fame way of speaking, for what they faw, They felt themselves now changing. But after all these very ingenious conjectures I conceive the meaning to be as it is exprefs'd, and the expreffion to be the most proper and appofite that could be. The ferpents chang'd Hermione and Cadmus. The form of ferpents was fuperinduc'd, but they ftill retain'd the fame fenfe and memory; and this Ovid fays exprefly. When Cadmus was first chang'd, IV. 595 - Ille fuæ lambebat conjugis ora; Inque finus caros, veluti cognof ceret, ibat; Et dabat amplexus, affuetaque colla petebat. The husband ferpent fhow'd he ftill had thought, With wonted fondneís an embrace he fought; 505 Her Fearless fee men, by men are fearlefs feen, Still mild and conscious what they once have been. Eufden. They were therefore fill Hermione and Cadmus, though chang'd; as the Devil was ftill the Devil, though inclos'd in ferpent. And thus it may be faid with the greatest propriety, that none of ferpent kind were lovelier, not thofe that in Illyria chang'd Hermione and Cadmus, or the God in Epidaurus, that is Efculapius the God of phyfic, the fon of Apollo, who was worshipped at Epidaurus, a city of Peloponnefus, and being fent for to Rome in the time of a plague affumed the form of a ferpent and accompanied the embafladors, as the ftory was related in the eleventh book of Livy, and may still be read in the fifteenth book of Ovid's Metamorphofis: but tho' he was thus chang'd in appearance, he was ftill Æfculapius, In ferpente Deus as Ovid calls him XV. 670. the deity in a ferpent, and under that form con |