The fixth, and of creation laft arofe With evening harps and matin, when God faid, 450 Let th' earth bring forth foul living in her kind, Cattel and creeping things, and beast of th' earth, Each in their kind. The earth obey'd, and strait Opening her fertil womb teem'd at a birth Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,

455

Limb'd and full grown out of the ground up rofe
As from his lair the wild beast where he wons
In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den;
Among the trees in pairs they rofe, they walk'd:
The cattel in the fields and meadows green:

460 Those

is more conformable to the text of Scripture.

Cattel and creeping thing, and beast of th' earth.

456.- out of the ground up rofe As from bis lair the wild beaft where he wons

In foreft wild,] Lair, or layer, an old Saxon word fignifying a bed. The ufe of this word is ftill kept up among us, as when we call the dif ferent ftrata or beds of earth, fome of clay, fome of chalk, fome of ftone &c lairs. Wons is an old Saxon word fignifying to dwell or inhabit. Dr. Bentley reads In foreft wide, inftead of wild, wild beaft going before; but Milton does not diflike fuch a repetition of the fame word.

Those rare and folitary, thefe in flocks

Pasturing at once, and in broad herds upsprung.
The graffy clods now calv'd, now half appear'd
The tawny lion, pawing to get free

464 His hinder parts, then fprings as broke from bonds, And rampant shakes his brinded mane; the ounce, The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole

469

Rifing, the crumbled earth above them threw
In hillocs: the fwift ftag from under ground
Bore
up his branching head: fcarce from his mold
Behemoth

and does not relate to cows only; for binds are faid to calve in Job XXXIX. 1. and Pfalm XXIX. 9. Mr. Addison particularly commends this metaphor: and the whole defcription of the beafts rifing out of the earth, tho' Dr. Bentley condemns it as an infertion of the editor's, is certainly not only worthy of the genius of Milton, but may be esteem'd a fhining part of the poem. He fuppofes the beafts to rife out of the earth, in perfect forms, limb'd and full grown, as Raphael had painted this fubject before in the Vatican; and he defcribes their manner of rifing in figures and attitudes, and in numbers too, fuited to their various natures.

467. The libbard,] The fame as the leopard; a word ufed by Spenfer and the old poets, Fairy Queen, B. I. Cant. 6. St. 25.

470. Scarce from his mold Behemoth biggest born of earth upheav'd

Behemoth biggest born of earth upheav'd

His vaftness: fleec'd the flocks and bleating rofe,
As plants: ambiguous between fea and land

The river horse and fcaly crocodile.

At once came forth whatever creeps the ground, 475
Infect or worm: thofe wav'd their limber fans
For wings, and smallest lineaments exact

In all the liveries deck'd of fummer's pride
With spots of gold and purple', azure and green:
These as a line their long dimenfion drew,

His vaftnefs:] The numbers are excellent, and admirably exprefs the heaviness and unwieldinefs of the elephant, for it is plainly the elephant that Milton means. Behemoth and leviathan are two creatures, described in the book of Job, and formerly the generality of interpreters underftood by them the elephant and the whale: but the learned Bochart and other later critics have endevor'd to fhow that behemoth is the river barfe and leviathan the crocodile. It feems as if Milton was of the former opinion by mentioning Leviathan among the fishes, and the river barfe and fealy crocodile, ver. 474. as diftinct from behemoth and leviathan; and there is furely authority fufficient to justify a poet in that opinion. Behemoth biggest born. The allitteration, as the critics call it, is very remarkable, all the words beginning with b. We had another inftance a little before in the production of the mountains, ver. 286.

480 Streaking

Streaking the ground with finuous trace; not all
Minims of nature; fome of ferpent kind,
Wondrous in length and corpulence, involv'd
Their fnaky folds, and added wings. First crept
The parfimonious emmet, provident

Of future, in small room large heart inclos'd,

Their fnaky folds, and added wings.] Thefe verfes Dr. Bentley rejects: he thinks them fo plainly fpurious, that (as he fays) the editor is here caught in the forgery. Let us fee whether this be the cafe or not. Snaky, he fays, is mere tautology, i. e. Serpents involv'd ferpentin folds. But is not ferpent a more general word than Snake? does it not include all the creeping kind, at least several animals that are not frakes nor have Jnaky folds? If fo, then the epithet naky is no tautology. But what is added wings, fays the Doctor? It means, had wings added to their long and corpulent bodies. Scarcely any thing is more common in poetry than to fpeak after this manner, which represents the creature as doing that which is done to it. So in IX 515. a fhip is faid to feer and Shift her fail. So in Virgil's Georg. II. 535. it is faid of the city of Rome,

485

482. Minims of nature;] This word minims is form'd from the adjective minima, and in allufion to the Vulgar Latin of Prov. XXX. 24. Quatuor ifta funt minima terra. The word was in ufe before for an order of friers, Minim, minimi, so called from affected humility.

485.

provident Of future,] As Horace fays, Sat. I. I. 35.

Haud ignara ac non incauta futuri. in small room large heart inclos'd, Georg. IV. 83. Ingentes animos angufto in pectore verfant.

Septemque una fibi muro circum- It is there faid of the bee, and here

dedit arces.

Pattern of just equality perhaps

Hereafter, joined in her popular tribes
Of commonalty: fwarming next appear'd

The female bee, that feeds her husband drone 490 Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells

With honey ftor'd: the reft are numberless,