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Whose seed is in herself upon the earth.

He scarce had said, when the bare earth, till then
Desert and bare, unsightly, unadorn'd,

Brought forth the tender grass, whose verdure clad
Her universal face with pleasant green;

315

Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flow'r'd
Opening their various colours, and made gay

:

Her bosom smelling sweet and these scarce blown,
Forth flourish'd thick the clust'ring vine, forth crept
The smelling gourd, upstood the corny reed
Embattled in her field, and th' humble shrub,
And bush with frizzled hair implicit. Last
Rose, as in dance, the stately trees, and spread

320

Their branches, hung with copious fruit, or gemm'd

325

Their blossoms with high woods the hills were crown'd,

With tufts the valleys, and each fountain side,

With borders long the rivers: that earth now

Seem'd like to Heav'n, a seat where Gods might dwell,

istences. The history relates to the familiarly known, the visible, and the useful among animals. Man himself is described as created last; plainly intimating that all which had gone before was only a means of which he was to be the subordinate end. If the creation itself, then, be thus designed to subserve his welfare, it is only in harmony with this fact, that the account of the creation should be given in a style so familiar as to be easily understood by him, in a manner so graphic as to make him present, and to paint it to his eye; and that it should confine itself chiefly to that which more immediately concerns him.-HARRIS, "Man Primeval," 13, 14.

317. Herbs: (Brought forth) herbs.

321. Smelling gourd: Bentley and Newton prefer to read it swelling gourd.

Corny: Strong and stiff like a horn, Virg. Æn. iii. 22:

Quo cornea summo

Virgulta, et densis hastilibus horrida myrtus."

322. Embattled: Arranged as for battle.

323. Implicit: Infolded, intangled.

325. Gemm'd: Put forth.

328. That: So that.

329. In this, as in other parts of his description of the work of creation, Milton owes much to Du Bartas, whose curious work, in the excellent translation of John Sylvester (time of James I.), scarcely deserves the neglect into which it has fallen. But Milton's hand turns to gold whatever it

Or wander with delight, and love to haunt
Her sacred shades. Though God had yet not rain'd
Upon the earth, and man to till the ground

None was,
but from the earth a dewy mist
Went up and water'd all the ground, and each
Plant of the field, which, ere it was in th' earth
God made, and ev'ry herb, before it grew
On the green stem: God saw that it was good:
So ev'n and morn recorded the third day.

Again the Almighty spake, Let there be Lights
High in the expanse of Heaven, to divide
The day from night: and let them be for signs,
For seasons, and for days, and circling years;
And let them be for lights, as I ordain
Their office in the firmament of Heav'n,

To give light on the earth and it was so.

And God made two great lights, great for their use

touches; and here we have set before us, with wonderful skill, th of many pages of Du Bartas.-K.

338. Recorded: Registered, announced.

345. To give light, &c.: It is a very strong argument against t which assigns long ages to the "days" of Scripture, that the ra sun did not shine upon the earth until the fourth day; for if each a thousand or six thousand years, as some suppose, the vegetati world would have been left without that direct light and heat o which is essential to most of the forms of vegetable existence. that the plants to which the voice of God had given life, could not tured their products, or maintained their being, had not the solar a very shortly after produced. We have, in this, indeed, a reason t mission of the solar influence next after the creation of the green

346. Made two great lights: God made them, not in the sen creating them, but he made them answer the purpose immediately namely, to rule by day and by night. In the Hebrew, the word thus translated, is a different word from that translated by "created." It signifies, as in many other passages of Scripture, 1 or prepare, for a particular use. The objection to this view has b really assigns no specific work of creation to the fourth day, but work of clearing away the mist, clouds, and vapours, and thus rei sun and moon visible; but the same objection would lie against th the second day, as we have explained it, and to a considerable |

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