pring of being, I adore.
How full of ornament is all I view,
In all its parts! and seems as beautiful as new:
O goodly order'd earth! O Power Divine!
Of thee I am, and what I am is thine."

A day or two after, "a cloud descends with six angels in it, and when it
is near the ground breaks, and, on each side, discovers six more." Raphael
and Gabriel, sent to admonish and warn, discourse with Adam, the ten
others standing at a distance. The conversation instantly assumes, and
throughout sustains, an intensely controversial character, and Raphael and
Gabriel, though two to one, and moreover angel _versus_ man, are hard put
to it on predestination and free-will. Adam is equipped with all the
weapons of the schools, and uses them defensively, and most offensively,
with all the dexterity of a veteran gladiator. But our disgust soon
ceases, along with our deception; and we but see and hear John Dryden
puzzling a brace of would-be wits at Wills's. The whole reads like a so-so
bit of the _Religio Laici_. It ends thus:--

"_Adam._ Hard state of life! since heaven foreknows my will,
Why am I not tied up from doing ill?
Why am I trusted with myself at large,
When he's more able to sustain the charge?
Since angels fell, whose strength was more than mine,
'Twould then more grace my frailty to confine.
Foreknowing the success, to leave me free,
Excuses him, and yet supports not me!"

_This_ from Adam yet sinless in Paradise!

The loves of Adam and Eve are not perhaps absolutely coarse--at least not
so for Dryden--but they are of the earth earthy, and the earth is not of
the mould of Eden. Aiblins--not coarse, but verily coquettish, and
something more, is Eve. And she is too silly.

"From each tree
The feather'd kinds peep down to look on me;
And beasts with upcast eyes forsake their shade,
And gaze as if I were to be obey'd.
Sure I am somewhat which they wish to be,
And cannot. _I myself am proud of me._"

A day or two after their marriage, Eve gives Adam a long description of
her first emotions experienced in the nuptial bower. More warmly coloured
than in her simplicity she seems to be aware of; and Adam, pleased with
her innocent flattery, treats her with an Epithalamium.

"When to my arms thou brought'st thy virgin love,
Fair angels sang our bridal hymn above:
_The Eternal, nodding, shook the firmament!_
And conscious nature gave her glad consent.
Roses u