of love, as life began,
And smiled enchantment on adoring Man.
Down her white neck and o'er her bosom roll'd,
Flow'd in sweet negligence her locks of gold;
Round her fine form the dim transparence play'd,
And show'd the beauties, that it seem'd to shade. 150
--Enamour'd ADAM gaz'd with fond surprise,
And drank delicious passion from her eyes;
Felt the new thrill of young Desire, and press'd
The graceful Virgin to his glowing breast.--
The conscious Fair betrays her soft alarms,
Sinks with warm blush into his closing arms,
Yields to his fond caress with wanton play,
And sweet, reluctant, amorous, delay.

[Footnote: _The mother of mankind_, l. 140. See Additional
Note X.]

IV. "WHERE no new Sex with glands nutritious feeds,
Nurs'd in her womb, the solitary breeds; 160
No Mother's care their early steps directs,
Warms in her bosom, with her wings protects;
The clime unkind, or noxious food instills
To embryon nerves hereditary ills;
The feeble births acquired diseases chase,
Till Death extinguish the degenerate race.

[Footnote: _Acquired diseases_, l. 165. See Additional Note
XI.]

"So grafted trees with shadowy summits rise,
Spread their fair blossoms, and perfume the skies;
Till canker taints the vegetable blood,
Mines round the bark, and feeds upon the wood. 170
So, years successive, from perennial roots
The wire or bulb with lessen'd vigour shoots;
Till curled leaves, or barren flowers, betray
A waning lineage, verging to decay;
Or till, amended by connubial powers,
Rise seedling progenies from sexual flowers.

[Footnote: _So grafted trees_, l. 167. Mr. Knight first
observed that those apple and pear trees, which had been
propagated for above a century by ingraftment were now so
unhealthy, as not to be worth cultivation. I have suspected
the diseases of potatoes attended with the curled leaf, and
of strawberry plants attended with barren flowers, to be
owing to their having been too long raised from roots, or by
solitary reproduction, and not from seeds, or sexual
reproduction, and to have thence acquired those hereditary
diseases.]

"E'en where unmix'd the breed, in sexual tribes
Parental taints the nascent babe imbibes;
Eternal war the Gout and Ma