ly two pictures, he says, in Milton; Adam bending
over the sleeping Eve, and the entrance of Dalilah, like a ship under
full sail. Certainly the above lines are no picture; but they are more
exciting than any clear delineation could be; they are full of scent, and
air, and the emotions of ease and bliss. The other passage has more of
architectural quality in it, and describes what first met Satan's gaze,
when he entered the Garden and sat, perched like a cormorant, upon the
Tree of Life.

The crisped Brooks
With mazie error under pendant shades
Ran Nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
Flours worthy of Paradise which not nice Art
In Beds and curious Knots, but Nature boon
Poured forth profuse on Hill and Dale and Plaine
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
The open field, and where the unpierc't shade
Imbround the noontide Bowers: Thus was this place,
A happy rural seat of various view:
Groves whose rich Trees wept odorous Gumms and Balme,
Others whose fruit burnisht with Golden Rinde
Hung amiable, _Hesperian_ Fables true,
If true, here onely, and of delicious taste:
Betwixt the Lawns, or level Downs, and Flocks
Grasing the tender herb, were interpos'd,
Or palmie hilloc, or the flourie lap
Of some irriguous Valley spread her store,
Flours of all hue, and without Thorn the Rose:
Another side, umbrageous Grots and Caves
Of coole recess, o'er which the mantling Vine
Layes forth her purple Grape, and gently creeps
Luxuriant; mean while murmuring waters fall
Down the slope hills, disperst, or in a Lake,
That to the fringed Bank with Myrtle crown'd,
Her chrystall mirror holds, unite their streams.
The Birds their quire apply; aires, vernal aires,
Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune
The trembling leaves, while Universal _Pan_
Knit with the _Graces_ and the _Hours_ in dance
Led on th' Eternal Spring.

Here is all the variety of hill and valley, wood and lawn, rock and
meadow, waterfall and lake, rose and vine, which the landscape artists
also loved to depict, and which, together with ruined temples and
castles, unknown in Paradise, became the cherished ideal of landscape
gardening. By the influence of _Paradise Lost_ upon the gardeners, no
less than by the influence of _L'Allegro_ and _Il Penseroso_ upon the
poets, Milton may claim to be regarded as one of the forefathers of the
Romantic Revival.