inftances: the general defect is fufficiently obvious. The greatest epic poets amongst the ancients, Homer and Virgil, have been complimented on the concifeness of their exordiums; but, neither the Iliad, or the Eneid, reach the various excellencies which are compressed without being crouded, in the first chapter of Genefis. I fubmit the comparison to the critics, with all poffible confidence of fuperiority on the fide of Scripture. The paffages, however, are too well remembered to make a transcript neceffary.

I therefore conclude the fubject, that the learned and judicious reader may turn to the originals.

ESSAY

ORIGIN of DRESS.

PASSAGE.

AND THEY WERE BOTH NAKED, THE MAN AND HIS WIFE, AND WERE NOT ASHAMED.

THE purity of Paradife is no where more fweetly displayed than in this verfe for unconfcious of guilty defires, they were unconscious of shame.

They were both naked, the man and his wife.

There is a modesty in the very found of the words; even though they exhibit a nudity. They were not ashamed, Luft and Sin, the parents of difguife, were not yet born: a state of nature was then the state of God.

Man walk'd with God joint tenant of the fhade.

How

How barren are the vifionary scenes of Arcadia, compared to that period! Whatever, indeed, has been conceived, or expreffed in poetry, comes extremely short of many paffages and parts of the sacred writings, merely confidering them as literary compofitions, but when we add to their excellencies as pieces of writing, the reflection of their being the facred credentials of religion, and the immortal volumes of falvation, how is our zeal and our admiration heightened! The fentence before us, brings to view the lovely times of undebauched idea, when error and affectation had no dominion, and when the fantastic. paffion for external finery had no fway, even in the breast of woman.

The captivating character of Eve, juft at this crifis of facred hiftory, as,

-On fhe came

Led by her heavenly Maker, and adorn'd

With all that earth, or heaven could beftow
To make her amiable

fur

furpaffes any delineation of female grace and attraction, which hath been fince attempted to fay the truth, our beautiful parent might well infpire the genius of poetry, and he might very properly be called the mother of the muses; for the incomparable fimplicity which embellishes her, even in the defcription of her person, hath been copied by a thousand bards. Shakespeare feems to have glanced towards her in his Miranda, who reflects the image and elegant innocency of Eve; and, yet, when Eve viewed her own figure in the lake, she beheld a more delicate resemblance of herself than through the mirror of Miranda. Milton hath here caught the hint, and touched it exquifitely :

Two of far nobler fhapes, erect and tall,
God-like erect! with native honour clad,
And naked majefty, feem'd lords of all,
And worthy feem'd,

He for God only; fhe, for God and him.
-She, as a veil, down to her flender waift
Her unadorn'd, golden treffes wore
Dishevel'd, but in wanton ringlets wav'd.
So pafs'd they naked on, nor fbun'd the fight

Of

Of God, or angel, for they thought no ill;
So, hand in hand they pafs'd, the loveliest pair
That ever fince, in Love's embraces met.

Beyond difpute, the above verses find their original in the fentiment of Mofes *.- The first interview of Miranda, with the first man she ever faw, reaches, not by any means, Eve's first introduction to Adam. We now confider Milton as a poetical commentator on the text of fcripture: the beauty and fublimity of that, greatly affifting the fublimity and beauty of his own native genius. Let us then run the parallel of Miranda and Eve, fomewhat critically together. There is fine fancy in the first, but the exquifitelypainted portrait of truth marks the laft character. Upon viewing Ferdinand, for the first time, Miranda thus expreffes the emotions of her surprise :

I might call him

A thing divine; for nothing natural

I ever faw fo noble.

This

* And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed: