her kindle and dilate. Such a character in composition, testifies not only to the sublimity of mind that formed the work, but it shows the spirit of the age. We are assured, by that evidence, had we no other, that the age which gave Milton birth had cultivated to the highest the intellectual faculties. We read, in his poetry, the severe yet painful studies, the toiling energies of thought, the labours of abstract speculation, the long concatenated reasonings which tried the strength of the human faculties in the schools. Imagination has clothed that strength with her own forms; but the strength is of severe nurture. The giant of mighty bone has heroic beauty; but the structure of his unconquerable frame is of Titan origin"

We have also endeavoured to retain something of that Miltonic cadence in blank verse, which Elton, one of our best translators, thus describes:-"The Miltonic harmony (says he) displays the power metrical arrangement, independent of rhyme. They who criticise blank verse, as requiring helps to prevent it from lapsing into prose, or losing its distinction of measure, are not aware of the power of simple metrical division and uncertain pauses. They look at blank metre with an eye confined to simple unconnected lines, and fail to perceive that it is not in single lines, but in a sweep of concatenated periods that the harmony of blank verse consists."

The public will now decide whether this Tragedy of "Adamus Exul" is not a more probable source of Milton's "Paradise Lost" than “Andreini's Adam," an Italian drama, to which this honor has been allotted by Voltaire and Hayley; or the "Paradiso Perso," defended by Pearce; or the wild romance patronised by Peck; or Silvester's "Du Bartas," criticised by Mr. Dunster, in his "Considerations on Milton's Early Reading, and the Prima Stamina of his Paradise Lost."

We may just add, that if this work should excite much interest, it is our intention to re-publish the original Latin-now extremely scarce.

After the Aboriginal creation, and the lapse of Angels and Spirits, Man is placed in Paradise, and the command of this lower world allotted to him; while he is forbidden to eat of the fruit of the tree, symbolical of the knowledge of good and evil. Satan, under pretence of friendship, endeavours to

persuade Adam to break the command of Heaven; and then, under the figure of a Serpent, deceives Eve, by whose solicitation her husband also sins. After receiving the promise of Redemption, they are expelled from the Garden of Eden, and delivered over to Death and human calamities.

ACT I.

Satan. The sacred Thunderer's foe, exiled from Heaven,
My native birthright and my home, I come,
Urging my desolate disastrous flight

From that Tartarean den, and the grim curse;
Of dawnless midnight. Hatred of all good
Hath hurled me from the hereditary throne
Of too unblest ambition,-sowing lies,
And ripening damn'd sedition-terrible,
Unuttered and unutterable fraud.

Guilt is become my nature and my joy;
I breathe essential vice; and most I seek
For that selectest crime, which to conceive
Is luxury; and yet horror that appals

Great Satan's self. Aye, with this burning hope,
Through all these starry labyrinths, I pursue
My vengeance, and embark on fathomless seas,
Girt by the vague shores of infinity.
Like the devouring lion, famine-stung,
That, howling in his muffled ire, lays bare
The grisly chasm of his blood-stained teeth,
So forth I fare; and, hoping 'gainst belief,
To eclipse intensest misery, by the shade
Of miseries more intense, shall I not gain
Supremacy of ill, and so become

Sole despot, tyrant, and o'er all extend
The immense emblazed autocracy of Hell.

A god of gods. Ah! can I be deceived?

Even now methinks this poised and stedfast globe

Reels, rocks, beneath my incumbent weight. "Tis well;
So let it be; so speed the fair design

Of supereminent craft. The world shall hear,
And hearing, blench and tremble. But, behold,
That Eden of our search appears. The east,
The effulgent orient pours forth all his streams
Down its precipitous sides tumultuously.
Here the o'erflowing Phison issues forth,
Araxes' royal tide, which clothes with green

The Colchian plains, and clasps with strong embrace

Havilah, and the Caspian land of gold,

Bdellium, and onyx. Towards the southern shore,
Flows Gihon, or Choaspes, down the vales
Of Persian Susiana. By his side,

Hiddekel; the swift Tigris rolls his waves;

N. S.-VOL. II.

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And furthest west, the broad Euphrates spreads
His giant arms invincible, and fills

Chaldea with his richness. Here I view
The Elysium of the earth-the Paradise
Of spirits immortal; if not lapsed so far
In guilt as their lost brethren; soon to share
Our curse, and sharing lighten or remove.
Here the thick spicy groves repeat the voice
Of many-tuned zephyr, and each tree
Grows sensitive of ecstasy, and thrills

To his most subtle whisperings. Here the light
Sheds forth its radiant scintillating smiles,
Burning yet bashfully, and gilds the air
With an ineffable pleasure. No damp cloud
Impends; nor from the vexed electric pole
Black tempests roar; no thunder-blasting strokes
Shake the sweet calm; nor triple lightnings dash
Their horrible vengeance o'er these happy bowers.
Here reigns perpetual spring, with dewy tears,
Dissolving the chill vapour, nor permits
Harsh winter's foul intrusion. Whatsoe'er
Is precious or desirable hath place

In this voluptuous empire. When the God
Had wrought the effulgent mechanism of heaven,
With glittering spheres unnumbered, and ordained,
In their harmonic periods, all the stars,
That his first works might not his last excel,
Like his own Son, divinest image and best,
Adam he formed; and man the wonderful,
From the small dust arose. To him he gave
Princedom and lordship o'er this planet Earth;
To him authority o'er all its kinds

Of living forms or dead. And to increase
The joy of this imperial son of clay,

An Eve, the mother of his tyrannous heirs,

Hath Heaven provided. Sooth to say, the world
Was rarely more surprised than when the bone
Of this sleep-cumbered Titan did assume
That feminine form of beauty, which her spouse
Declares his supereminent, his best,

First, last, in love-taught oratory. And now,
Both naked, walk this wilderness of sweets.
All modesty they have; but nought of shame,
It seems; for dreams of shame and infamy
Have yet disturbed them little. So they dwell
In worship, praise, glory, and innocence;
Smiling at death, pain, and the envenomed stings
That wait on guilt. Alas, my stricken soul!
Alas, my blasted heart! and my despair,

How much we differ now. Whence have we fallen?
What crime committed? We, the sons of God,

Coevals of the heavens, the fabricators
And charioteers of stars and satellites,

Unscathed by bickering tongues of fire; unchilled
By icy shudderings of remorse; uncased

In foul and dissoluble elements

Of rank materialism.

We angels, then

Were gods, and mates for gods. But now we live, If death and life be one, and coexist,

We live alone to torture. We are free

Only to drag the galling cankering chains
Of desperation tighter-to augment

O that death

Ruin by ruin, and for ever heap
Damnation on damnation.
Were still discoverable-the dreamless sleep
Unknown as yet to human fear-to me
Is fancy's chiefest bliss; and hopelessly
I hope to find perdition swallowed up
By blest annihilation, and all hell
Self-burned into oblivion, self-consumed.
That triple hell, in ether, ocean, earth,
Grows worse in every stage, even to the last.
There in the flaming centre of the globe,
That last worst mansion is, which to its maw
Insatiable all spirits lapsed, and robed
In matter doth impel. The cave of night,
The abyss of shadows, the unfathomed pit,
Yawns for its prey; and down its grim descent
A vortex of unutterable woe

For ever boils. Wild Horror's self grows dumb
While the voraginous whirl of agonies
Rebellows thro' the vaults of blank despair.
Hither heaven-blasting Lucifer was hurled :
Here Satan reigns o'er all his giant hosts
Of angel warriors, heroes but in vain ;
For now the awakened and unquenchable wrath
Of the stern Thunderer wastes us, and becomes
Our omnipresent torture, which still goads
And galls and blisters. Conscience ever hurls
The metaphysical lightnings of remorse

Thro' the vexed heart, the heart that inly bleeds
With anguish, yet repents not. Sometimes grief
And passionate rage by turns usurp the sway.
The criminal o'erwrought, and rung with pain,
Dares his great foe to battle, and defies
His worst of torments; for all change relieves
The sad monotony of woes eterne

As hell wherein we writhe. But most of all
Good company shall cheer us, and wild wail
Shall wear the charm of sympathy, at least
If craft can win what courage can but lose ;
For this I stand in Eden. Adam lives,

I

No doubt, most genially, with his fair bride,
Rejoicing in safe wedlock: his whole soul
Is glorified within him, and he boasts
To fill my vacant throne, and be a god,
Or, like a god, among the immortals.
Will work on his self-flattery. Not for this
Do I renounce my vengeance, till I wreak
My wrongs and griefs on him, whom to destroy
Shall vex the court of heaven. All peace forsworn,
The unconquerable soul within me vows
Eternal war unsparing and unspared;

My violent heart o'ercharged with direst curse,
Burns to inflict the infliction. I will bring
His proud soul under, or be double damned.
Doth he not mock me, laugh to bitter scorn
My prowess and assaulting, while, with brow
Of worship and calm reverence, he pursues
The steep ascent to heaven. Satan, beware!
Beware in time; be watchful, else this butt
Of thy supreme chicanery shall assume
The post among the immortals, which he holds
With such propriety of lordly grace

Amid the earth-sprung legions. Then, indeed,
Unhappy Lucifer, thou might'st indulge
The crimson blush of impotent shame, to find
Thy vacant thrones and palaces on high
Filled by these dust-born insolents. Awake!
Arise! proud fiend; bestir thy battailous strength-
O arm of power, unmatched of all but one-
And crush the pitiful fools, who thus attempt
To ape, to insult their noblers; who, like dwarfs,
Would ride on prostrate giants, famed of old.
Hell! I invoke thee! Ye Tartarean powers
Lend me your blasting influence. And ye, too,
Chaos and Night, your emulous arms array;
Thrones, dominations, all from heaven accursed,
Therefore with me confederate and conjoined,
And hurl one mingled ruin on the foe.
Let Pride, o'erwhelming and invincible Pride,
Marshal our ranks; and infidel Blasphemy,
And Error's pitchy shade; Ambition, Strife,
The insatiable avarice of new gains; the lust
Of riotous appetites, the faith of lies
And levity, credulous of things unknown,
These be our ministry, our harbingers

Of Victory. Pests and plagues, ye snaky train,
Ye clinging curses, ye soul-blistering stings,
Burst your infernal gaol; come one, come all,
In your black pomp of horrors, and invade
This Paradise of Earth. With venomous frauds
Stir the clear soul of man; with goading thoughts