from his own home, running from the City of Destruction, and the group of his kindred calling after him to return:--"but the man put his fingers in his ears, and ran on crying, Life, Life, Eternal Life: so he looked not behind him, but fled towards the middle of the plain." Such another figure is Milton's Abdiel, who escaped from the rebel citadel-- And with retorted scorn his back he turned On those proud towers, to swift destruction doomed. The perils of his flight are vaguely indicated by a few admirable touches in the opening of the next Book:-- All night the dreadless Angel, unpursued, Through Heaven's wide champaign held his way, till Morn Waked by the circling Hours, with rosy hand Unbarred the gates of Light. A more signal instance of the same poetic effect is to be found in the wonderful close of _Paradise Lost_, where Adam and Eve are led down from the garden by the archangel Michael, and are left standing in the vast plain below:-- They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms. Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way. Criticism might exhaust itself in the effort to do justice to the beauty of this close. Of Adam and Eve it may be truly said that none of all their doings in the garden became them like the leaving of it. Yet Addison and Bentley, the ornaments of a polite and learned age, are at one in their depreciation of the last two lines. Addison, after a formal apology for "the smallest Alteration in this divine Work," boldly recommends amputation; while Bentley, with the caution of a more experienced surgeon, offers to crutch the lines on certain wooden contrivances of his own. The three epithets, "wandering," "slow," and "solitary," are all censured by him. Our first parents, he remarks, were guided by Providence, and therefore needed not to wander; they were reassured by Michael's predictions, and so might well display an engaging briskness; while as for "their solitary way," they were no more solitary than in Paradise, "there being no Body besides Them Two, both here and there." He therefore suggests a distich more agreeable to the general scheme:-- Then hand in hand with social steps their way Through Eden took, with Heav'nly Comfort cheer'd