The difference between the character of _Eve_ in Milton and Shakspeare’s female characters is very striking, and it appears to us to be this: Milton describes _Eve_ not only as full of love and tenderness for _Adam_, but as the constant object of admiration in herself. She is the idol of the poet’s imagination, and he paints her whole person with a studied profusion of charms. She is the wife, but she is still as much as ever the mistress, of _Adam_. She is represented, indeed, as devoted to her husband, as twining round him for support ‘as the vine curls her tendrils,’ but her own grace and beauty are never lost sight of in the picture of conjugal felicity. _Adam’s_ attention and regard are as much turned to her as hers to him; for ‘in that first garden of their innocence,’ he had no other objects or pursuits to distract his attention; she was both his business and his pleasure. Shakspeare’s females, on the contrary, seem to exist only in their attachment to others. They are pure abstractions of the affections. Their features are not painted, nor the colour of their hair. Their hearts only are laid open. We are acquainted with _Imogen_, _Miranda_, _Ophelia_, or _Desdemona_, by what they thought and felt, but we cannot tell whether they were black, brown, or fair. But Milton’s _Eve_ is all of ivory and gold. Shakspeare seldom tantalises the reader with a luxurious display of the personal charms of his heroines, with a curious inventory of particular beauties, except indirectly, and for some other purpose, as where _Jachimo_ describes _Imogen_ asleep, or the old men in the _Winter’s Tale_ vie with each other in invidious praise of _Perdita_. Even in _Juliet_, the most voluptuous and glowing of the class of characters here spoken of, we are reminded chiefly of circumstances connected with the physiognomy of passion, as in her leaning with her cheek upon her arm, or which only convey the general impression of enthusiasm made on her lover’s brain. One thing may be said, that Shakspeare had not the same opportunities as Milton: for his women were clothed, and it cannot be denied that Milton took _Eve_ at a considerable disadvantage in this respect. He has accordingly described her in all the loveliness of nature, tempting to sight as the fruit of the Hesperides guarded by that Dragon old, herself the fairest among the flowers of Paradise! The figures both of _Adam_ and _Eve_ are very prominent in this poem. As there is little action in it, the interest is constantly kept up by the beauty and grandeur of the images. They are thus introduced: ‘Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, Godlike erect, with native honour clad, In naked majesty seemed lords of all, And worthy seemed; for in their looks divine The image of their glorious Maker shone: . . . . .