The formal eulogy on _Eve_ which _Adam_ addresses to the Angel, in giving an account of his own creation and hers, is full of elaborate grace: ‘Under his forming hands a creature grew, . . . . . so lovely fair, That what seem’d fair in all the world, seem’d now Mean, or in her summ’d up, in her contained And in her looks, which from that time infus’d Sweetness into my heart, unfelt before, And into all things from her air inspir’d The spirit of love and amorous delight.’ That which distinguishes Milton from the other poets, who have pampered the eye and fed the imagination with exuberant descriptions of female beauty, is the moral severity with which he has tempered them. There is not a line in his works which tends to licentiousness, or the impression of which, if it has such a tendency, is not effectually checked by thought and sentiment. The following are two remarkable instances: ——‘In shadier bower More secret and sequester’d, though but feign’d, Pan or Sylvanus never slept, nor Nymph, Nor Faunus haunted. Here in close recess, With flowers, garlands, and sweet-smelling herbs, Espoused Eve deck’d first her nuptial bed, And heavenly quires the hymenœan sung, What day the genial Angel to our sire Brought her in naked beauty more adorn’d, More lovely than Pandora, whom the Gods Endow’d with all their gifts, and O too like In sad event, when to th’ unwiser son Of Japhet brought by Hermes, she ensnar’d Mankind by her fair looks, to be aveng’d On him who had stole Jove’s authentic fire.’ The other is a passage of extreme beauty and pathos blended. It is the one in which the Angel is described as the guest of our first ancestors: ——‘Meanwhile at table Eve Minister’d naked, and their flowing cups With pleasant liquors crown’d: O innocence Deserving Paradise! if ever, then, Then had the sons of God excuse to have been Enamour’d at that sight; but in those hearts Love unlibidinous reigned, nor jealousy Was understood, the injur’d lover’s Hell.’ The character which a living poet has given of Spenser, would be much more true of Milton: ——‘Yet not more sweet Than pure was he, and not more pure than wise; High Priest of all the Muses’ mysteries.’