seen a very young infant cured of a vicious propensity to pinch its little companions, by being itself pinched on the arm or face, as the case might be, every time it committed an offence. This is precisely the principle on which arose the custom of blood revenge. The savage kicks his foot against a stone; he takes it up, and dashes it to pieces; he is struck on the face by a companion, and he returns the blow; an enemy slays his father, and he exults with joy when he has brought the slaughterer down. The same feeling exists in civilised life, only it is modified and governed by our civilisation. The tottering child knocks its head against a table, and turns about to inflict, as it thinks, mortal injury on the cause of offence. We are, in fact, animals-reasoning animals it is true, but still animals: but it is the glory of man, that while dwelling in an animal body, and using all the animal gifts which God has blessed for his use, he rises above mere animal indulgences, and ever remembers that there is written upon all our impulses or appetites, "Do thyself no harm!" When Moses became the lawgiver of the Jews, he found that the idea of BLOOD REVENGE was engrained in the hearts--worked into the feelings and prejudices-of his people. A mere legislator might have disregarded this circumstance, and addre ed the people thus: "I am about to form you into a nation; to make every individual a citizen; and to protect you all by institutions and a government. You must, therefore, every one of you, give up your right of self-protection and self-revenge; you must no longer take the law into your own hands; families must no longer pursue families, nor tribes avenge the wrongs of tribes; if a man is killed, the executive government will take it up, and punish the guilty." But Moses, illumined by wisdom from above, knew far better the people he had to deal with. He knew that the son who did not avenge the death of his father was accounted infamous; he knew that it was a high point of honour to sacrifice a life for a life; and to give up this right would appear to the Jews to be giving up one of their dearest privileges. Therefore, instead of vainly struggling with a deeply-rooted prejudice, he made use of it, and incorporated it into his Law. He saw that this practice of private blood revenge led to the loss of many lives; for the blood avenger, if he could not reach the actual murderer, slew one or more of the murderer's family, or even of his tribe. This raised additional blood avengers, and spread feuds through generations. To mitigate this ferocity-to ameliorate the condition of the people, and yet to engage their strongest prejudices in favour of his laws, he directed CITIES OF REFUGE to be built, with good roads leading in all directions to them, by which the unfortunate man-slaughterer-he who had killed his fellow without intending it-might be sheltered from the pursuit of the avenger of blood. While thus protecting the unfortunate, saving life, and preventing feuds, he did not strain too far the prejudices of the people. He permitted the actual murderer to be taken from the altar itself; and in giving this permission, he alludes to an opinion which prevailed early and extensively amongst other nations, as well as the Jews. It was believed that the place where human blood had been spilt was watered neither with dew nor with rain till the murderer had suffered punishment. Therefore, says Moses, "Ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, [the blood avenger, amongst the Arabs, is usually bought off,] but he shall be surely put to death. For blood, it defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein but by the blood of him that shed it." Though we are decidedly of opinion, that there is not in the whole Bible, any passage which can be fairly construed as giving a divine permission to men generally to inflict capital punishments, we are not at all prepared to say that it was never expedient to inflict them. There may be certain stages in social life in which In addition to all this, the Jews belonged to that portion of the world where, in all ages, the value of human life has been rated very low, and where pardoning mercy has been oftener attributed to fear or cowardice, than to generosity. Hence the history of the "EAST"-an indefinite word, by the way-is full of eyes thrust out, ears and noses torn off, and monuments of human skulls-sad evidence that even half-civilised man has a large portion of the blood of the tiger in him! Waiving these considerations, we repeat, that we are not prepared to say that capital punishments were never expedient, in certain circumstances, and for certain temporary purposes. We see that they were permitted in the early history of our race, and incorporated in the Mosaic law. But any nation which retains capital punishments, on the ground of their being found in the Mosaic law, is bound to permit the practice of blood revenge; to build cities of refuge; and to follow out all the judicial processes prescribed by Moses. The one is just as binding as the other. How delightful to turn to the Christian religion, and see how utterly and everlastingly capital punishments are opposed to its spirit! We might here take our stand on general ground, and declare that its love, forgiveness of injuries, &c., are all abhorrent to the deprivation of life-that life which its doctrines have so prodigiously enhanced in value! We reason in the same way about slavery. Had the apostles prohibited slavery, they would have excited a servile war, and the Christian religion, on its introduction, would have produced enormous confusion. Yet we all know that slavery is opposed to the spirit of Christianity; and so are capital punishments. But we are not left to general inferences. The Saviour set the example of abolishing the capital punishments of the Mosaic law. In that memorable scene, the theme of poets and painters, which is recorded in the eighth chapter of John, we see how he treated a penal enactment of the law. The crafty "scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery ;" and this they did to entrap him. They knew that he was popular among the people, who looked upon him as a divine teacher; yet they also knew that the people were extravagantly attached to the law, and any attempt to set aside what they considered not only its divine but its perpetual enactments would rouse them into fury, and make them cry, as they did in the case of Paul, who was accused of speaking everywhere against the law-" Away with such a fellow from the earth, for it is not fit that he should live!" And yet these cunning men also calculated, that if the Saviour retained his popularity with the people, by subscribing, in the particular case, to the enactments of the law, and ordering the woman to be put to death, they could accuse him to the Roman governor as a seditious fellow, who was taking the power of life and death into his own hands. So, when they had set the woman in the midst, "they say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now, Moses, in the law, commandeth us that such should be stoned-but what sayest thou ?" It appears to us very clear, that the Saviour, in escaping from the trap set for him, distinctly abrogated the capital punishments of the Mosaic law. Had he sanctioned the principle of capital punishment at all, he would doubtless have indicated his opinion. Here was a grave crime, for which a severe punishment was specially prescribed-the severest in the Mosaic law. The criminal stood in the midst, and the people waited his decision. What is HE about to weaken the sanctions of law and morality? Is HE about to open the flood-gates of licentiousness! In reading the passage, we may imagine that we hear those lips murmuring the divinest music. "Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." "How would you be, If He, who is the top of judgment, should Here we must mark a distinction, familiar to all who are familiar with the Bible, but which may require to be indicated to some of our readers. Our Saviour did not stand to the Jews in a similar relation to that of Moses. The one was a national lawgiver, the other was a world's Redeemer. The one was specially chosen and specially recognised as the head of the people, having power to make and unmake, to punish and pardon; the other everywhere obeyed, and inculcated obedience to, the constituted authorities. "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's." He, therefore, did not assume any legislative power to alter the constitution originally given to the Jews by Moses. If He had done so, the constituted authorities would have resisted His proceedings; and it was, in fact, upon a false accusation of this very nature that the Jewish authorities procured the consent of the Roman governor to put Him to death. They accused Him of making or proclaiming Himself a king-a Jewish king; and when Pilate found that His kingdom was not of this world, and thereby saw the hollowness of the accusation, the hypocritical knaves sustained his faltering purpose by shouting out, "Whoso maketh himself a king is not Cæsar's friend-we have no king but Cæsar!"' Our Saviour, therefore, could not alter the laws of Moses in any other way than by His teachings--working upon public opinion by enlightening the minds of the people. With what majestic grandeur he does this, all who read the Sermon on the Mount know full well. In a few weighty and emphatic words, he sweeps away the LEX TALIONIS, the law of retaliation, which pervaded the Mosaic constitution. "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil." Not that Christ inculcates that the robber, or the assassin, or the midnight prowler, is to be at large, unrestrained and unpunished. In that case, the bonds of civil society would be loosed, and wherever Christianity entered, it would bring decay. But the announcement, in spirit, is distinctly this: Moses, in his laws, appealed to the only effectual principle which the minds of your rude and ignorant forefathers could understand -the principle of fear, the principle of inflicting injury for injury, that principle which the most brutal savage can understand, though he were ignorant of all else beside. But I appeal, not to fear, but to love, not to vengeance, but to mercy. My doctrines are destined to lift man above the mere level of animal existence to pour into the human heart sublimer sanctions and nobler aims. Ye have heard that it has been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy; a doctrine adapted to the narrow mind of the Jews, and practised everywhere by unenlightened man, living in his own tribe, or in his own secluded community. But I, who come to knit the world into one, say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." Glorious doctrines !-not intended to weaken the arm of national defence; not intended to expose social society to the devastations of the savage or the barbarian; but intended, by their subtle and penetrating moral power, to mitigate the natural ferocity of the animal man, and which, when they get room to circulate, will show that vengeance is like the storm, which makes man wrap himself still closer in his cloak of selfishness; but love is like the "sun shining in his strength," which will compel him to open his heart to the purifying airs of heaven. We have intimated, that we feel a difficulty in deciding whether or not is might ever be expedient to adopt capital punishments, supposit the legislator to be dealing with a people wholly ignorant of the Christian religion, and in a low moral and mental condition. But the legislator, statesman, or governor, who is himself a Christian, must have a heavy responsibility on his conscience who permits a capital punishment to take place; for if Christianity does indeed point to a futurity, in which man's existence is destined to outlast the stars, and if this short life be but a preparative for a fathomless unknown, who dares to hurry his fellow-man into it? Shut up offenders; secure them from still further injuring society; ply them with all the exhortations, the warnings, and the kindness of the Christian faith; but, oh! touch not the life of the most miserable wretch-let him live "all the days of his appointed time." In so doing, we would do more to restrain murder, by enhancing the value of human life in the estimation of the people, than by all the hangings that disgrace our records; and we would sooner arrive at that condition in which the gibbet will appear, like the tomahawk and scalpingknife, to belong exclusively to savage existence. Certainly, the nation, which affirms that Christianity is "part and parcel" of its law; which has adopted the Christian religion as a portion of its national institutions, and has its chosen teachers of the Christian faith, whose duty it is to endeavour to make every person born in the country a Christian, is guilty of a strange and monstrous inconsistency, when it permits capital punishments. They are so utterly opposed to the character and spirit of Christianity, that it does appear most marvellous how, till a recent period, men, in this most Christian country, were strung up like dogs. There is much of barbarism amongst us still; and though a vast improvement has taken place within the last few years, and the numbers of those who doubt the right of man to take away the life of his fellow-man have greatly increased, we still think that a large number would murmur if capital punishment was abolished in the case of murder. We must wait a little longer; time is working great changes, and that more rapidly than old men dream of. For ourselves, we must give our opinion, that neither God nor expediency, neither the Bible nor nature, sanctions the taking away of human life in a Christian country. We look upon every execution in such a country as a judicial murder-a sacrifice to the brutality in man which Christianity and civilisation have not yet softened. What avail all our machinery-our government and free discussion, our clergy and our churches, our books and our newspapers, our soldiers and our police, if society cannot be protected without taking another life, as a sacrifice for the lost? Murderers commit a horrible crime-is that horrible crime only to be restrained by doing that in coolness and composure, and with all the gravity of judicial form, which the murderer has done in secrecy, in passion, and perhaps under the influence of intoxication? But so long as we are influenced by the feeling that "one murder makes a villain," and "thousands a hero," so long will it be difficult for us to get rid of the savage spirit of blood revenge; and so long will it be ere we rise to that high estimate of the value of human life, which looks upon it as inextinguishable, except by the finger of God. RUSSIA: ITS AUTOCRAT, ITS PEOPLE, AND RUSSIA is twelve days in arrear of an other nations,—the calendar is yet unreformed in that country. The reason assigned for this preposterous delay, is partly the fear which the emperor has of any serious innovations giving offence to his nobles, and partly the unwillingness of the clergy to accede to any change which would so materially derange the present order of their numerous feasts or saints' days. The deference which the autocrat pays to his nobles in this instance, places the peculiarity of his position in a remarkable point of view. Theoretically he is a despot, yet in some respects he is the most circumscribed of monarchs. He can make rank or annul it, introduce a law or abrogate one, and none dare say to him What doest thou? but he cannot give freedom to his slaves-he dare not reform the calendar, for the nobles are opposed to such un-Russian innovations. If he were to attempt either, he would lose his crown or his life, or probably both together in one fell swoop. The fact is, there is thus in full practical operation a principle, that of a second power in the state, in a country where its very existence is theoretically impossible. Russia thus, and in several other respects, presents singular inconsistencies and extremes. There is the extreme of pomp, and the extreme of poverty; the extreme of refinement, and the extreme of barbarism; a liberty on the one hand amounting to licentiousness, and a vassalage on the other which degrades the individual to a level with the cattle of his plains; a court festooned with the trophies of many conquered nations, and a population fed on something like the rations of the prodigal son; an empire whose escutcheon has monopolised the national emblems of several vanquished kingdoms, but having on the reverse a fetter; and lastly, an absolute sovereign without the right of an English gentleman. Such is Russia, --and such must its ruler remain until he call a middle class into existence to redress the unsteady balance. The Russian character presents the same striking contrasts. There is no tone or keeping in it; it glares with the positive colours; it is made up of antagonist forces-of contradictions, moral and physical. The life of a Russian is a series of rebounds from one extreme to another. For instance, after a bath of all but insupportable heat, he plunges and rolls about amongst snow, like a young porpoise rejoicing in the summer wave. He performs ablution in the most effectual manner once a week, but goes filthy all the rest of it. He allows his beard to grow long and nasty; but, as a compensation, he shaves the back of his head. He loads himself with furs in summer, and in winter can sleep amongst sleet without any covering, and yet catch no harm from the operation. Abstemious in the extreme, he yet plunges into inordinate excesses. He trails his belly in the dust before his superior, and fawns on him like a spaniel; yet, shame on him! he beats his wife unmercifully. Honest by nature, he is often a rogue from circumstances. "When confidence is reposed in him," says Mr. Bremner, "his honesty is proof against every temptation." This is a very different view of the Russian character from that given by Lyell and others; but it is confirmed by different recent travellers, and we are persuaded is nearer the truth than that the Russians are a nation of sharpers. Their natural dispositions are good; but the position in which they are placed tends sadly to pervert them. Their natural tendency to the vices of lying, stealing, cunning, sens ality, and what not, is not stronger than it is amongst their Continental neighbours who rank much higher than they do in the scale of civilisation and morals; but, from circumstances, it has received a powerful development. The stain, however, is rapidly disappearing. Give the Russian fair play, and he will be an upright, industrious, sober, and peaceable man. We have been led to entertain these views from a pretty extensive knowledge of the facts; and he who impartially investigates the subject will arrive at the same conclusion. unquestionably immense, it is not to be dreaded as equal to the With regard to the naval and military strength of Russia, though subversion of the liberties of Europe. Besides, it is to be hoped the day is past when any single European power will be quietly allowed to endanger the liberties of the rest by a forcible attempt becomes more strongly expressed in individual countries relative to usurp territory to which it has no right. As public opinion to their own affairs, so, taking the nations of Europe in the mass, public opinion will be more openly and loudly expressed by different nations regarding those transactions which, by directly subverting the liberties of any one of the number, might remotely compromise their own, and measures would be taken to prevent the perpetration of any such injustice. The case of Poland was a very complicated one, as all who have examined it know full well. Neither Britain nor any other country could have rightly interfered there, however strongly our sympathies might have been excited for the noble sufferers. Viewing the subject therefore in the abstract, and taking into account the state of public feeling in Europe, we do not think there are any grounds for the apprehensions of those political alarmists who are ever and anon lashing themselves into a fury of eloquence touching the terrors of the "northern bear." But even were Europe blind or callous enough to allow Russia to attempt further speculations of territorial aggrandisement on the Continent, it is the expressed opinion of the greatest generals of the age, that, from the impossibility of forming a commissariat sufficient for the maintenance of her troops, her army would not be formidable. They also state that, from her immense frontier, and the vast body of men which she could immediately concentrate on any point assailed, she is impregnable within herself. At home she has a giant's might to quell intestine broils or repulse the invading foe; but beyond her native soil, her power would depart from her, like the strength of Antæus when he ceased to touch his mother earth. A POETICAL PICTURE GALLERY. A PICTURE GALLERY is an expensive thing; your Raphaels, and Correggios, and Rembrandts, and Titians-glorious as they all are-are luxuries which the poor man can only enjoy "as 'twere afar off: " one such work alone is not unfrequently worth a fortune, in the mere marketable idea of its value. How, then, should he get it?-where is his picture gallery? The public exhibitions are open to him, to be sure; and he may there obtain an occasional glimpse of the serene and beautiful works of artbut nothing more! It is in silence and solitude only, as we gaze upon the inspired canvas, the eye delightedly tracking one noble beauty after another, that the halo significant of the divine presence-which, with no irreverent feeling, we may say ever presides over the birth of a great painting-becomes visible; it is then only that our imagination kindles with the consciousness of the high communion to which it is admitted; it is then only that our hearts reverentially worship. Paintings may be copied; but, of all translations, they are the worst-and even the copies are still far, far beyond the means of the many. It is on our own wall the picture should hang, whose beauty we would cherish in our soul; we should have it suddenly catching the eye, and charming us for the thousandth time with its beauty, or elevating us with its grandeur; we should be able, after having for a while forgotten it, as we might be supposed to forget the glorious sun which has just vanished from the sky, though we still walk in its illumination, to meet it again, as we meet that great luminary, with a new sense of wonder, and joy, and silent happiness, that no repetitions can lessen. Must the poor man lose all this?-poor, indeed, if God has so ordained it! The faith within us says, No! Pictures are, after all, but the concentrated expressions of the loveliness or grandeur of the worlds within and without, thus made more intelligible to our limited faculties, by being deprived of that vastness and overpowering sense of an infinite sublimity which otherwise confounds them. The canvas and the manual dexterity are nothing; even the visual pleasure we receive on looking at a fine picture is little, if we can get all else:-that we can do so, it is our present business to prove. Let the reader, then, already imagine himself transported to the gallery, through which we propose to conduct him; noticing, as we pass along, the various works to which we would direct his attention. Here is first a most extraordinary picture, which not even Landseer can equal, by Percy Bysshe Shelley-an artist whose powers-but let them speak for themselves. THE FIGHT OF THE EAGLE AND SERPENT. In the air do I behold indeed An Eagle and a Serpent wreathed in fight:And now relaxing its impetuous flight, Before the aerial rock on which I stood, The Eagle hovering wheeled to left and right, And hung with lingering wings over the flood, And startled with its yells the wide air's solitude. A shaft of light upon its wings descended, The Serpent's mailed and many-coloured skin Shone through the plumes; its coils were twined within Shifted and glanced before the Eagle's steadfast eye. Around, around, in ceaseless circles wheeling, With clang of wings and scream, the Eagle sailed Its lessening orbs-sometimes, as if it failed, Drooped through the air; and still it shrieked and wailed, And casting back its eager head, with beak And talon unremittingly assailed The wreathed Serpent, who did ever seek Upon his enemy's heart a mortal wound to wreak. What life, what power, was kindlefi, and arose Floated the shattered plumes; bright scales did leap Swift chances in that combat-many a check, Then on the white edge of the bursting surge, Wile baffled wile, and strength encountered strength Until the lamp of day was almost spent It had endured, when lifeless, stark, and rent, Hung high that mighty serpent, and at last Fell to the sea, while o'er the continent, With clang of wings and scream, the Eagle passed, To speak of the power and beauty of this is unnecessary; but we may ask, did ever canvas thus express? Shelley is, indeed, a great artist! A MOONLIGHT. How beautiful this night!-the balmiest sigh That wraps this moveless scene. Heaven's ebon vault, Through which the moon's unclouded grandeur rolls, So idly, that rapt fancy deemneth it A metaphor of peace;-all form a scene Apart from the high creative power exhibited in the conception of this picture, how harmonious are its combinations! no thought, line, nor word, but aids, each in its place, to the promotion of the general effect. Was ever costly painting more beautiful! Who is the artist? Percy Bysshe Shelley! We are not about to deny that Shelley has written much that the world finds it difficult to understand; but the poet also has written much which all hearts and minds alike appreciate. As a contrast to the serene beauty of the last picture, let us stand and gaze awhile upon this THUNDER-STORM, BY THOMSON. A boding silence reigns Dread through the dun expanse; save the dull sound Rolls o'er the muttering earth, disturbs the flood, And shakes the forest leaf without a breath. Enlarging, deepening, mingling; peal on peal Our gallery is so rich in landscapes, that we cannot hope for a moment to indicate any particular ones as being better than the majority of the remainder. Look where we will, the eye is attracted by beautiful and masterly works. As a pendant to the last picture, here is what we may call THE SHOWER PAST. In the western sky the downward sun The illumined mountain, through the forest streams, Far smoking o'er the interminable plain, Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around! These pieces are both from the "Seasons," in itself, like the great period it celebrates, a collection of beautiful and sublime pictorial effects. The different natural phenomena-Spring, with its young buds and tender green leaves, its blue skies, and its rough storms, luxuriant full-bosomed Summer,-Autumn marking the decline of the year, as the sunset does of the day, and like it departing in glory,-and lastly Winter, sharp but genial as a crusty friend, giving us nipping airs but joyous impulses, and making amends for the rough solitude without, by the social comfort of the fireside within all this we find painted in language thoroughly informed with its subject, and elevated by that feeling which looks through nature "up to nature's God." : Pass we now on to the pair of pictures painted by hands different, yet how alike in the youthful mastery of the touch!-one so splendid, rich, and gorgeous, that the eye would ache with the splendour, but for the relief given it in the person of the pure virgin sweetness which is thus enshrined; and the other so dreamy in its loveliness, that the spirit must have evaporated under the hands of a less potent magician. The first is She sleeps; her breathings are not heard The gold-fringed pillow, lightly prest; But it will be asked, has our gallery none of the greater works of art? Have we not, to use the painter's phraseology, any grand historical pieces? It would be strange if we had not. Does poetry only deal with the beautiful? Is the sublime beyond its province? Was the blind old bard of Chios, or he who was to rival his fame centuries afterwards, in our then unknown island,— the authors of the "Iliad" and "Paradise Lost,"- -were they not grand historical painters? The pages of this last-named work alone furnish pictures of surpassing grandeur, and so numerous, that, could they be spread out in all the amplitude of canvas, what earthly halls might contain them? And what a subject is that they illustrate! The Fall of Man! How sublime the daring that could resolve upon it!-how wonderful the genius that could command success by its means! What is this first picture? SATAN HURLED FROM HEAVEN. Him the Almighty power In adamantine chains and peual fire, Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms. Nine times the space that measures day and night Torments him. Round he throws his baleful eyes, The dismal situation, waste and wild; A dungeon horrible, on all sides round As one great furnace flamed, yet from those flames Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace That comes to all; but torture without end With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed. Here amid the horror and torment surrounding the arch-fiend he sees in the distance—“ A dreary plain, forlorn and wild." With head uplift above the wave, and eyes That sparkling blazed, his other parts besides He is roused at the sight, and immediately we behold the mighty spirit grandly looming forth through the smoke, and "the glimmering of those livid flames." Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool Driven backward slope their pointing spires, and rolled Passing in rapid succession one great work after another comprised in this sublime series, indicating the following by the names only we have appended to them-Satan's Call and Exhortation to his scattered Forces; the awful Council of the " Powers, Dominions," and fallen "Deities of Heaven," in pursuance of whose decision Satan departs to seek the new world, where man was, or was about to be, created, we stop before this :— SATAN, SIN, AND DEATH, AT THE GATES OF HELL. At last appear Hell bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof, And thrice threefold the gates; three folds were brass, Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire, Yet unconsumed. Before the gates there sate The one seemed woman to the waist, and fair, A hideous peal: yet when they list, would creep, The other shape, If shape it might be called that shape had none Or substance might be called that shadow seemed, And shook a dreadful dart. What seemed his head Sin and Death, however, stop not the Tempter's way, when they know his destination, and that they are to follow him, when, by his success, he shall have prepared the path. Death "grinned horribly a ghastly smile." The awful gates are unlocked, that were never again to be closed; Chaos appears. There is the picture! See how grandly it is conceived that dark illimitable ocean, where all is vague, stupendous, and terrible; the regions of "eternal anarchy." In these pictures we are now passing, we see the progress of Satan towards the world, which he at last discovers and here behold him perched upon the tree of life, in the middle of Eden, watching, with envious and malignant eyes, the happiness of our yet sinless parents. The place was A happy rural seat of various view; Groves where rich trees wept odorous gums and balms, Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind, Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true, If true, here only, and of delicious taste: Grazing the tender herb, were interposed; |