Poets have given a Loose to their Imaginations in the Description of Angels: But I do not remember to have met with any so finely drawn, and so conformable to the Notions which are given of them in Scripture, as this in
Milton
. After having set him forth in all his Heavenly Plumage, and represented him as alighting upon the Earth, the Poet concludes his Description with a Circumstance, which is altogether new, and imagined with the greatest Strength of Fancy.
—Like Maia's Son he stood,
And shook his Plumes, that Heavnly Fragrance fill'd
The Circuit wide.—
Raphael's
Reception by the Guardian Angels; his passing through the Wilderness of Sweets; his distant Appearance to
Adam
, have all the Graces that Poetry is capable of bestowing. The Author afterwards gives us a particular Description of
Eve
in her Domestick Employments