foot); in Sumatra; in the Canaries; in the
Holy Land; in Persia; in Syria; in Ethiopia;
in the land now covered by the Caspian Sea;
in the utmost southern regions; in the moon;
in the Seventh Heaven, according to Mahomet
(but the last two assertions abandon the idea
of a Terrestrial Paradise altogether); and a vast
central part of the globe, comprising a large
piece of Asia and a portion of Africa, the four
rivers being the Ganges, the Tigris, the
Euphrates, and the Nile. Nay, an American
writer has been bold enough to assert that
Adam and Eve were created in a Transatlantic
Paradise. The most commonly received opinion
is, that it was situated between the confluence
and the divergence of the Euphrates and the
Tigris, two out of the four rivers which watered
the realm of Adam and Eve. This is apparently
the locality somewhat vaguely indicated by
Milton in the Fourth Book of Paradise Lost.

It should be observed that writers in general
frequently confound the terms "Eden" and
"Paradise," whereas there is a clear distinction
between them. Eden (which is a Hebrew word,
signifying "pleasure") was the most choice and
exquisite part of the world, but Paradise was
the most choice and exquisite part of Eden,
This idea of a peculiar and special seat of
pleasure is conveyed by Moses in the expression,
"the garden of Eden," which may be conceived
as the innermost sanctuary of delight and primal
loveliness. Milton, of course, preserved the
distinction:

  So on he fares, and to the border comes
   Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,
   Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
   As with a rural mound, the champain head
   Of a steep wilderness.

Paradise, then, was in the middle Eden; and
in the middle of Paradise were the Tree of Life
and the Tree of Knowledge; which gives Sir
Thomas Browne, in his Garden of Cyrus, occasion
to say, in his lofty manner, that, "whatever
was the ambient figure" of Paradise, "there
wanted not a centre and rule of decussation."
The outer wall of "the garden of Eden" is
described by Sir John Mandeville, though not on
his own authority, for he very honestly
confesses that he never saw it. "Of Paradise,"
he writes, in that spirit of child-like faith which
we half smile at and half love, "ne cannot I speak
properly; for I was not there. It is far beyond"
(that is, beyond the limit of his wanderings);
"and also I was not worthy. But what I have
heard say of wise men beyond, I shall tell you
with good will. Paradise Terrestre, as wise
men say, is the highest place of earth—that is,
in all the world; and it is so high that it
toucheth nigh to the circle of the moon. . . .
For it is so high that the flood of Noah ne might
not come to it; albeit it did cover all the earth
of the world, all ab', and aboven and beneathen,
save Paradise alone. And this Paradise is
enclosed all ab' with a wall, and men wis not
whereof it is; for the walls be covered all over
with moss, as it seemeth. And it seemeth not
that the wall is stone of nature. And that wall
stretcheth from the south to the north, and it
hath not but one entry, that is closed with fire
burning; so that no man that is mortal ne dare
not enter." A very grand and poetical account
of Paradise, as seen from afar, is given in the old
romance of Dr. Faustus, translated from the
German in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The
Doctor is on his travels with Mephistopheles,
and is standing on the summit of Mount
Caucasus:

And, as he looked towards the East, he saw a
mighty clear streak of fire coming from heaven upon
earth, even as if it had been one of the beams of the
sun. He saw in the water four mighty waters
springing: one had his course towards India, the
second towards Egypt, the third and fourth towards
Armenia. When he saw these, he would needs
know of his spirit [Mephistopheles] what waters
they were, and from whence they came: his spirit
gave him gently an answer, saying, "It is Paradise
that lyeth so far in the East—the garden that
God himself hath planted with all manner of
pleasure; and the fiery stream which thou seest is the
wall or fence of the garden; but the clear light that
thou seest afar off, that is the angel that hath the
custody thereof with a fiery sword. And, although
thou thinkest thyself to be hard by, thou art yet
further thither from hence than thou hast ever been.
The water that thou seest divided in four parts is
the water that issueth out of the well in the middle
of Paradise. The first is called Ganges, or Pison;
the second, Gihon; the third, Tigris; and the
fourth, Euphrates. Also thou seest that he [the
angel] standeth under Libra and Aries, right towards
the zenith; and upon this fiery wall standeth
the angel Michael, with his flaming sword, to keep
the Tree of Life, which he hath in charge." But the
spirit said to Faustus, "Neither thou, nor I, nor
any after us, yea, all men whatsoever are denied
to visit or come any nearer than we be." (Part i.
chap, xxiii.)

It will be seen that in this and in the passage
from Sir John Mandeville there is a mingling of
various traditions; but the fiery sword is from
the Mosaic account. Hence also Milton derives
his "brandished sword of God," which "blazed,
fierce as a comet," when, at the expulsion
of Adam and Eve,

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 throng'd, and fiery arms.

That Moses, in speaking of Eden, contemplated
the country watered by the Tigris and
the Euphrates—the land of the great city of
Babylon—is rendered probable by many
traditions lasting for ages after the time of the great
Hebrew law-giver. Not only were there a
district called Eden and a town called Paradisus
in Syria—a neighbouring country to Mesopotamia—
but in Mesopotamia itself there is a
certain region which, as late as the year 1552,
was called Eden. It is mentioned in two
Epistles of the Nestorian Christians to the
Pope, bearing date that year; and it is called
an island in the Tigris.

Sir Walter Raleigh finds in "the strange
fertility and happiness of the Babylonian soil" a
further argument that Eden must have been situated