Ambitious Spirit! and would'st be thought my God;
And storm'st refused, thinking to terrify

Me to thy will! Desist, thou art discern'd,
And toil'st in vain, nor me in vain molest."
To whom the Fiend now swoln with rage replied:

"Then hear, O Son of David, virgin-born,
For Son of God to me is yet in doubt,
Of the Messiah I have heard foretold

500

By all the Prophets; of thy birth, at length
Announced by Gabriel, with the first I knew,
And of the angelic song in Bethlehem field,
On thy birth-night, that sung thee Saviour born.
From that time seldom have I ceased to eye
Thy infancy, thy childhood, and thy youth,
Thy manhood last, though yet in private bred;

Till at the ford of Jordan, whither all

510

Flock'd to the Baptist, I among the rest,

Though not to be baptized, by voice from Heaven
Heard thee pronounced the Son of God beloved.
Thenceforth I thought thee worth my nearer view
And narrower scrutiny, that I might learn
In what degree or meaning thou art called
The Son of God, which bears no single sense.

The Son of God I also am, or was;

And if I was, I am; relation stands:

All men are Sons of God; yet thee I thought
In some respect far higher so declared.
Therefore I watch'd thy footsteps from that hour,
And follow'd thee still on to this waste wild,
Where by all best conjectures I collect

Thou art to be my fatal enemy.

Good reason then if I beforehand seek

To understand my adversary, who

And what he is; his wisdom, power, intent;
By parle or composition, truce or league
To win him, or win from him what I can.

And opportunity I here have had
To try thee, sift thee, and confess have found thee

Proof against all temptation, as a rock

Of adamant, and as a centre, firm

520

530

To the utmost of mere man both wise and good,
Not more; for honours, riches, kingdoms, glory,
Have been before contemn'd, and may again.
Therefore, to know what more thou art than man,
Worth naming Son of God by voice from Heaven,
Another method I must now begin."

So saying, he caught him up, and without wing
Of hippogrif bore through the air sublime
Over the wilderness and o'er the plain,
Till underneath them fair Jerusalem,
The Holy City, lifted high her towers,
And higher yet the glorious Temple rear'd
Her pile, far off appearing like a mount
Of alabaster, topt with golden spires:
There on the highest pinnacle he set
The Son of God, and added thus in scorn:

540

550

"There stand, if thou wilt stand; to stand upright Will ask thee skill. I to thy Father's house Have brought thee, and highest placed: highest is best. Now shew thy progeny; if not to stand,

Cast thyself down; safely, if Son of God;
For it is written, 'He will give command
Concerning thee to his Angels; in their hands

They shall uplift thee, lest at any time

Thou chance to dash thy foot against a stone.'"
To whom thus Jesus: "Also it is written,
'Tempt not the Lord thy God." He said, and stood;
But Satan, smitten with amazement, fell.
As when Earth's son, Antæus (to compare
Small things with greatest), in Irassa strove
With Jove's Alcides, and oft foil'd still rose,
Receiving from his mother Earth new strength,
Fresh from his fall, and fiercer grapple join'd,
Throttled at length in the air expired and fell,
So after many a foil the Tempter proud,
Renewing fresh assaults, amidst his pride
Fell whence he stood to see his victor fall;
And as that Theban monster that proposed
Her riddle, and him who solved it not devour'd,
That once found out and solved, for grief and spite

Cast herself headlong from the Ismenian steep,
So strook with dread and anguish fell the Fiend,
And to his crew, that sat consulting, brought
Joyless triumphals of his hoped success,

Ruin, and desperation, and dismay,
Who durst so proudly tempt the Son of God.
So Satan fell, and straight a fiery globe
Of Angels on full sail of wing flew nigh,
Who on their plumy vans received Him soft
From his uneasy station, and upbore

As on a floating couch through the blithe air;
Then in a flowery valley set him down
On a green bank, and set before him spread
A table of celestial food, divine
Ambrosial fruits fetch'd from the Tree of Life,
And from the Fount of Life ambrosial drink,
That soon refresh'd him wearied, and repair'd
What hunger, if aught hunger had impaird,
Or thirst; and as he fed Angelic quires
Sung heavenly anthems of his victory
Over temptation and the Tempter proud:

"True Image of the Father, whether throned
In the bosom of bliss, and light of light
Conceiving, or remote from Heaven, enshrined
In fleshly tabernacle and human form,
Wandering the Wilderness, whatever place,
Habit, or state, or motion, still expressing
The Son of God, with Godlike force endued
Against the attempter of thy Father's throne
And thief of Paradise! Him long of old
Thou didst debel, and down from Heaven cast
With all his army; now thou hast avenged

580

590

600

Supplanted Adam, and, by vanquishing
Temptation, hast regain'd lost Paradise,
And frustrated the conquest fraudulent.

He never more henceforth will dare set foot

610

In Paradise to tempt; his snares are broke.
For, though that seat of earthly bliss be fail'd,

A fairer Paradise is founded now

For Adam and his chosen sons, whom thou

A Saviour art come down to reinstall;
Where they shall dwell secure, when time shall be,
Of tempter and temptation without fear.
But thou, Infernal Serpent! shalt not long
Rule in the clouds. Like an autumnal star
Or lightning thou shalt fall from Heaven, trod down
Under his feet. For proof, ere this thou feel'st
Thy wound, yet not thy last and deadliest wound,
By this repulse received, and hold'st in Hell
No triumph; in all her gates Abaddon rues
Thy bold attempt. Hereafter learn with awe
To dread the Son of God. He all unarm'd
Shall chase thee with the terror of his voice
From thy demoniac holds, possession foul,
Thee and thy legions; yelling they shall fly,
And beg to hide them in a herd of swine,
Lest he command them down into the Deep,
Bound, and to torment sent before their time.
Hail, Son of the Most High, heir of both Worlds,
Queller of Satan! On thy glorious work
Now enter, and begin to save Mankind."

Thus they the Son of God, our Saviour meek,
Sung victor, and from heavenly feast refresh'd
Brought on his way with joy. He unobserved
Home to his mother's house private return'd.

SAMSON AGONISTES.

OF THAT SORT OF DRAMATIC POEM WHICH
IS CALLED TRAGEDY.

TRAGEDY, as it was anciently composed, hath been ever held the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other poems: therefore said by Aristotle to be of power, by raising pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and such-like passions; that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, stirred up by reading or seeing those passions well imitated. Nor is Nature wanting in her own effects to make good his assertion; for so in physic things of melancholic hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humours. Hence philosophers and other gravest writers, as Cicero, Plutarch, and others, frequently cite out of tragic poets, both to adorn and illustrate their discourse. The Apostle Paul himself thought it not unworthy to insert a verse of Euripides into the text of Holy Scripture, 1 Cor. xv. 33; and Paræus, commenting on the Revelation, divides the whole book as a tragedy, into acts, distinguished each by a Chorus of heavenly harpings and song between. Heretofore men in highest dignity have laboured not a little to be thought able to compose a tragedy. Of that honour Dionysius the elder was no less ambitious than before of his attaining to the tyranny. Augustus Cæsar also had begun his Ajax, but unable to please his own judgment with what he had begun, left it unfinished. Seneca, the philosopher, is by some thought the author of those tragedies (at least the best of them) that go under that name. Gregory Nazianzen, a Father of the Church, thought it not unbeseeming the sanctity of his person to write a tragedy, which he entitled Christ Suffering. This is mentioned to vindicate Tragedy from the small esteem, or rather infamy, which in the account of many it undergoes at this day, with other common interludes; happening through the poet's error of intermixing comic stuff with tragic sadness and gravity; or introducing trivial and vulgar persons: which by all judicious hath been counted absurd, and brought in without discretion, corruptly to gratify the people. And though ancient Tragedy use no Prologue, yet using sometimes, in case of self-defence, or explana