Only th' impórtune Tempter still remain'd, By hunger, that each other creature tames, For no allurement yields to appetite, High actions; but wherewith to be achiev'd? Which way or from what hope dost thou aspire 404. Only th' impórtune Tempter still remain'd,] The word impórtune is often pronounced with this accent by our old writers, as Spenser, Faery Queen, b. i. cant. xii. st. 16. And often blame the too impórtune fate: and b. ii. cant. viii. st. 38. and cant. xi. st. 7. 413. unknown, unfriended, low of birth, A carpenter thy father] Such was the language of our Lord's own countrymen respecting him. Is not this the carpenter's son ? &c. Matt. xiii. 55. Hunger-bit, this word occurs in our translation of the Scriptures; Job xviii. 12. His strength shall be hungerbitten. Dunster. 405 410 415 420 419. What followers, what re- tude, &c.] Mr. Sympson and Mr. Calton propose alterations here, but we may understand the dizzy multitude as the accusative case after the verb gain, making favourable allowances for a little inaccuracy of expression. 420. Or at thy heels the dizzy multitude, Longer than thou canst feed them on thy cost ?] Non ego ventosa plebis suffragia venor Longer than thou canst feed them on thy cost? Money brings honour, friends, conquest, aud realms: What rais'd Antipater the Edomite, And his son Herod plac'd on Juda's throne, (Thy throne) but gold that got him puissant friends? 425 And the following passages are perhaps yet more parallel. Aurum per medios ire satellites, Hor. Carm. iii. 16. Hesiod. Op. et Dies, v. 311, 312. 423. What rais'd Antipater the 1 Therefore, if at great things thou would'st arrive, To whom thus Jesus patiently replied. 426. Get riches first,] Quæ- 426. Thus Euripides, Phæniss. 453. Τα χρηματ' ανθρωποισι τιμιωτατα Dunster. 429. Riches are mine, &c.] This temptation we also owe to our author's invention, and it is very happily contrived, not only as it leads the reader gradually on to those stronger ones in the following book, but as it is so justly fitted to the character of the Tempter, the prince of hell, who was supposed by all antiquity to be the king and disposer of riches. Hence was he styled Pluto from whores divitiæ. Spenser much in the same taste places the delve of Mammon close by the entrance into hell. Faery Queen, b. ii. cant. vii. st. 24. Betwixt them both was but a little stride, 430 435 That did the house of riches from hell-mouth divide. Thyer. 432. To whom thus Jesus &c.] When our Saviour, a little before, refused to partake of the banquet, to which Satan had invited him, the line run thus, ver. 378, To whom thus Jesus temp'rately replied. But now when Satan has reproached him with his poverty and low circumstances, the word is fitly altered, and the verse runs thus, To whom thus Jesus patiently replied. 439. Gideon, and Jephtha, and the shepherd lad,] Our Saviour is rightly made to cite his first instances from Scripture, and of his own nation, which was certainly the best known to him; but it is with great art that the poet also supposes him not to be unacquainted with heathen history, for the sake of introducing Whose offspring on the throne of Judah sat many ages, and shall yet regain So That seat, and reign in Israel without end. Among the Heathen, (for throughout the world a greater variety of examples. Gideon saith of himself, O my Lord, wherewith shall I save 18rael? behold my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. Judges vi. 15. And Jephtha was the son of an harlot, and his brethren thrust him out, and said unto him, Thou shalt not inherit in our father's house, for thou art the son of a strange woman. Judges xi. 1, 2. And the exaltation of David from a sheephook to a sceptre is very well known. He chose David also his servant, and took him from the sheep-folds. From following the ewes great with young, he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance. Psalm lxxviii. 70, 71. 446. Quintius, Fabricius, Curius, Regulus?] Quintius (not Quintus, as it is in most of the editions besides the first) Cincinnatus was twice invited from following the plough to be consul and dictator of Rome; and after he had subdued the enemy, when the senate would have enriched him with public lands and private contributions, he rejected all these offers, and retired again to his cottage and old course of lite. Fabricius could not be bribed by all the large offers of king Pyrrhus to aid him in ne 440 445 gociating a peace with the Romans: and yet he lived and died so poor, that he was buried at the public expence, and his daughters' fortunes were paid out of the treasury. Curius Dentatus would not accept of the lands which the senate had assigned him for the reward of his victories: and when the ambassadors of the Samnites offered him a large sum of money as he was sitting at the fire and roasting turnips with his own hands, he nobly refused to take it, saying that it was his ambition not to be rich, but to command those who were so. And Regulus, after performing many great exploits, was taken prisoner by the Carthaginians, and sent with the ambassadors to Rome to treat of peace, upon oath to return to Carthage, if no peace or exchange of prisoners should be agreed upon: but Regulus was himself the first to dissuade a peace, and chose to leave his country, family, friends, every thing, and return a glorious captive to certain tortures and death, rather than suffer the senate to conclude a dishonourable treaty. Our Saviour cites these instances of noble Romans in order of time, as he did those of his own nation. For I esteem those names of men so poor The wise man's cumbrance if not snare, more apt 4.50 455 453. Extol not riches then, &c.] Milton concludes this book and our Saviour's reply to Satan with a series of thoughts as noble and just, or, to say all in one word, as worthy of the speaker as can possibly be imagined: and I think one may venture to affirm, that as the Paradise Regained is a poem entirely moral and religious, the excellency of which does not consist so much in bold figures and strong images as in deep and virtuous sentiments expressed with a becoming gravity, and a certain decent majesty, this is as true an instance of the sublime as the battles of the Angels in the Paradise Lost. Thyer. |