But, shelter'd, slept in vain; for at his head

The tempter watch'd, and soon with ugly dreams
Disturb'd his sleep.

And either tropic now

'Gan thunder, and both ends of heaven; the clouds,

From many a horrid rift, abortive pour'd

Fierce rain with lightning mix'd, water with fire

In ruin reconciled: nor slept the winds
Within their stony caves, but rush'd abroad
From the four hinges of the world, and fell
On the vex'd wilderness, whose tallest pines,
Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest oaks,
Bow'd their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts,
Or torn up sheer.

Ill wast thou shrouded then,

O patient Son of God! yet only stood'st

Unshaken! Nor yet staid the terror there!
Infernal ghosts and hellish furies round

Environ'd thee; some howl'd, some yell'd, some shriek'd,
Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou
Sat'st unappall'd in calm and sinless peace.
Thus pass'd the night so foul, till morning fair
Came forth with pilgrim steps, in amice grey;
Who, with her radiant finger, still'd the roar
Of thunder, chased the clouds, and laid the winds,
And grisly spectres, which the fiend had raised

To tempt the Son of God with terrors dire.
And now the sun, with more effectual beams,
Had cheer'd the face of earth, and dried the wet
From drooping plant, or dropping tree; the birds,
Who all things now behold more fresh and green,
After a night of storm so ruinous,

Clear'd up their choicest notes in bush and spray,
To gratulate the sweet return of morn."
The exquisitely touching apostrophe-

"Ill wast thou shrouded then,

O patient Son of God!"

offers an example of the most delicate skill, in turning the description of the horrible effects of the storm into a realization of it to the reader himself, who feels as though

he were standing by the poet, looking on and listening, while the latter repeats, in tones of tenderest sympathy, to the divine sufferer, the hideous phenomena as they occur in succession, to "scare him with visions, and terrify him through dreams," as Job, the type of our tempted Redeemer, describes himself to be haunted withal. Then, what can be more sweet, reviving, and delicious than the breath, the brightness, and the beauty of the "morning fair," who, with the single motion of "her radiant finger, stills the storm, dispels the gloom, chases the clouds, and lays the winds and grisly spectres which the fiend had raised; while the birds

"Who all things now behold more fresh and green,"

burst into songs of joy, "to gratulate the sweet return of morn?"

Similar scenes and contrasts have often been painted by poets of every age and country, but a night more hideous, followed by a morn more lovely, never yet appeared in nature or in song.

Samson Agonistes, a tragedy, most elaborately composed, and on the severest Greek model, is uninviting both in its theme and treatment of it; yet the dialogues abound with sublime and pious sentiments; while, though much of the versification is harsh, and scarcely reducible to metre, the diction throughout exemplifies the full strength and affluence of the English language.

Satan's address to the sun, in Book IV. of Paradise Lost, is, deservedly, one of the most admired passages in that poem. There the arch-fiend, broken loose from hell, emerging from chaos, and, for the first time, beholding the new-created light of another world, is thereby miserably reminded of the high estate from which he had been cast down by "pride and worse ambition." In the opening of Milton's tragedy, Samson is brought out of the dungeon, and laid down upon a sunny bank, to enjoy the warmth

of the day, and the freshness of the breeze. By the way, he speaks first to his attendant, and then to himself, of his departed glory, his ignominious bondage, and his lamentable blindness. Satan and Samson thus present two most striking spectacles of angel and man, fallen, by transgression, from the loftiest eminence which either could occupy, the one in heaven, the other on earth. The contrast is awful and affecting. The fiend, racked with doubt and horror, on the threshold of his new attempt to cope with the Almighty, not in the open battle-field, by violence, but covertly, by fraud; that fiend, carrying the hell that stirs within himself into the bosom of Paradise, looks up to the sun with rage and agony, and calls him by his name, to tell him how he "hates his beams," and recoils from his splendour as that which most annoys his sense of guilt, and aggravates his fixed despair. The Hebrew champion, on the other hand, blind and bound, and captive to the Philistines, having a breathing-space from prison-labour, and equally reflecting on lost bliss, present pain, and future hopelessness, stretches out his fettered arms, lifts up his face, as the blind are wont to do, towards the light, and longs to see and bless the sun, and tell him how he loves his beams. The "archangel in eclipse" is scarcely a more magnificent being than Samson, the ruin of himself, thus cast upon the earth, and bewailing his miserable thraldom, but chiefly his loss of sight.

To contrast these two addresses of Satan and Samson with each other, and then to compare both with the poet's most touching lamentation over his own bereavement, in the opening of Book III. of Paradise Lost, will prove a deeply interesting exercise of taste, sympathy, and nice discernment, to the sensitive and intelligent reader, who will be filled with admiration at the wealth and diversity of talent unconsciously displayed by the author on three several occasions, at once so like, and so unlike each other. A parallel example of inexhaustible resources on so trite and

confined a subject, it would be difficult to quote from any other authority.

The plot of this tragedy is so artless in form and development, that it scarcely can be said to have any plot at all. Samson, as he thus sits on the sunny bank, bemoaning himself, is visited in succession by a chorus of Israelites; his father, Manoah; Harapha, a giant, ancestor of Goliath, in a later age; and by Dalilah, his betraying wife. With each of these he holds spirited, though lengthy discourse. In the sequel, being sent for by the Philistine lords, on occasion of a high festival, to make them sport, in the temple of Dagon, their idol, he gratifies them with practical proofs of his prodigious strength. During a pause, he is permitted to "lean awhile on those two massy pillars, that to the arched roof gave main support;" which, when Samson "felt in his arms, with head awhile inclined, and eyes fast fixed, he stood as one who prayed, or some great matter in his mind revolved: at last, with head erect, thus cried aloud :

Hitherto, lords, what your commands imposed

I have perform'd as reason was, obeying,
Not without wonder or delight beheld:
Now, of my own accord, such other trial

I mean to show you of my strength, yet greater,

As with amaze shall strike all who behold.""

Then follows the stupendous catastrophe, which is thus related :

"This utter'd, straining all his nerves, he bow'd:
As with the force of winds and waters pent,
When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars
With horrible convulsion to and fro

He tugg'd, he shook, till down they came, and drew
The whole roof after them with burst of thunder

Upon the heads of all who sat beneath,

Lords, ladies, captains, councillors, or priests,

Their choice nobility and flower, not only

Of this, but each Philistian city round,
Met from all parts to solemnize this feast.
Samson, with these immix'd, inevitably
Pull'd down the same destruction on himself;

The vulgar only 'scaped who stood without."

In conclusion, the characteristics of Milton's poetry shall here be summed up in words which were published, anonymously, by the present writer, more than thirty years ago, in a literary journal: "So much has been said of Milton and his genius, by critics of all manner of tastes and qualifications, principles and prejudices, that little need be added here. His merits have been irreversibly established by every test of sound judgment to assay and illustrate them, as well as by every ordeal which envy, hatred, or bigotry could invent to obscure or depreciate them. His genius was of the loftiest order, and qualified rather to command than to court admiration. The admiration, therefore, which it has obtained is rendered with less fervour than reverence, and more as homage to a sovereign than as gratitude to a benefactor. The sublimity of his invention overawed the Graces, and the severity of his taste made fiction itself as inflexible as truth. In Comus, the most brilliant, ethereal, and delightful of all his compositions, there is a dignity in the graver, and a chastened gaiety in the lighter scenes, as coldly dissimilar from the bewitching freedom and familiarity of Shakspeare in the Midsummer Night's Dream, as Sabrina and her Water Nymphs are elementally distinct from Queen Titania and her Fairies. Milton's supreme dominion lay over the mind and the imagination, and over both (in his poetry, but not in his prose) it was exercised with a moderation as marvellous as its force. When he has been displaying powers that might be deemed almost preternatural, he appears so unexhausted and vigorous, that we are ready, in applauding the triumph, to exclaim, in his own words'Yet half his strength he put not forth.'

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