But to a kingdom thou art born, ordain'd
To sit upon thy father David's throne,

By mother's side thy father; though thy right
Be now in powerful hands, that will not part
Easily from possession won with arms:
Judea now and all the Promised Land,
Reduced a province under Roman yoke i,
Obeys Tiberius; nor is always ruled

With temperate sway: oft have they violated
The temple, oft the law, with foul affronts,
Abominations rather, as did once

Antiochus and think'st thou to regain
Thy right, by sitting still, or thus retiring?
So did not Maccabeus1: he indeed
Retired into the desert, but with arms;

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And o'er a mighty king so oft prevail'd,

That by strong hand his family obtain'd,

Though priests, the crown, and David's throne usurp'd,
With Modin and her suburbs once content.

If kingdom move thee not m, let move thee zeal

And duty; zeal and duty are not slow,

But on occasion's forelock watchful wait":
They themselves rather are occasion best ;
Zeal of thy father's house, duty to free

iReduced a province under Roman yoke.

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Judea was reduced to the form of a Roman province in the reign of Augustus, by Cyrenius, then governor of Syria.-NEWTON.

Nor is always ruled
With temperate sway.

:

The Roman government indeed was not always the most temperate at this time Pontius Pilate was procurator of Judea; and, it appears from history, was a most corrupt and flagitious governor.-NEWTON.

The temple, &c.

Oft have they violated

Pompey, with several of his officers, entered not only into the holy place, but also penetrated into the holy of holies, where none were permitted by the law to enter except the high-priest alone, once in a year, on the great day of expiation. Antiochus Epiphanes had before been guilty of a similar profanation. See 2 Maccab. ch. v.-NEWTON.

1 So did not Maccabeus, &c.

The tempter had noticed the profanation of the temple by the Romans, as well as that by Antiochus Epiphanes, king of Syria; and now he would infer, that Jesus was to blame for not vindicating his country against the one, as Judas Maccabeus had done against the other.-NEWTON.

m If kingdom move thee not.

"Kingdom" here, like regnum in Latin, signifies kingly state, the circumstances of regal power; or, as our author in his political works writes, kingship.-DUNSTER.

"But on occasion's forelock watchful wait.

Spenser personifies Occasion, as an old hag, with a gray forelock, "Faer. Qu." II. iv. 4. Spenser likewise, Sonnet 70, gives Time the same forelock. Shakspeare, in his "Othello," has "to take the safest occasion by the front." The Greek and Latin poets also describe occasion, i. e. time or opportunity, with a forelock.-DUNSTER.

• Zeal of thy father's house.

Psalm lxix. 9: "For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up;" which passage is applied in the New Testament, John ii. 17, to the zeal of our Lord for the honour

Thy country from her heathen servitude.
So shalt thou best fulfil, best verify

The prophets old, who sung thy endless reign;
The happier reign, the sooner it begins:

Reign then; what canst thou better do the while?
To whom our Saviour answer thus return'd:
All things are best fulfill'd in their due time;
And time there is for all things, Truth hath said P.
If of my reign Prophetick Writ hath told,
That it shall never end; so, when begin,
The Father in his purpose hath decreed;
He, in whose hand all times and seasons roll 9.
What if he hath decreed that I shall first

Be tried in humble state, and things adverseTM,
By tribulations, injuries, insults,
Contempts, and scorns, and snares, and violence,
Suffering, abstaining, quietly expecting,
Without distrust or doubt, that he may know
What I can suffer, how obey? Who best
Can suffer, best can do; best reign, who first
Well hath obey'd; just trial, ere I merit
My exaltation without change or end.
But what concerns it thee, when I begin
My everlasting kingdom? Why art thou
Solicitous? What moves thy inquisition?
Know'st thou not that my rising is thy fall,
And my promotion will be thy destruction?

To whom the tempter, inly rack'd, replied:
Let that come when it comes; all hope is lost
Of my reception into grace: what worse?
For where no hope is left, is left no fear ":

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of his Father's house, where he drove the buyers and sellers out of the temple.DUNSTER.

Eccles. iii. 1.
Acts i. 7.

P And time there is for all things, Truth hath said.

He, in whose hand all times and seasons roll.

Be tried in humble state, and things adverse.

Sil. Ital. iv. 605: "Explorant adversa viros."-Dunster.

Here probably the aliquando necesse est; esse. De Leg. iii. 2.

Well hath obey'd.

Best reign, who first

author remembered Cicero :-"Qui bene imperat, paruerit et qui modeste paret, videtur, qui aliquando imperet, dignus The same sentiment occurs in Aristotle, "Polit." iii. 4, vii. 14; and in Plato, "De Leg." vi.-Newton.

t Know'st thou not that my rising is thy fall.

Alluding to the rising and setting of opposite stars. Milton, in the first book of this poem, terms our Lord "our Morning-star, then in his rise."--Dunster.

"For where no hope is left, is left no fear.

Milton here, and in some of the following verses, plainly alludes to part of Satan's fine soliloquy, in the beginning of the fourth book of the "Paradise Lost :"

So farewell, hope; and, with hope, farewell, fear!

D D

If there be worse, the expectation more
Of worse torments me than the feeling can.
I would be at the worst: worst is my port,
My harbour, and my ultimate repose:
The end I would attain, my final good.
My errour was my errour, and my crime
My crime; whatever, for itself condemn'd;
And will alike be punish'd, whether thou
Reign or reign not; though to that gentle brow
Willingly I could fly, and hope thy reign,
From that placid aspect and meek regard,
Rather than aggravate my evil state,

Would stand between me and thy Father's ire",
(Whose ire I dread more than the fire of hell)
A shelter, and a kind of shading cool
Interposition, as a summer's cloud *.

If I then to the worst that can be haste,

Why move thy feet so slow to what is best,

Happiest, both to thyself and all the world,

That thou, who worthiest art, shouldst be their king?
Perhaps thou linger'st, in deep thoughts detain'd

Of the enterprise so hazardous and high!

Farewell, remorse! All good to me is lost:

Evil, be thou my good!-THYER.

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The reasoning of the tempter, in this passage, closely resembles that of Edgar, in King Lear;" one of those tragedies, "though rare," which, in Milton's judgment, "ennobled hath the buskin'd stage."

Edgar thus comments upon his lot :

To be worst,

The lowest, and most dejected thing of fortune,
Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear:

The lamentable change is from the best;

The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then,

Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace!

The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst,
Owes nothing to thy blasts.

▾ From that placid aspect.

Spenser, Shakspeare, and the poets of that time, I believe, uniformly wrote "aspéct,” thus accented on the second syllable; as Milton has likewise always done in his "Paradise Lost."-DUNSTER.

w Would stand between me and thy father's ire.

Milton, in his Ode "On the Death of a fair Infant," has a similar expression, st. x. ; "To stand 'twixt us and our deserved smart."-DUNSTER.

In both instances the poet alludes to the Sacred Writings. See Numb. xvi. 48, Psalm. cvi. 23, Wisdom of Sol. xviii. 23.-TODD.

A kind of shading cool
Interposition, as a summer's cloud.

In the twenty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, as Mr. Dunster also observes, the prophet, addressing God, terms him "a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy from his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat :" and, in the next verse, the interposition of God is illustrated by the simile which the poet uses: "Thou shalt bring down the noise of strangers, as the heat in a dry place; even the heat with the shadow of a cloud."-TODD.

The whole of this passage, with the appeal to our Saviour's goodness, though meant as artful flattery, is in the highest degree beautiful, affecting, and eloquent. The simile with which it ends is exquisitely poetical.