All treasures and all gain esteem as dross", Who all pleasures else despise, All treasures and all gain esteem as dross. T:s Spenser, in the conclusion of his “Hymn of Heavenly Love:”— And Men his Verses on Time :”— Which is no more than what is false and vain, Thy years, &c. Our Saviour's temptation was soon after his baptism; and he was baptized when he was about thirty years of age," Lake in. 23.-NEWTON. At his dispose. Shakspeare writes "dispose" for disposal, K. John, a. i. s. 3. “Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose."-DUNSTER. 1 Young Pompey quell'd The Pontis king, and in triumph haid rode. In this instance our author is not so exact as in the rest; for when Pompey was sent to commard the war in Asia against Mithridates king of Pontus, he was above forty, but had signalised himself by many extraord nary actions in his younger years, and had obtained the honour of two triumphs before that time.-NEWTON. 1.pt that he had lived so long Inglorious. when Alluding to a story related of Julius Caesar, that, one day reading the History of Alexder, he sat a great while very thoughtful, and at last burst into tears; and his friends wi dering at the reason of it; “Do you not think,” said he, “ I have just cause to weep, I consider that Alexander at my age had conquered so many nations, and I have all this thne done nothing that is memorable?" See Plutarch's "Life of Casar."-NEWTON. "Inglorious" here is Virgil's inglorius, i. e. insensible to the charms of glory," Georg." | ii. 485: Rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes: 1 Thou neither dost persuade me, &c. How admirably does Milton in this speech expose the emptiness and uncertainty of a popular character; and found true glory upon its only basis, the approbation of the God of Truth!-THYER. The people's praise ", if always praise unmix'd? And what the people but a herd confused, A miscellaneous rabble, who extol Things vulgar", and, well weigh'd, scarce worth the praise? They praise, and they admire, they know not what, And know not whom, but as one leads the other; 50 And what delight to be by such extoll'd, To live upon their tongues, and be their talk, When to extend his fame through heaven and earth, m The people's praise, &c. 53 60 65 We may compare with this and some of the following lines the 31st stanza of Giles Fletcher's "Christ's Triumph over Death :”— Frail multitude! whose giddy law is list, Most like the breath of which it doth consist, No sooner blown but as soon vanishing, As much desired as little profiting, That makes the men that have it oft as light As those that give it.-DUNSTER. And what the people but a herd confused, A miscellaneous rabble, who extol Things vulgar, &c. These lines are certainly no proof of a democratic disposition in our author.-Dunster. • His lot who dares be singularly good. Dr. Newton conjectures that Milton might here allude to himself, "who dared to be as singular in his opinions and in his conduct as any man whatever." But the language of the poet in this place is perhaps only classical, as it might well have been suggested by Horace, Ep. 1. ii. 40 :— Sapere aude; Incipe: vivendi recte qui prorogat horam, Rusticus expectat dum defluit amnis.-DUNSTER. P And glory scarce of few is raised. "Gloriam latius fusam intelligo; consensum enim multorum exigit. Quid intersit inter claritatem et gloriam dicam; gloria multorum judiciis constat, claritas bonorum." Senec. Epist. 102.-DUNSTER. 4 This is true glory and renown, &c. Here is a glory that is solid and substantial, " expressa," as Tully says, non adumbrata" and that will endure, when all the records and memorials of human pride are perished.-CALTON. • When God, Looking on the earth, with approbation marks The just man. "Ecce spectaculum dignum, ad quod respiciat intentus operi suo Deus!" Seneca, “De Providentia," 2. This celebrated passage of Seneca the amiably affectionate biographer of Milton applies to the principles and the afflictions of our author. Hayley, "Life of Milton," p. 225.-Dunster. He ask'd thee,-Hast thou seen my servant Job? To things not glorious, men not worthy of fame. Where glory is false glory, attributed To things not glorious, men not worthy of fame. True glory, Tully says, is the praise of good men, the echo of virtue: but that ape of glory, the random injudicious applause of the multitude, is often bestowed upon the worst of actions. "Tusc. Disp." iii. 2. When Tully wrote his " Tusculan Disputations," Julius Cæsar had overturned the constitution of his country, and was then in the height of his power; and Pompey had lost his life in the same pursuit of glory.-CALTON. They err, who count it glorious to subdue Here might be an allusion intended to Louis XIV., who at this time began to disturb Europe; and whose vanity and ambition were gratified by titles, such as are here mentioned from his numerous parasites. We may here compare "Paradise Lost," b. xi. 691, &c. And again, ver. 789, &c. of the same book.-DUNSTER. u What do these worthies, But rob, and spoil, &c. Thus Drummond, in his "Shadow of the Judgment:" All live on earth by spoil: Who most can ravage, rob, ransack, blaspheme, Is held most virtuous, hath a worthy's name. Milton's description of the ravages of conquerors may have been copied from some of the accounts of the barbarous nations that invaded Rome. Ovid describes the Getæ thus spoiling, robbing, slaying, enslaving, and burning, Trist. 111. El. x. 55, &c.—Dunster. Who leave behind Nothing but ruin. Thus, Joel, ii. 3. "The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness."-DUNSTER. w And must be titled gods, Great benefactors of mankind, deliverers. The second Antiochus, king of Syria, was called Antiochus eós, or "the God." The Athenians gave Demetrius Poliorcetes, and his father Antigonus, the titles of Evepyétai, benefactors; and Zwrñpes, deliverers.—CALTON. x One is the son of Jove, of Mars the other. Alexander is particularly intended by the one, and Romulus by the other; who, though better than Alexander, founded his empire in the blood of his brother, and for his overgrown tyranny was at last destroyed by his own senate.-NEWTON. Rolling in brutish vices, and deform'd', It may by means far different be attain'd, By deeds of peace, by wisdom eminent, Him, whom thy wrongs, with saintly patience borne, Who names not now with honour patient Job? Poor Socrates, (who next more memorable ?) See" Comus," ver. 77. Y Rolling in brutish vices, and deform'd. To roll with pleasure in a sensual stye." Compare also " Par. Lost," b. xi. 516. Themselves they vilified To serve ungovern'd appetite; and took His image whom they served, a brutish vice, &c.-TODD. By patience, temperance. In allusion to St. Peter's combination, 2 Pet. i. 6. and to temperance patience."-TODD. a Poor Socrates, &c. "Add to knowledge temperance, Milton here does not scruple, with Erasmus, to place Socrates in the foremost rank of saints; an opinion more amiable at least, and agreeable to that spirit of love which breathes in the Gospel, than the severe orthodoxy of those rigid textuaries who are unwilling to allow salvation to the moral virtues of the heathen.—THYER. b Equal in fame to proudest conquerours. Among the various beauties which adorn this truly divine poem, the most distinguishable and captivating feature of excellence is the character of Christ: this is so finely drawn, that we can scarcely forbear applying to it the language of Quintilian respecting the Olympian Jupiter of the famous scupltor Phidias; "cujus pulchritudo adjecisse aliquid etiam receptæ religioni videatur, adeo majestas operis Deum æquavit." 1. xii. c. 10. It is observed by Mr. Hayley, that as in "Paradise Lost" the poet seems to emulate the sublimity of Moses and the prophets, it appears to have been his wish in the "Paradise Regained" to copy the sweetness and simplicity of the Evangelists. The great object of this second poem seems in feed to be the exemplification of true evangelical virtue, in the person and sentiments of our blessed Lord. From the beginning of the third book to ver. 363 of the next, practical Christianity, thus personified, is contrasted with the boasted pretensions of the heathen world, in its zenith of power, splendour, civilization, and knowledge; the several claims of which are fully stated, with much ornament of language and poetic decoration. After an exordium of flattering commendation addressed to our Lord, the tempter opens his progressive display of heathen excellence with an eulogy on glory (ver. 25), which is so intrinsically beautiful, that it may be questioned whether any Roman orator or poet ever so eloquently and concisely defended the ambition of heroism: the judgment of the author may also be noticed (ver. 31, &c.) in the selection of his heroes; two of whom, Alexander and Scipio, he has before introduced (b. ii. 166, 199,) as examples of continency and selfdenial: in short, the first speech of Satan opens the cause, for which he pleads, with all the art becoming his character. In our Lord's reply, the false glory of worldly fame is stated with energetic briefness, and is opposed by the true glory of obedience to the divine commands. The usual modes of acquiring glory in the heathen world, and the intolerable vanity and pride with which it was claimed and enjoyed, are next most forcibly depicted; and are finely contrasted with those means of acquiring honour and reputation, which are innocent and beneficial: But if there be in glory aught of good, Yet he fame and glory aught be done, mums for different be attain'd, 4 In this, war, or violence; Costs 7peare, by wish an eminent, 3. pab., zemi perance. been a species of beauty, which distinguishes Virgil's ühe anabe bemes of benevolence and peace, whom he places in Elysium, was defenders of their country, “En." vi. PAUL COMUNSON để the seeeh in beronal character of another kind is opposed to the a beathen, surpassed them all in true wisdom ann was he character of Socrates, such his reliance on Divine that he seems to irre imbibed his sentiments - sing:" ani while his demeanour eminently e vines, his language often approaches neater The artful sophistry of the tempter's Let's majiny p'a'n confutation of his arguments in od on which gory and honour are due to the are both admirable. The rest of the with the best effect, in the concluding speech, of his conduct, in which the dignity of the The Son of M n seldom ** appears less than an archa theinen ating art and sleek & tongue" of this grand alyistrative of this double character: the えない HINNAGE "elintat n then going on, and which paves the Way Ńe the onsdag change ii sete, as managed with the Lappiest address,—Dunster. The shore many that he had so ken Noire of the elder Scipio Africanus; for he only ein je sad vi bevoren ta hare mireed his wisted country from Puniek rage,” by trane forming the war into Sun and Ara, sfer the ravages which Hannibal had committed in Tay during the second Pane war.—NEWTON, There is nothing throughout the whe poem more expressive of the true character of the tempter than this reply: there is in it all the real falsehood of the father of lies, and the glozing subtlety of an insidious deceiver.-THYER. |
