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His good communicable to every soul
Freely; of whom what could he less expect
Than glory and benediction, that is, thanks,
The slightest, easiest, readiest recompense
From them who could return him nothing else;
And, not returning that, would likeliest render
Contempt instead, dishonour, obloquy?
Hard recompense, unsuitable return
For so much good, so much beneficence!

But why should man seek glory, who of his own
Hath nothing, and to whom nothing belongs,
But condemnation, ignominy, and shame?
Who, for so many benefits received,
Turn'd recreants to God, ingrate and false,
And so of all true good himself despoil'd:
Yet, sacrilegious, to himself would take
That which to God alone of right belongs:
Yet so much bounty is in God, such grace;
That who advance his glory, not their own,
Them he himself to glory will advance.

So spake the Son of God: and here again
Satan had not to answer, but stood struck
With guilt of his own sin; for he himself,
Insatiable of glory, had lost all:
Yet of another plea bethought him soon.

h

Of glory as thou wilt, said he, so deem;
Worth or not worth the seeking, let it pass.
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,1

f The slightest, easiest, readiest, recompense.

The same sentiment occurs in the "Paradise Lost," b. iv. 46 :-

What could be less than to afford him praise,
The easiest recompense, and pay him thanks?
How due!-NEWTON.

& Recreant.

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See Spenser, "Faerie Queen," ii. vi. 28. "Thou recreant knight," to which Mr.
Dunster refers; where Mr. Warton has observed that "recreant knight" is a term of
romance. The phrase means not only one who yields himself to his enemy in single
combat, but a coward and a traitor.-TODD.

h Worth or not worth the seeking.

In all the editions which I have seen, except the first, it is printed "Worth or not
worth their seeking;" but, not knowing to whom "their" could refer, imagined it
should be "Worth or not worth thy seeking :" but the first edition exhibits this
reading, "Worth or not worth the seeking," as Mr. Simpson proposed to read by con-
jecture.-NEWTON.

iReduced a province under Roman yoke.

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

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 Maccabeus: he indeed

Retired into the desert, but with arms;

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

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If kingdom move thee not," 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
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;

With temperate sway.

3 Nor is always ruled

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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.

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"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.

n 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 of his Father's house, when he drove the buyers and sellers out of the temple.-DUN

STER.

And time there is for all things, Truth hath said.r
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.
What if he hath decreed that I shall first
Be tried in humble state, and things adverse,"
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 s
Solicitous? What moves thy inquisition?
Know'st thou not that my rising is thy fall,t
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:"

Eccles. iii. 1.
Acts i. 7.

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

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Here probably the author remembered Cicero:-"Qui bene imperat, paruerit aliquando necesse est; et qui modeste paret, videtur, qui aliquando imperet, dignus esse." De Leg. iii. 2. 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.

a 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!

Farewell, remorse! All good to me is lost:

Evil, be thou my good!-THYER.

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 this 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.

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,

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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.

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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,

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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!

No wonder; for, though in thee be united

What of perfection can in man be found,

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Or human nature can receive, consider,

Thy life hath yet been private, most part spent
At home, scarce view'd the Galilean towns,
And once a year Jerusalem, few days'

Short sojourn; and what thence couldst thou observe?
The world thou hast not seen, much less her glory,
Empires, and monarchs, and their radiant courts,
Best school of best experience, quickest insight

v From that placid aspect.

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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, Psal. evi. 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.

y And once a year Jerusalem. At the feast of the passover. Luke ii. 41.-NEWTON.

In all things that to greatest actions lead.
The wisest, unexperienced, will be ever
Timorous and loth, with novice modesty,
(As he who, secking asses, found a kingdom")
Irresolute, unhardy, unadventurous :

But I will bring thee where thou soon shalt quit
Those rudiments, and see before thine eyes

The monarchies of the earth, their pomp and state;
Sufficient introduction to inform

Thee, of thyself so apt, in regal arts

How best their opposition to withstand.

And regal mysteries; that thou mayst know

With that, (such power was given him then) he took

The Son of God up to a mountain high.

C

It was a mountain, at whose verdant feet

z As he who, seeking asses, found a kingdom.

Saul. See 1 Sam. ix. 20, 21.-NEWTON.

a But I will bring thee.

The artifice of this turn is sublime.

b He took.

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b

The poet now quits mere dialogue for that "union of the narrative and dramatic powers," which Dr. Johnson, speaking of this poem, observes, "must ever be more pleasing than a dialogue without action." The description of the "specular mount," where our Lord is placed to view at once the whole Parthian empire, at the same time that it is truly poetical, is so accurately given, that we are enabled to ascertain the exact part of Mount Taurus, which the poet had in his mind. The geographical scene from ver. 268 to 292, is delineated with a precision that brings each place immediately before our eyes, and, as Dr. Newton remarks, far surpasses the prospect of the kingdoms of the world from "the mount of vision," in the eleventh book of the "Paradise Lost." The military expedition of the Parthians, from ver. 300 to 336, is a picture in the boldest and most masterly style. It is so perfectly unique in its kind, that I know not where in poetry, ancient or modern, to go for anything materially resembling it. The fifteenth book of Tasso's "Jerusalem," &c. (where the two Christian knights who are sent in search of Rinaldo see a great part of the habitable world, and are shown a numerous camp of their enemies), does not appear to have furnished a single idea to our author, either in his geographical or his military scene.-DUNSTER.

c It was a mountain, &c.

The part of Mount Taurus, which bounds Mesopotamia on the north, we learn from Strabo, was sometimes called simply Mount Taurus, and sometimes the Gordyæan mountains; in the middle of which, nearly above Nisibis, stood Mount Masius: but this mountainous range does not contain the sources either of the Euphrates or Tigris; although from every part of it lesser contributary streams flow into each of these rivers. In the passage cited by Dr. Newton from Strabo, tovo signifies only that the two rivers flow through, or amongst, these mountains; and not that they spring, or have their sources, in them. That such is here the sense of péovov, appears from another passage of the same ancient geographer in this part of his work; where, having traced the course of Mount Taurus eastward to the Euphrates, he speaks of the continuity of these mountains being no farther interrupted than by the course of the river as it flows through the middle of them. Indeed Strabo is very particular in pointing out the original sources of these two rivers. The springs of the Tigris he fixes in the southern side of Mount Niphates, which is considerably north-east of Mount Masius and the Gordyæan mountains; and the prime source of the Euphrates he carries very far north, as Ptolemy had also done; and affirms that the springs of the two rivers are two thousand five hundred stadia, which is above four hundred miles, distant from each other. Possibly there is some error here; as Eustathius (on Dionysius, v. 985) says they are only one thousand five hundred stadia apart. As the mountains which constitute the head or northern boundary of Mesopotamia incline to the south, and are absolutely the most southern part of the whole ancient Taurus, the lower end of Mount Amanus alone excepted; they are justly described by Strabo, vortúraTov; and why Dr. Newton should

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