His good communicable to every soul But why should man seek glory, who of his own So spake the Son of God: and here again h Of glory as thou wilt, said he, so deem; 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, & Recreant. See Spenser, "Faerie Queen," ii. vi. 28. "Thou recreant knight," to which Mr. h Worth or not worth the seeking. In all the editions which I have seen, except the first, it is printed "Worth or not iReduced a province under Roman yoke. Judea was reduced to the form of a Roman province in the reign of Augustus, by Obeys Tiberius; nor is always ruled With temperate sway: oft have they violated Retired into the desert, but with arms; 160 165 Though priests, the crown, and David's throne usurp'd, 170 If kingdom move thee not," let move thee zeal And duty; zeal and duty are not slow, But on occasion's forelock watchful wait:" The prophets old, who sung thy endless reign; With temperate sway. 3 Nor is always ruled 175 180 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. "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 Contempts, and scorns, and snares, and violence, To whom the tempter, inly rack'd, replied: Eccles. iii. 1. P And time there is for all things, Truth hath said. Sil. Ital. iv. 605: "Explorant adversa viros."-Dunster. 185 190 195 200 205 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, The lamentable change is from the best; The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then, The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst, If there be worse, the expectation more Would stand between me and thy Father's ire," 210 215 220 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, 225 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, 230 Or human nature can receive, consider, Thy life hath yet been private, most part spent Short sojourn; and what thence couldst thou observe? v From that placid aspect. 235 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 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. But I will bring thee where thou soon shalt quit The monarchies of the earth, their pomp and state; 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. 240 245 250 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 |