All these are Spirits of air, and woods, and springs, Thee homage, and acknowledge thee their Lord: When and where likes me best, I can command? And count thy specious gifts no gifts, but guiles. Chose to impart to thy apparent need, Why shouldst thou not accept it? but I see What I can do or offer is suspect; Of these things others quickly will dispose, Whose pains have earn'd the far-fet1 spoil. With that Both table and provision vanish'd quite With sound of harpies' wings and talons heard : Thou art not to be harm'd, therefore not mov'd; For no allurement yields to appetite; Which way, or from what hope, dost thou aspire Longer than thou canst feed them on thy cost? And his son Herod placed on Judah's throne, Gideon, and Jephtha, and the shepherd lad,2 'Antipater:' fact-see Josephus.-2 Shepherd lad:' David. Whose offspring on the throne of Judah sat That seat, and reign in Israel without end. For I esteem those names of men so poor, Accomplish what they did, perhaps and more? The wise man's cumbrance, if not snare; more apt Than prompt her to do aught may merit praise. What if with like aversion I reject Riches and realms? yet not, for that a crown, Brings dangers, troubles, cares, and sleepless nights, When on his shoulders each man's burden lies; His honour, virtue, merit, and chief praise, Or lawless passions in him, which he serves. C But to guide nations in the way of truth BOOK III. THE ARGUMENT. Satan, in a speech of much flattering commendation, endeavours to awaken in Jesus a passion for glory, by particularizing various instances of conquests achieved, and great actions performed, by persons at an early period of life. Our Lord replies, by showing the vanity of worldly fame, and the improper means by which it is generally attained; and contrasts with it the true glory of religious patience and virtuous wisdom, as exemplified in the character of Job. Satan justifies the love of glory from the example of God himself, who requires it from all his creatures. Jesus detects the fallacy of this argument, by showing that, as goodness is the true ground on which glory is due to the great Creator of all things, sinful Man can have no right whatever to it.-Satan then urges our Lord respecting his claim to the throne of David; he tells him that the kingdom of Judea, being at that time a province of Rome, cannot be got possession of without much personal exertion on his part, and presses him to lose no time in beginning to reign. Jesus refers him to the time allotted for this, as for all other things; and, after intimating somewhat respecting his own previous sufferings, asks Satan, why he should be so solicitous for the exaltation of one, whose rising was destined to be his fall. Satan replies, that his own desperate state, by excluding all hope, leaves little room for fear; and that, as his own punishment was equally doomed, he is not interested in preventing the reign of one, from whose apparent benevolence he might rather hope for some interference in his favour.-Satan still pursues his former incitements; and, supposing that the seeming reluctance of Jesus to be thus advanced might arise from his being unacquainted with the world and its glories, conveys him to the summit of a high mountain, and from thence shows him most of the kingdoms of Asia, particularly pointing out to his notice some extraordinary military preparations of the Parthians to resist the incursions of the Scythians. He then informs our Lord, that he showed him this purposely, that he might see how necessary military exertions are to retain the possession of kingdoms, as well as to subdue them at first; and advises him to consider how impossible it was to maintain Judea against two such powerful neighbours as the Romans and Parthians, and how necessary it would be to form an alliance with one or other of them. At the same time he recommends, and engages to secure to him, that of the Parthians; and tells him that by this means his power will be defended from any thing that Rome or Cæsar might attempt against it, and that he will be able to extend his glory wide, and especially to accomplish, what was particularly necessary to make the throne of Judea really the throne of David, the deliverance and restoration of the |