Sharp fleet of arrowy showers against the face His daughter, sought by many prowest knights, That thou may'st know I seek not to engage On no slight grounds thy safety; hear, and mark, Thou never shalt obtain; prediction still In all things, and all men, supposes means; ''Agrican,' &c.: fabled heroes of romance; see Boiardo's 'Orlando Innamorato.' Without means used, what it predicts revokes. Between two such enclosing enemies, Roman and Parthian? Therefore one of these Thou must make sure thy own; the Parthian first Thy country, and captive lead away her kings, Maugre the Roman: It shall be my task To whom our Saviour answer'd thus unmov'd. And fragile arms, much instrument of war, ''Antigonus,' &c.: see Josephus.-Habor:' see 2 Kings xviii. 11. Long in preparing, soon to nothing brought, David's true heir, and his full scepter sway To just extent over all Israel's sons. But whence to thee this zeal? Where was it then For Israel, or for David, or his throne, When thou stood'st up his tempter to the pride Besides their other worse than heathenish crimes; Humbled themselves, or penitent besought Impenitent, and left a race behind Headlong would follow; and to their Gods perhaps Yet he at length (time to himself best known), So spake Israel's true King, and to the Fiend ''Assyrian flood' i. e., Euphrates. See Rev. xvi. 12. D BOOK IV. THE ARGUMENT. Satan, persisting in the temptation of our Lord, shows him Imperial Rome in its greatest pomp and splendour, as a power which he probably would prefer before that of the Parthians; and tells him that he might with the greatest ease expel Tiberius, restore the Romans to their liberty, and make himself master not only of the Roman Empire, but, by so doing, of the whole world, and inclusively of the throne of David. Our Lord, in reply, expresses his contempt of grandeur and worldly power; notices the luxury, vanity, and profligacy of the Romans, declaring how little they merited to be restored to that liberty, which they had lost by their misconduct, and briefly refers to the greatness of his own future kingdom. Satan, now desperate, to enhance the value of his proffered gifts, professes that the only terms on which he will bestow them, are our Saviour's falling down and worshipping him. Our Lord expresses a firm but temperate indignation at such a proposition, and rebukes the Tempter by the title of "Satan for ever damned." Satan, abashed, attempts to justify himself: he then assumes a new ground of temptation, and, proposing to Jesus the intellectual gratifications of wisdom and knowledge, points out to him the celebrated seat of ancient learning, Athens, its schools, and other various resorts of learned teachers and their disciples; accompanying the view with a highly-finished panegyric on the Grecian musicians, poets, orators, and philosophers of the different sects. Jesus replies, by showing the vanity and insufficiency of the boasted Heathen philosophy, and prefers to the music, poetry, eloquence, and didactic policy of the Greeks, those of the inspired Hebrew writers. Satan, irritated at the failure of all his attempts, upbraids the indiscretion of our Saviour in rejecting his offers; and, having, in ridicule of his expected kingdom, foretold the sufferings that our Lord was to undergo, carries him back into the wilderness, and leaves him there. Night comes on: Satan raises a tremendous storm, and attempts further to alarm Jesus with frightful dreams, and terrific threatening spectres; which, however, have no effect upon him. A calm, bright, beautiful morning succeeds to the horrors of the night. Satan again presents himself to our blessed Lord, and, from noticing the storm of the preceding night as pointed chiefly at him, takes occasion once more to insult him with an account of the sufferings which he was certainly to undergo. This only draws from our Lord a brief rebuke. Satan, now at the height of his desperation, confesses that he had frequently watched Jesus from his birth, purposely to discover if he was the true Messiah; and, collecting from what passed at the river Jordan that he most probably was so, he had from that time more assiduously followed him, in hopes of gaining |