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النشر الإلكتروني

I shall, thou say'st, expel

And studs of pearl; to me shouldst tell, who thirst
And hunger still. Then embassies thou show'st
From nations far and nigh: what honour that,
But tedious waste of time, to sit and hear
So many hollow compliments and lies,
Outlandish flatteries? Then proceed'st to talk
Of the emperour, how easily subdued,
How gloriously
A brutish monster; what if I withal
Expel a Devil who first made him such?
Let his tormenter conscience find him out;
For him I was not sent; nor yet to free
That people, victor once, now vile and base;
Deservedly made vassal; who, once just,
Frugal, and mild, and temperate, conquer'd well,
But govern ill the nations under yoke,
Peeling their provinces, exhausted all
By lust and rapine; first ambitious grown
Of triumph, that insulting vanity;

Then cruel, by their sports to blood inur'd
Of fighting beasts, and men to beasts expos'd;
Luxurious by their wealth, and greedier still,
And from the daily scene effeminate.

What wise and valiant man would seek to free
These, thus degenerate, by themselves enslav'd?
Or could of inward slaves make outward free?
Know therefore, when my season comes to sit
On David's throne, it shall be like a tree
Spreading and overshadowing all the earth;
Or as a stone, that shall to pieces dash
All monarchies besides throughout the world;
And of my kingdom there shall be no end:
Means there shall be to this; but what the means,
Is not for thee to know, nor me to tell.

To whom the Tempter, impudent, replied.
I see all offers made by me how slight
Thou valuest, because offer'd and reject'st:
Nothing will please the difficult and nice,
Or nothing more than still to contradict :
On the other side know also thou, that I
On what I offer set as high esteem,
Nor what I part with mean to give for nought:
All these, which in a moment thou behold'st,
The kingdoms of the world, to thee I give
(For, given to me, I give to whom I please),
No trifle; yet with this reserve, not else,
On this condition, if thou wilt fall down,
And worship me as thy superiour lord
(Easily done), and hold them all of me ;
For what can less so great a gift deserve?

Whom thus our Saviour answer'd with disdain.

I never lik'd thy talk, thy offers less;

Now both abhor, since thou hast dared to utter
The abominable terms, impious condition:
But I endure the time, till which expir'd
Thou hast permission on me. It is written,
The first of all commandments, Thou shalt worship
The Lord thy God, and only Him shalt serve;
And dar'st thou to the Son of God propound
To worship thee accurs'd? now more accurs'd
For this attempt, bolder than that on Eve,
And more blasphemous; which expect to rue.
The kingdoms of the world to thee were given?
Permitted rather, and by thee usurp❜d:
Other donation none thou canst produce.
If given, by whom but by the King of kings,
God over all supreme? If given to thee,
By thee how fairly is the Giver now

Repaid! but gratitude in thee is lost

Long since. Wert thou so void of fear or shame
As offer them to me, the Son of God?

To me, my own, on such abhorred pact,
That I fall down and worship thee as God?
Get thee behind me: plain thou now appear'st
That Evil-one, Satan for ever damn'd.

To whom the Fiend, with fear abash'd, replied.
Be not so sore offended, Son of God,

Though Sons of God both Angels are and Men,
If I, to try whether in higher sort

Than these thou bear'st that title, have propos'd
What both from Men and Angels I receive,
Tetrarchs of fire, air, flood, and on the earth,
Nations beside from all the quarter'd winds,
God of this world invok'd, and world beneath:
Who then thou art, whose coming is foretold
To be most fatal, me it most concerns;
The trial hath indamag'd thee no way,
Rather more honour left and more esteem;
Me nought advantag'd, missing what I aim'd.
Therefore let pass, as they are transitory,
The kingdoms of this world; I shall no more
Advise thee; gain them as thou canst, or not.
And thou thyself seem'st otherwise inclined
Than to a worldly crown; addicted more
To contemplation and profound dispute,
As by that early action may be judged,
When, slipping from thy mother's eye, thou went'st
Alone into the temple, there wast found
Among the gravest Rabbies, disputant

On points and questions fitting Moses' chair,

Teaching, not taught. The childhood shows the man,

As morning shows the day; be famous then

By wisdom; as thy empire must extend,
So let extend thy mind o'er all the world
In knowledge, all things in it comprehend.
All knowledge is not couch'd in Moses' law,
The Pentateuch, or what the prophets wrote;
The Gentiles also know, and write, and teach
To admiration, led by Nature's light,
And with the Gentiles much thou must converse,
Ruling them by persuasion, as thou mean'st;
Without their learning, how wilt thou with them,
Or they with thee, hold conversation meet?
How wilt thou reason with them, how refute
Their idolisms,1 traditions, paradoxes?
Errour by his own arms is best evinc'd.

Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount,
Westward, much nearer by south-west, behold;
Where on the Ægean shore a city stands,
Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil;
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence, native to famous wits
Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,

City or suburban, studious walks and shades.
See there the olive grove of Academe,
Plato's retirement, where the Attick bird2
Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long;
There flowery hill Hymettus, with the sound
Of bee's industrious murmur, oft invites
To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls

His whispering stream: within the walls, then view
The schools of ancient sages; his,3 who bred

'Idolisms; a term probably suggested by, and equivalent to, Bacon's ‘Idola.'—2 ' Attick bird:' the nightingale, called so because Philomela, fabled to have been turned into a nightingale, was the daughter of a king of Athens. His,' &c.: i. e., Aristotle. His school was the Lyceum, and Stoa was Zeno's.

Great Alexander to subdue the world,
Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next:

There shalt thou hear and learn the secret power
Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit

By voice or hand; and various measur'd verse,
Æolian1 charms and Dorian2 lyrick odes,
And his who gave them breath, but higher sung,
Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer call'd,
Whose poem Phoebus challenged for his own:
Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught
In Chorus or Iambick, teachers best 3
Of moral prudence, with delight receiv'd
In brief sententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate, and chance, and change in human life,
High actions and high passions best describing:
Thence to the famous orators repair,

Those ancient, whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democratie,

Shook the arsenal,5 and fulmin'd over Greece

To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne:

To sage Philosophy next lend thine ear,

From heaven descended to the low-roof'd house
Of Socrates; see there his tenement,
Whom well inspir'd the oracle pronounc'd
Wisest of men; from whose mouth issued forth
Mellifluous streams, that water'd all the schools
Of Academicks 5 old and new, with those
Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect

Epicurean, and the Stoick severe;

These here revolve, or, as thou lik'st, at home,

'Eolian: those of Alcaeus and Sappho.-2 Dorian: those of Pindar.3Teachers best:' referring principally to Euripides. 4 Those ancient :' 'Arsenal' magazine of defensive arms.— 'Academicks:' three schools-Plato, Arcesilas, and Carneades being their

Pericles and Demosthenes. 5

heads.

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