By miracle he may, reply'd the fwain,
What other way I fee not, for we here
Live on tough roots and ftubs, to thirst inur'd
More than the camel, and to drink go far,
Men to much mifery and hardship born;

But if thou be the Son of God, command

340

That out of these hard ftones be made thee bread, So fhalt thou fave thyself and us relieve

With food, whereof we wretched seldom taste. 345 He ended, and the Son of God reply'd.

Think'ft thou fuch force in bread? is it not written (For I difcern thee other than thou seem'st)

Man lives not by bread only, but each word Proceeding from the mouth of God, who fed 350

And all about old ftocks and tubs

of trees:

but this only proves the ufe of the word, and not of the thing as food, which feems impoffible, and therefore I embrace the former ingenious conjecture.

340. More than the camel,] It is commonly faid that camels will go without water three or four days. Sitim & quatriduo tolerant. Plin. Nat. Hift. Lib. 8. Sect. 26. But Tavernier fays, that they will ordinarily live without drink eight or nine days. See Harris ibid, And therefore, as Dr. Shaw justly obVOL. I.

Our

ferves in his phyfical observations
on Arabia Petræa p. 389. we can-
not fufficiently admire the great care
the camel for the traffic and com-
and wisdom of God in providing
late countries. For if this service-
merce of these and fuch like defo-

able creature was not able to fub-
fift feveral days without water, or
if it required a quantity of nou-
rifhment in proportion to its bulk,
the traveling in thefe parts would
be either cumbersome and expen-
five, or altogether impracticable.
350. Proceeding from the mouth of
God, who fed
Our fathers here with Manna ? ]
D
The

Our fathers here with Manna? in the mount

Mofes was forty days, nor eat nor drank;
And forty days Elijah without food
Wander'd this barren wafte; the fame I now:
Why doft thou then fuggeft to me distrust,
Knowing who I am, as I know who thou art?
Whom thus answer'd th'Arch-Fiénd now undis-

'Tis true, I am that Spirit unfortunate,

355

[guis'd.

Who leagu'd with millions more in rash revolt
Kept not my happy station, but was driven

Our fathers here with Manna;

In the first and fecond editions there is a femicolon in both places, which is ftill worse. A comma would be fufficient after God, and the mark of interrogation fhould close the period after Manna.

Calton. 356. Knowing who I am,] This is not to be understood of Chrift's divine nature. The Tempter knew him to be the perfon declar'd the Son of God by a voice from Heaven, ver. 385. and that was all that he

knew of him. Calton.

358. 'Tis true, I am that Spirit unfortunate, &c] Satan's franknefs in confeffing who he was,

360. With

when he found himself difcover'd,
is remarkable. Hitherto he has.
been called an aged man, and the
fwain; and we have no intimation
from the poet, that Satan was con
cealed under this appearance, which
adds to our pleasure by an agree-
able furprife upon the difcovery.
In the firft book of the Æneid,
ftorm
Æneas being driven by a
up-
on an unknown coast, and going in
company with Achates to take a
furvey of the country, is met in a
thick wood by a lady, in the habit
of a huntress. She inquires of
them, if they had feen two fifters
of hers in a like drefs, employed

in the chace. Æneas addreffes her

as Diana, or one of her nymphs, and begs fhe would tell him the name and state of the country the tempeft had thrown him upon. She declines his compliment, informs him fhe was no Goddess but only a

With them from blifs to the bottomlefs deep,
Yet to that hideous place not fo confin'd

By rigor unconniving, but that oft
Leaving my dolorous prison I enjoy

Large liberty to round this globe of earth,

365

Or range in th'air, nor from the Heav'n of Heav'ns

Hath he excluded my refort sometimes.

I came among the fons of God, when he

Gave up into my hands Uzzean Job

To prove him, and illuftrate his high worth; 370

Tyrian maid, gives an account of the place, and a full relation of Dido's hiftory and fettlement there. In return, Æneas acquaints her with his ftory, and particularly the lofs of great part of his fleet in the late ftorm. Upon which the affures him, from an omen which appear ed to them, that his fhips were fafe, bids him expect a kind reception from the queen; and then turning to go away, Æneas difcovers her to be his mother, the Goddefs of love. If Virgil had not informed us of her being Venus, till this time, and in this manner, it would have had an agreeable effect in furprifing the reader, as much as fhe did Aneas: but his conduct has been quite the reverse, for in the beginning of the ftory, he lets the reader into the fecret, and takes care every now and then to remind

him.

And

Cui mater media fefe tulit obvia fylva, &c.

See An Essay upon Milton's imitations of the Ancients, p. 60.

A 'manner of fpeaking borrowed 360. Kept not my happy station, I from the Scripture. Jude 6. And the Angels which kept not their first eftate.

365-to round this globe of earth,] Milton ufes the fame phrafe in his Paradife Loft X. 684. fpeaking of the fun :

Had rounded fill th' horizon

And when to all his Angels he propos'd

To draw the proud king Ahab into fraud
That he might fall in Ramoth, they demurring,
I undertook that office, and the tongues
Of all his flattering prophets glibb'd with lies
To his destruction, as I had in charge,
For what he bids I do: though I have loft
Much luftre of my native brightness, loft
To be belov'd of God, I have not loft
To love, at leaft contemplate and admire

What I fee excellent in good, or fair,
Or virtuous, I should so have loft all fenfe.

372. To draw the proud king Ahab into fraud] That is, into mifchief, as fraus fometimes means in Latin. Fortin. The reader may fee an inftance of fraud and fraus used in this fenfe in the Paradife Loft, IX. 643, and the note there. And this ftory of Ahab is related 1 Kings XXII. 19 &c. I faw the Lord fitting on his throne, and all the host of Heaven ftanding by bim, on his right band and on his left. And the Lord faid, Who fhall perfuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one faid on this manner, and another on that manner. And there came forth a Spirit, and flood before the Lord, and faid, I will perfuade him. And

375

380

What

the Lord faid unto him, Wherewith? And he faid, I will go forth, and I will be a lying Spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he faid, Thou fhalt perfuade him, and prevail also: go forth, and do fo. And this fymbolical vifion of Micaiah, in which heavenly things are spoken of after the manner of men in condefcenfion to the weakness of their capacities, our author was too good a critic to understand litterally, tho' as a poet he represents it fo.

385.

To hear attent Thy wisdom,] Milton feems to have borrow'd this word and this emphatical manner of applying it from Spenfer, Faery Queen B. 6. Cant. 9. St. 26.

What can be then lefs in me than defire

To fee thee and approach thee, whom I know
Declar'd the Son of God, to hear attent

Thy wisdom, and behold thy Godlike deeds?
Men generally think me much a foe

To all mankind: why fhould I? they to me
Never did wrong or violence; by them

I loft not what I loft, rather by them

385

390

I gain'd what I have gain'd, and with them dwell Copartner in these regions of the world,

If not difpofer; lend them oft my aid,

Oft

my

advice by prefages and figns,

And

duration of the war they were going upon, is called by Homer

a ona a great fign Iliad. II. 308. What were the Lacedæmonians profited before, (faith Cicero De Div. II. 25.) or our own countrymen lately by the oftents and their interpreters? which, if we muft believe them to be figns fent by the Gods, why were they fo obfcure? Quid igitur aut oftenta, aut eorum interpretes, vel Lacedæmonios olim, vel nuper noftros adju verunt? quæ fi figna Deorum putanda funt, cur tam obfcura fuerunt? This paffage of Cicero will lead us to the fenfe of the next word, which very naturally follows prefages and figns, and is con D 3

nected