Will bring me hence; no other guide I feek.

By miracle he may, reply'd the swain,
What other way I fee not, for we here
Live on tough roots and stubs, 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

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

336

340

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

Think'st 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

Pro

I find the word tubs used in Spenfer. Faery that they will ordinarily live without drink Queen B. 1. Cant. St. 9.

34.

And all about old ftocks and ftubs 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,

eight or nine days. See Harris ibid. And therefore, as Dr. Shaw juftly obferves in his physical observations on Arabia Petræa p. 389. we cannot fufficiently admire the great care and wifdom of God, in providing the camel. for the traffick and commerce of these and fuch like defolate countries. For if this ferviceable creature was not able to fubfift several days without water, or if it required a quantity of nourishment in proportion to its bulk, the traveling in thefe parts would be either cumber

fome

350

Proceeding from the mouth of God, who fed
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 dost thou then suggest to me distrust,
Knowing who I am, as I know who thou art?
Whom thus anfwer'd th'Arch-Fiénd now undifguis'd.
'Tis true, I am that Spirit unfortunate,

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

355

360

With

fome and expenfive, or altogether impracti- Son of God by a voice from Heaven, ver. 385. and that was all that he knew of him.

cable.

Calton.

358. 'Tis true, I am that Spirit unfortunate, &c] Satan's frankness in confefling who he was, when he found himself discover'd, is re

markable. Hitherto he has been called an aged man, and the fwain; and we have no intimation from the poet, that Satan was concealed under this appearance, which adds to our pleasure by an agreeable furprise upon the discovery. In the first book of the Eneid, Æneas being driven by a storm upon with Achates to take a furvey of the country, an unknown coaft, and going in company is met in a thick wood by a lady, in the habit of a huntress. She inquires of them, if they had seen two fifters of hers in a like drefs, employed in the chace. Eneas addreffes

her

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 prifon 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 fometimes.

I came among the fons of God, when he
Gave up into my hands Uzzean Job
To prove him, and illustrate his high worth;
And when to all his Angels he propos'd

370

her as Diana, or one of her nymphs, and begs he would tell him the name and ftate of the country the tempeft had thrown him upon. She declines his compliment, informs him she was no Goddefs but only a Tyrian maid, gives an account of the place, and a full relation of Dido's history and fettlement there. In return, Æneas acquaints her with his story, and particularly the loss of great part of his fleet in the late ftorm. Upon which fhe affures him, from an omen which appeared to them, that his fhips were fafe, bids him expect a kind reception from the queen; and then turning to go away, Æneas discovers her to be his mother, the Goddess 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 surprising the reader, as much as fhe did

To

Æneas: but his conduct has been quite the reverfe, for in the beginning of the ftory, he lets the reader into the fecret, and takes care every now and then to remind him.

Cui mater media fefe tulit obvia fylva, &c. See An Efay upon Milton's imitations of the Ancients. p. 60.

360. Kept not my happy station,] A manner of fpeaking borrowed 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 ftill th' horizon

Thyer.

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, lost
To be belov'd of God, I have not lost
To love, at least contemplate and admire
What I fee excellent in good, or fair,
Or virtuous, I should fo have loft all fenfe.
What can be then less in me than defire

God came to prefent themselves before the Lord, and Satan came alfo among them. See too II. 1. 272. To draw the proud king Abab into fraud] That is, into mifchief, as freus fometimes means in Latin. Fortin. The reader may fee an inftance of fraud and fraus ufed in this fenfe, in the Paradise Loft, IX. 643, and the note there. And this story of Ahab is related 1 Kings XXII. 19 &c. I faw the Lord fitting on his throne, and all the baft of Heaven ftanding by bim, on his right hand and on bis 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 stood before the Lord, and faid, I will perfuade him. And the Lord faid unto him, Wherewith? And be faid, I will go

375

380

To

To see 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 lost not what I loft, rather by them

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 signs,
And answers, oracles, portents and dreams,

394. Oft my advice by prefages and signs, And anfwers, oracles, portents and dreams,] 1. Portents are but odly thrown in here betwixt oracles and dreams; befides that the meaning of the word had been fully exprefs'd before by prefages and figns. These comprehend all the imagin'd notes of futurity in auguries, in facrifices, in lightnings, and in all the varieties of portents, oftents, prodigies. That portent at Aulis, which fhowed the Greeks the fuccefs and duration of the war they were going upon, is called by Homer μεγα σημα τ 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 igi

385

390

395

Whereby

tur aut oftenta, aut eorum interpretes, vel Lacedæmonios olim, vel nuper noftros adjuverunt? quæ fi figna Deorum putanda funt, cur tam obfcura fuerunt? This paffage of Cicero will lead us to the sense of the next word, which very naturally follows prefages and figns, and is connected with them. In Cicero we have figns and their interpreters, and here figns and their interpretations; for this I take to be the meaning of anfwers. The barufpicum refponfa amongst the Romans are obvious authorities. 2. There are three fpecies of divination, distinguish'd from the former by figns, in Cicero's firft book on that fubject, viz. dreams, vaticinationes or prophecies, and oracles. Carent autem arte ii, qui non ratione, aut conjectura, obfervatis ac netatis fignis, fed concitatione quadam animi, aut foluto liberoque F 2

motu