My race of glory run, and race of Thame,
And I shall shortly be with them that rest.

MANO A H.
Believe not these suggestions which proceed
From anguish of the mind and humors black, 600
That mingle with thy fancy. I however
Must not omit a father's timely care
To prosecute the means of thy deliverance
By ransome, or how else: mean while be calm,
And healing words from these thy friends admit.

SAMSON. O that torment should not be confin'd 606 To the body's wounds and fores, With maladies innumerable In heart, head, breast and reins; But must secret passage find

610 To

600.

and humors black, Th’animal spirits &c. That mingle with thy fancy.] This So again in the Mask, very just notion of the mind or fancy's being affected and as it

'tis but the lees were tainted with the vitiated And settlings of a melancholy humors of the body Milton had blood.

Thyer. before adopted in his Paradise Loll, where he introduces Satan 606. O that torment should not be in the Thape of a toad at the ear confin'd&c.] Milton, no doubt, of Eve. IV. 804.

was apprehensive that this long Or if, inspiring venom, he might description of Samson's grief and taint

misery

To th’inmost mind,
There exercise all his fierce accidents,
And on her purest spirits prey,
As on entrails, joints, and limbs,
With answerable pains, but more intense,

615 Though void of corporal sense.

My griefs not only pain me
As a lingring disease,
But finding no redress, ferment and

rage, Nor less than wounds immedicable

620 Rankle, and fester, and gangrene, To black mortification. Thoughts my tormentors arm’d with deadly stings Mangle my apprehensive tenderest parts, Exasperate, exulcerate, and raise Dire inflammation, which no cooling herb

Or

625

misery might grow tedious to the Mangle &c ] This descriptive reader, and therefore here with imagery is fine and well pursued. great judgment varies both his The idea is taken from the effects manner of expressing it and the of poisonous falts in the stomach versification. These sudden starts and bowels, which stimulate, tear, of impatience are very natural to inflame and exulcerate the tender persons in such circumstances, and fibres, and end in a mortification, this rough and unequal measure which he calls death's benumming of the verses is very well suited opium, as in that itage the pain is Thyer.

Warburton.
623. Thoughts my tormentors arm'd
with deadly ftings

627. Or

to it.

over.

Or medicinal liquor can afswage,
Nor breath of vernal air from snowy Alp.
Sleep hath forsook and giv’n me o'er
To death’s benumming opium as my only cure: 630
Thence faintings, swoonings of despair,
And sense of Heaven's defertion.

I was his nursling once and choice delight,
His destin'd from the womb,
Promis’d by heav'nly message twice descending. 635
Under his special eye
Abstemious I grew up and thriv'd amain;
He led me on to mightiest deeds
Above the nerve of mortal arm.
Against th' uncircumcis'd, our enemies : 640
But now hath cast me off as never known,

And

627. Or medicinal liquor can al

Their medicínal gum.
Iwage,] Here medicínal is pro-

628. nounc'd with the accent upon the

- from snowy Alp.] He

ufes Alp for mountain in general, lait syllable but one, as in Latin ;

as in the Paradise Lost. II. 620. which is more musical than as we commonly pronounce it medicinal O’er many a frozen, many a with the accent upon the last fylla fiery Alp. ble but two, or med'cinal as Milton Alp in the strict etymology of the has used it in the Mask. The same word fignifies a mountain white mafical pronunciation occurs in with snow. We have indeed apShakespear. Othello Act 5. Sc. 10. propriated the name to the high Drop tears as fast as the Arabian mountains which separate Italy trees from France and Germany; but

any

645

And to those cruel enemies,
Whom I by his appointment had provok’d,
Left me all helpless with th' irreparable loss
Of fight, reserv'd alive to be repeated
The subject of their cruelty or scorn.
Nor am I in the list of them that hope :
Hopeless are all my evils, all remediless;
This one prayer yet remains, might I be heard,
No long petition, speedy death,
The close of all my miseries, and the balm.

CHORU S.
Many are the sayings of the wise
In ancient and in modern books inroll'd,
Extolling patience as the truest fortitude
And to the bearing well of all calamities,

650

655

!

All

II. 510.

any high mountain may be fo cal. This part of Samson's speech is led, and fo Sidonius Apollinaris little more than a repetition of calls mount Athos, speaking of what he had said before, ver. 23. Xerxes cutting through it, Carmen

O wherefore was my birth from

Heav'n foretold
- cui ruptus Athos, cui remige Twice by an Angel & c.

Medo
Turgida fylvofam currebant But yet it cannot justly be imputed

à fault to our author. Grief vela per Alpem.

though eloquent is not tied '40 And the old Glossary interprets Alps forms, and is besides apt in its own by op uitmaa high mountains. nature frequently to recur to and 633. I was his nursling once &c] repeat its source and object. Thyer.

656. ALL

as

All chances incident to man's frail life,
Consolitaries writ
With study'd argument, and much persuasion fought
Lenient of grief and anxious thought :
But with th'afflicted in his pangs their found 660
Little prevails, or rather seems a tune
Harsh, and of diffonant mood from his complaint ;
Unless he feel within
Some source of consolation from above,
Secret refreshings that repair his strength,
And fainting spirits uphold.

God of our fathers, what is man!
That thou tow'ards him with hand fo various,
Or might I say contrarious,

Temper'st

665

656. All chances incident to man's confolatories are writ with study'd

frail life, &c] There is a full argument, and much persuasion is stop at the end of this line in all fought &c. the editions, but there should be 659. Lenient of grief ] Express’d only a comma, as the sense evinces, from what we quoted before from the construction being And consola- Horace Epift. I. I. 34. tories writ with &c to the bearing

Sunt verba et voces quibus hunc well &c. Milton himself corrected

lenire dolorem it in the first edition ; but when

Poslis. an error is once made, it is sure to be perpetuated through all the 660. But with th' afflicted &c] editions:

Here was another error perpe658.-andmuch persuasion fought] tuated through all the editions, I suppose an error of the press for

But to th' afflicted &c. fraught.

Warburton. I conceive the confruction to be, Milton himself corrected it, and

certainly