Their tafte no knowledge works at leaft of evil,
But life preferves, deftroys life's enemy,
Hunger, with fweet reftorative delight.

All these are Spirits of air, and woods, and springs, Thy gentle minifters, who come to pay

375 Thee homage, and acknowledge thee their Lord: What doubt'ft thou Son of God? fit down and eat.

To whom thus Jefus temp'rately reply'd.

Said'st thou not that to all things I had right?
And who withholds my pow'r that right to use? 380
Shall I receive by gift what of my own,

When and where likes me beft, I can command?

I can

tainty of the confequence, that he
muft of right be Lord of all things :
be a truth, (as he doth here) con-
and Christ by admitting the latt to
fequentially afferts the principle;
for one cannot hold without the
other.

Saidft thou not that to all things
I had right?

The right of the Son of God being
founded on his power, his power
muft needs be fully adequate to his
right. He therefore adds,

And who withholds
that right to use?

my pow'r

I can at will, doubt not, as foon as thou,
Command a table in this wilderness,
And call fwift flights of Angels ministrant
Array'd in glory on my cup to' attend;
Why shouldst thou then obtrude this diligence,
In vain, where no acceptance it can find?
And with my hunger what haft thou to do?
Thy pompous delicacies I contemn,

And count thy fpecious gifts no gifts but guiles.
To whom thus anfwer'd Satan malecontent.
That I have also pow'r to give thou feest;

385

390

If

This ftrangir knight is fet to him. full fone;

and by Spenfer, Faery Queen B. 3. Cant. 1. St. 8,

Whom ftrange adventure did from Britain fet:

and Muiopotmos,

Not Bilbo steel, nor brafs from
Corinth fet:

and by Johnfon, Prol. to Silent
Woman,

Though there be none far fet:

and in profe as well as in verse by Sir Philip Sidney, Arcad. p. 360. Therewith he told her a far fet tale: Defenfe of poetry p. 551. and much lefs with far fet maxims of philofophy: as if our old writers

had

If of that pow'r I bring thee voluntary
What I might have bestow'd on whom I pleas'd, 395
And rather opportunely in this place

Chose to impart to thy apparent need,

Why shouldst thou not accept it? but I fee

What I can do or offer is suspect;

Of these things others quickly will difpofe,

400

Whose pains have earn'd the far fet spoil. With that
Both table and provifion vanish'd quite

With found of harpies wings, and talons heard;
Only th' impórtune Tempter ftill remain’d,

And

When from the mountain-tops with hideous cry,

And clatt'ring wings, the hungry harpies fly;

They fnatch the meat. Dryden, And we have a like fcene in Shakespeare, in the Tempeft, A& III. where feveral frange apes bring in a banquet, and afterwards enters Ariel like a harpy, claps his wings upon the table, and with a quaint device the banquet vanishes.

404. Only th' importune Tempter

ftill remain'd,] The word impórtune is often pronounced with this accent by our old writers, as Spenfer Faery Queen B. 1. Cant. 12. St. 16.

And often blame the too impórtune fate:

and

And with these words his temptation purfu'd. 405

By hunger, that each other creature tames, Thou art not to be harm'd, therefore not mov'd; Thy temperance invincible befides,

For no allurement yields to appetite,
And all thy heart is fet on high defigns,

High actions; but wherewith to be achiev'd?
Great acts require great means of enterprise;
Thou art unknown, unfriended, low of birth,

and B. 2. Cant. 8. St. 38.

4IQ

A car

ligence of the poet's amanuenfis or

The which dividing with im- printer, which may be restor'd, I

pórtune fway:

and Cant. 11. St. 7.

With greedy malice and impórtune toil:

whereas now, I think, we commonly pronounce it with the accent upon the laft fyllable in the adjective, and always in the verb, importune.

think, with certainty enough. Behold them, Reader, in the place they seem to me to have a right to; confider and judge.

Or at thy heels how keep the

dizzy multitude.

One may almoft venture to determin on the fide of these claimants, from what our bleffed Saviour faith, in the beginning of his re

419. What followers, what re- ply to this fpeech of the Tempter. tinue canft thou gain,

Or at thy heels the dizzy multitude &c.] This is a strange

paffage! I read

Yet wealth without thefe three is impotent

To gain dominion, or to keep it gain'd.

Or at thy heels what dizzy Milton's verfes are not always to

multitude, but it does not please me.

Sympfon. There are two words unhappily loft in the fecond line by the neg

There are

be measured by counting fyllables
on the finger's ends.
examples enow in him, and other
poets, in blank verse especially, of
thefe Hypercatalectic verfes, as one

may

A carpenter thy father known, thyself
Bred up in poverty and straits at home
Loft in a defert here and hunger-bit:
Which way or from what hope doft thou aspire
To greatnefs? whence authority deriv'ft?
What followers, what retinue canft thou gain,
Or at thy heels the dizzy multitude,

415

420

Longer than thou canft feed them on thy cost?
Money brings honor, friends, conqueft, and realms:

may call them; where the two laft fyllables are redundant. One or two from Milton will be fufficient.

Extolling patience as the trueft fortitude. Samf. Ag. ver. 655. But this is from the Chorus. Take another from a speech of. Dalila's, ver. 870.

Private refpects muft yield; with
grave authority.

But an inftance of it from Paradife
Loft will be moft to the purpose,
IX. 249.

For folitude | fometimes is
Calton.

beft society.

This reading makes very good fenfe, and clears the fyntax: but moft readers, I imagin, rather than admit fuch a Hypercatalectic verfe, will understand the dizzy. multitude as the accufative cafe af