Another species of impropriety is the unsuitableness of thoughts to the general character of the poem. The seriousness and solemnity of tragedy necessarily reject all pointed or epigrammatical expressions, all remote conceits and opposition of ideas. Samson's complaint is therefore too elaborate to be natural:

As in the land of darkness, yet in light,
To live a life half dead, a living death,
And bury'd; but, O yet more miserable!
Myself, my sepulchre, a moving grave,
Buried, yet not exempt,

By privilege of death and burial.

From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs.

All allusions to low and trivial objects, with which contempt is usually associated, are doubtless unsuitable to a species of composition which ought to be always awful, though not always magnificent. The remark therefore of the chorus on good or bad news seems to want elevation:

Manoah. A little stay will bring some notice hither.
Chor. Of good or bad so great, of bad the sooner;
For evil news rides post, while good news baits.

But of all meanness that has least to plead which is produced by mere verbal conceits, which, depending only upon sounds, lose their existence by the change of a syllable. Of this kind is the following dialogue:

Chor. But had we best retire? I see a storm.

Sams. Fair days have oft contracted wind and rain.
Chor. But this another kind of tempest brings.
Sams. Be less abstruse, my riddling days are past.

Chor. Look now for no enchanting voice, nor fear
The bait of honied words; a rougher tongue
Draws hitherward; I know him by his stride,
The giant Harapha.—

And yet more despicable are the lines in which Manoah's paternal kindness is commended by the chorus:

Fathers are wont to lay up for their sons,

Thou for thy son art bent to lay out all.

Samson's complaint of the inconveniences of imprisonment is not wholly without verbal quaintness:

-I, a prisoner chain'd, scarce freely draw
The air, imprison'd also, close and damp.

From the sentiments we may properly descend to the consideration of the language, which, in imitation of the ancients, is through the whole dialogue remarkably simple and unadorned, seldom heightened by epithets, or varied by figures; yet sometimes metaphors find admission, even where their consistency is not accurately preserved. Thus Samsom confounds loquacity with a shipwreck:

How could I once look up, or heave the head,
Who, like a foolish pilot, have shipwreck'd
My vessel trusted to me from above,
Gloriously rigg'd; and for a word, a tear,
Fool! have divulg'd the secret gift of God
To a deceitful woman!-

And the chorus talks of adding fuel to flame in a report:

He's gone, and who knows how he may report
Thy words, by adding fuel to the flame?

The versification is in the dialogue much more smooth and harmonious, than in the parts allotted to the chorus, which are often so harsh and dissonant, as scarce to preserve, whether the lines end

with or without rhymes, any appearance of metrical

regularity:

Or do my eyes misrepresent? Can this be he,

That heroic, that renown'd,

Irresistible Samson? whom unarm'd

No strength of man, or fiercest wild beast, could withstand;
Who tore the lion, as the lion tears the kid.

Since I have thus pointed out the faults of Milton, critical integrity requires that I should endeav our to display his excellencies, though they will not easily be discovered in short quotations, because they consist in the justness of diffuse reasonings, or in the contexture and method of continued dialogues; this play having none of those descriptions, similies, or splendid sentences, with which other tragedies are so lavishly adorned.

Yet some passages may be selected which seem to deserve particular notice, either as containing sentiments of passion, representations of life, precepts of conduct, or sallies of imagination. It is not easy to give a stronger representation of the weariness of despondency, than in the words of Samson to his father:

-I feel my genial spirits droop,

My hopes all flat, Nature within me seems

In all her functions weary of herself,

My race of glory run, and race of shame,

And I shall shortly be with them that rest.

The reply of Samson to the flattering Dalila affords a just and striking description of the stratagems and allurements of feminine hypocrisy :

These are thy wonted arts,

And arts of every woman false like thee,
To break all faith, all vows, deceive, betray,

Then as repentant to submit, beseech,
And reconcilement move with feign'd remorse,
Confess and promise wonders in her change;
Not truly penitent, but chief to try

Her husband, how far urg'd his patience bears,
His virtue or weakness which way to assail:
Then with more cautious and instructed skill
Again transgresses, and again submits.

When Samson has refused to make himself a spectacle at the feast of Dagon, he first justifies his behaviour to the chorus, who charge him with having served the Philistines, by a very just distinction: and then destroys the common excuse of cowardice and servility, which always confound temptation with compulsion:

Chor. Yet with thy strength thou serv'st the Philistines.
Sams. Not in their idol worship, but by labour

Honest and lawful to deserve my food

Of those, who have me in their civil power.

Chor. Where the heart joins not, outward acts defile not.
Sams. Where outward force constrains, the sentence holds.
But who constrains me to the temple of Dagon,

Not dragging? The Philistine lords command.
Commands are no constraints. If I obey them,

I do it freely, venturing to displease

God for the fear of Man, and Man prefer,
Set God behind.

The complaint of blindness which Samson pours out at the beginning of the tragedy is equally addressed to the passions and the fancy. The enumeration of his miseries is succeeded by a very pleasing train of poetical images, and concluded by such expostulation and wishes, as reason too often submits to learn from despair

O first created Beam, and thou great Word
"Let there be light, and light was over all;"

Why am I thus bereav'd thy prime decree?

The sun to me is dark

And silent as the moon,

When she deserts the night

Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.
Since light so necessary is to life,
And almost life itself, if it be true
That light is in the soul,

She all in every part; why was the sight
To such a tender ball as the eye confin'd,
So obvious and so easy to be quench'd?

And not, as feeling, through all parts diffus'd,
That she may look at will through every pore?

Such are the faults and such the beauties of Samson Agonistes, which I have shown with no other purpose than to promote the knowledge of true criticism. The everlasting verdure of Milton's laurels has nothing to fear from the blasts of malignity; nor can my attempt produce any other effect, than to strengthen their shoots by lopping their luxuriance®.

SIR,

No. 141. TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1751
Hilarisque, tamen cum pondere, virtus.

Greatness with ease, and gay severity.

TO THE RAMBLER.

STAT.

POLITICIANS have long observed, that the greatest events may be often traced back to slender causes. Petty competition or casual friendship, the prudence of a slave, or the garrulity of a woman, have hindered or promoted the most important schemes, and hastened or retarded the revolutions of empire.

Whoever shall review his life will generally find, * This is not the language of an accomplice in Lauder's imposition.—ED.