Or harbour'd in one cave, is not reveal'd; Nor tasted human food, nor hunger felt, Following, as seem'd, the quest of some stray ewe, 310 315 Psalm, as producing the most irriguous effects. Maundrell, in his "Travels," when within little more than half a day's journey of this mountain, says, "we were sufficiently instructed by experience what the Holy Psalmist means by the dew of Hermon ;' our tents being as wet with it, as if it had rained all night."-DUNSTER. St. Mark's short account of the temptation is, that our blessed Lord ". was in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan, and was with the wild beasts, and the angels ministered unto him," ch. i. 13. Archbishop Secker, in his "Sermon on the Temptation," says, "During these forty days, it is observed by St. Mark, that our blessed Redeemer was with the wild beasts; which words must imply, else they are of no significance, that the fiercest animals were awed by his presence, and so far laid aside their savage nature for a time; thus verifying literally, what Eliphaz in Job saith figuratively, concerning a good man; 'At destruction and famine shalt thou laugh, neither shalt thou be afraid of the beasts of the earth: for they shall be at peace with thee.' Before the Fall, Milton supposes those beasts, which are now wild, to have been harmless, void of ferocity to each other, and even affectionate towards man. "Paradise Lost," b. iv. 340, &c. Immediately after the Fall, among other changes of nature, the animals begin to grow savage. See "Paradise Lost," b. x. 707. Here, upon the appearance of perfect innocence in a human form amongst them, they begin to resume a certain proportion of the paradisiacal disposition. In Homer's "Hymn to Venus," where that goddess descends on Mount Ida, to visit Anchises at his folds, her appearance is described as having the same effect, in its fullest extent, ver. 68, &c. Giles Fletcher, in his "Christ's Triumph on Earth," 1610, has given a similar but more diffuse description of the effect of our Lord's presence on the wild beasts in the wilderness.-DUNSTER. b The lion and fierce tiger glared aloof. So in "Paradise Lost," b. iv. 401 : About them round A lion now he stalks with fiery glare; Again b. x. 712, it is said that, after the Fall, the wild beasts, ceasing to graze, Devour'd each other, nor stood much in awe Of Man; but fled him, or with countenance grim See The latter part of this description is palpably taken from Shakspeare, "Jul. Cæs." a. i. s. 4 I met a lion Who glared upon me, and went surly by, Without annoying me.-DUNSTER. c But now an aged man. As the Scripture is entirely silent about what personage the tempter assumed, the poet was at liberty to indulge his own fancy; and nothing, I think, could be better conceived for his present purpose, or more likely to prevent suspicion of fraud. The poet might perhaps take the hint from a design of David Vinkboon, where the devil is represented addressing himself to our Saviour, under the appearance of an old man. It is to be met with among Vischer's cuts to the Bible, and is engraved by Landerselt.-THYER. Against a winter's day, when winds blow keen, Sir, what ill chance hath brought thee to this place For that to me thou seem'st the man, whom late Of Jordan honour'd so, and call'd thee Son Of God I saw and heard, for we sometimes : Who dwell this wild, constrain'd by want, come forth To town or village nigh1, (nighest is far) Where aught we hear, and curious are to hear d When winds blow keen. This is a descent to human imagery, but in that regard it is beautifully poetical. e In troop or caravan? 320 325 330 A caravan, as Tavernier says, is a great convoy of merchants, who meet at certain times and places, to put themselves into a condition of defence from thieves who ride in troops in several desert places upon the road. Hence the safest way of travelling in Turkey and Persia is with the caravan. See Travels into Persia," in Harris, vol. ii. ch. 2.-NEWTON. Durst ever, who return'd. For single none Milton seems here to have had in his mind the vast sandy deserts of Africa; which Diodorus Siculus describes as a "desert full of wild beasts, of vast extent; and from its being devoid of water, and bare of all kinds of food, not only difficult, but absolutely dangerous to pass over." In Jeremiah, the desert is described, "a land that no man passed through." Compare the opening of Dante's "Inferno," where, having passed through the more dreadful part of the piaggia deserta, the poet turns himself to regard the dangerous region: Così l'animo mio, ch' ancor fuggiva, Si volse 'ndietro a rimirar lo passo, Che non lasciò giammai persona viva.-DUNSTER. 8 Pined with hunger. Death, in the tenth book of the "Paradise Lost," thus describes himself :— h I saw and heard, for we sometimes Who dwell this wild, constrain'd by want, come forth To town or village nigh. All this is finely in character with the assumed person of the tempter, and tends at the same time to give more effect to the preceding descriptions. It should be considered also that it was not necessary to confine those descriptions merely to that part of the wilderness of Judea, into which our Lord was just now entering, v. 193, or where at most he had not advanced any great way, v. 299.-That wilderness was of a great length, the most habitable part being northward towards the river Jordan; southward it extended into vast and uninhabited deserts, which, in the map in Reland's “Palæstina,’ are termed "vastissimæ solitudines." To describe these, in such a manner as might impress a deep sense of danger in the mind of him to whom he addressed himself, was perfectly consistent with the tempter's purpose.-Dunster, To whom the Son of God :-Who brought me hither, By miracle he may, replied the swain; Live on tough roots and stubs, to thirst inured That out of these hard stones be made thee bread; Is it not written, He ended, and the Son of God replied: i Stubs. Stubs, not shrubs, is undoubtedly the right word, as connected with roots. Milton's own edition of 1671. 335 340 345 350 355 Thus 3 To thirst inured More than the camel. It is commonly said that camels will go without water three or four days;-"Sitim et quatriduo tolerant," Plin. "Nat. Hist." lib. viii. sect. 26. But Tavernier says, that they will ordinarily live without drink eight or nine days.-NEWTON. For I discern thee other than thou seem'st. In the concluding book of this poem, our Lord says to the tempter, Desist; thou art discern'd And toil'st in vain.-DUNSTER. 1 Man lives not by bread only, but each word The words of St. Matthew, iv. 14, which refer to the eighth chapter of Deuteronomy, ver. 3, where the humiliation of the Israelites in the wilderness, and their being there miraculously fed with manna, are recited as arguments for their obedience; "And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." The poet, who was, beyond a doubt, "mighty in the Scripture," has with much art availed himself of the original passage in the Old Testament, as it affords him such an immediate and apposite transition to the miraculous feeding the children of Israel, their great lawgiver, and afterwards Elijah, in the wilderness.—Dunster. This is not to be understood of Christ's divine nature. The tempter knew him to be the person "declared the Son of God" by a voice from heaven, v. 385, and that was all that he knew of him.-CALTON. Whom thus answer'd the arch-fiend, now undisguised:'Tis true, I am that spirit unfortunate", Who, leagued with millions more in rash revolt, Kept not my happy station, but was driven. 360 With them from bliss to the bottomless deep; Or range in the air 9; nor from the heaven of heavens I came among the Sons of God, when he Gave up into my hands Uzzean Job", him and illustrate his high worth; And, when to all his angels he proposed To draw the proud king Ahab into fraud, n 'Tis true, I am that spirit unfortunate. 365 370 Satan's instantaneous avowal of himself here has a great and fine effect: it is consistent with a certain dignity of character which is given him in general, through the whole of the "Paradise Lost." The rest of his speech is artfully submissive.--DUNster. "Par. Lost," b. ii. 618. • My dolorous prison. Through many a dark and dreary vale Again, in his "Hymn on the Nativity," st. xiv :— And hell itself will pass away, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day. Although the adjective "dolorous" be common in our old poetry, Milton, I am inclined to think, did not forget Dante's usage of it in the "Inferno," where Satan is called, c. xxxiv., Lo 'mperador del doloroso regno.-TODD. P To round this globe of earth. Milton uses the same phrase in his "Paradise Lost," b. x. 684, speaking of the sun : Had rounded still the horizon.-THYER. In Quarles's "Job Militant," the devil thus concludes his reply to God's question, Whence comest thou ?— The earth is my dominion, hell's my home; I round the world, and so from thence I come.-DUNSTER. The whole of this passage is very poetical and grand. See the first chapter of Job. Uzzean Job. To draw the proud king Ahab into fraud. And This story of Ahab is related, 1 Kings, xxii. 19, &c. :- "I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the Host of Heaven standing by him, on his right hand, and on his left. And the Lord said, Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this manner, and another on that manner. there came forth a spirit and stood before the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also go forth and do so." This symbolical vision of Micaiah, in which heavenly things are spoken of after the manner of men, in condescension to the weak That he might fall in Ramoth; they demurring, Or virtuous; I should so have lost all sense : To all mankind: why should I? they to me I lost not what I lost, rather by them I gain'd what I have gain'd, and with them dwell, Copartner in these regions of the world, 375 380 385 390 ness of their capacities, our author was too good a critic to understand literally, though as a poet he represents it so.-) -NEWTON. The expression here is copied from the "Paradise Lost," vii. 143:— It is said of Satan, in the first book of the "Paradise Lost," ver. 591 :— His form had not yet lost All her original brightness: and when Ithuriel and Zephon, in the end of the fourth book, find him in Paradise, and charge him with being one of the rebel spirits adjudged to hell, Satan asks, if they do not know him to which Zephon replies : and in "Paradise -DUNSTER. Think not, revolted spirit, thy shape the same, Or undiminish'd brightness to be known, As when thou stood'st in heaven upright and pure : That glory then, when thou no more wast good, Departed from thee; Lost," b. i. 97, Satan describes himself "changed in outward lustre." "I have not lost To love, at least contemplate and admire, What I see excellent in good, or fair, Or virtuous. In the second book of the "Paradise Lost," where the fallen angels are described doing homage to the public spirit of their chief, it is said,— for neither do the spirits damn'd Lose all their virtue : and where Satan first sees Adam and Eve in Paradise he contemplates them with admiration. The turn of the words here very much resembles the following passage in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Fair Maid of the Inn," a. v. s. 1 : Though I have lost my fortune, and lost you For a worthy father; yet I will not lose My former virtue; my integrity Shall not forsake me.-DUNSTER. |