And higher yet the glorious temple rear'd
Her pile, far off appearing like a mount
Of alabaster, topt with golden spires :
There, on the highest pinnacle, he set

The Son of God"; and added thus in scorn:

There stand, if thou wilt stand; to stand upright
Will ask thee skill: I to thy Father's house

Have brought thee, and highest placed: highest is best :
Now show thy progeny; if not to stand,
Cast thyself down; safely, if Son of God:
For it is written,-He will give command
Concerning thee to his angels: in their hands.
They shall uplift thee, lest at any time
Thou chance to dash thy foot against a stone.
To whom thus Jesus: Also it is written,

Tempt not the Lord thy God. He said, and stood ▾ :
But Satan, smitten with amazement, fell.

550

555

560

As when Earth's son Antæus w, (to compare

Small things with greatest x) in Irassa y strove

With Jove's Alcides ", and, oft foil'd, still rose a,

565

city" by St. Matthew, who wrote his Gospel for the use of the Jewish converts; but by him only, of the four Evangelists.-DUNSTER.

Lifted high her towers.

Sandys, describing Jerusalem, gives a minute account of the remarkable height of her various towers; some of which, he adds, were topped with spires, as Milton says, ver. 548. See his "Travels," edit. 1615, pp. 156, 157.-TODD.

"There, on the highest pinnacle, he set
The Son of God.

He has chosen to follow the order observed by St. Luke, in placing this temptation last; because if he had, with St. Matthew, introduced it in the middle, it would have broke that fine thread of moral reasoning, which is observed in the course of the other temptations.-THYER.

Here is what we may call, after Aristotle the dvayvάpiois, or the discovery. Christ declares himself to be the God and Lord of the tempter; and to prove it, stands upon the pinnacle. This was evidently the poet's meaning.-CALTON.

w Earth's son, Antæus.

This simile in the person of the poet is amazingly fine.-WARBURTON.

Small things with greatest.)

x (To compare

This is the third time Milton has imitated Virgil's "sic parvis componere magna solebam,"-" Ecl." i. 24. See "Paradise Lost," b. ii. 921; b. x. 306. Some such mode of qualifying common similes is necessary to a poet writing on divine subjects.-DUNSTER.

y In Irassa.

Antæus dwelt at the city Irassa, according to Pindar; but it was not there that he wrestled with Hercules, but at Lixos, according to Pliny, "Nat. Hist." lib. v. cap. 1. -MEADOWCOurt.

1 With Jove's Alcides.

There were so many Hercules in the Grecian mythology and history, that it was necessary to specify when the principal Hercules, the son of Jupiter and Alcmena, was meant. Thus Cicero, "De Nat. Deor." lib. iii. 16- "Quanquam quem potissimum Herculem colamus, scire sane velim; plures enim nobis tradunt ii, qui interiores scrutantur et reconditas literas; antiquissimum Jove natum." Varro says there were forty-three Hercules. It may be observed, that, though Hercules the son of Jupiter is

meant. Thus Cicero, "De Nat. Deor." lib. iii. 16 :—“Quanquam quem potissimum Herculem colamus, scire sane velim; plures enim nobis tradunt ii, qui interiores Varro says there were

scrutantur et reconditas literas; antiquissimum Jove natum."

forty-three Hercules.

It may be observed, that, though Hercules the son of Jupiter is