I mean a dow gan of my manCH. TA CHER, A vita de ára f vinis und vies pent When mountains remnie, die w nasy jürs He tagg 1, he dinok, til town they name, mi bew I pan the heads of all vio at beneath. Loris, ladies, captains, munselors, a presa, Cho. O dearly-bought revenge, yet glorious! Living or dying thou hast filli The work for which thou wast foretold To Israel, and now liest victorious Among thy slain self-kiil'd, Not willingly, but tangled in the fold And eyes fast fz'd he stood. Samson having had his eyes pat out, this only means to describe his attitude, by his countenance being fixed on the ground, as it must be when his head was inclined." Eyes fast fix'd " is a classical phrase.-Dusstza. As with amaze shall strike all who behold. I am not without a painful suspicion, that there is an intended pan in the word "strike." It too much resembles the language of the evil angels, in the sixth book of "Paradise Lost," on producing their artillery, and witnessing the successful effect of it.-DUNSTER. b 0 dearly-bought revenge, &c. It is judicious to make the Chorus and Semi-Chorus speak after this dreadful account of Samson's death, and not his father Manoah, who makes no answer till after a considerable pause; as he may be supposed to be struck dumb with the unexpected event.-Jos. WARTON. Not willingly. "This suicide of Samson," says a learned author, "was of that nature, which respects not self immediately, or primarily seeks to compass its own death. Had Samson only sought his own death, he would probably have found means of destroying himself in prison, before he was brought forth to be made a show and a spectacle: but a renewal of the glory of God in the destruction of the Philistines was his principal object; which glory had been apparently violated by their general usage of his servant Samson, and the par Of dire necessity, whose law in death conjoin'd 1 Semi. While their hearts were jocund and sublime, And fat regorged of bulls and goats, 1670 Chanting their idol, and preferring Among them he a spirit of phrenzy sent, And urged them on with mad desire, To call in haste for their destroyer: They, only set on sport and play, Unweetingly importuned Their own destruction to come speedy upon them. So fond are mortal men", Fallen into wrath divine, As their own ruin on themselves to invite, Insensate left, or to sense reprobate, And with blindness internal struck. 2 Semi. But he though blind of sight, Despised, and thought extinguish'd quite, With inward eyes illuminated, His fiery virtue roused From under ashes into sudden flame, ticular indignity they had made him suffer in the loss of his eyes. 1675 1680 1685 1690 His own death was an accidental circumstance connected with his point in view, but not the first and direct aim of the action. It was necessary indeed for him to put his own life into the utmost hazard, with scarce a possibility of escape; but he cheerfully submitted to fall with his enemies, rather than not accomplish his great design." Moore's " Full Inquiry into the subject of Suicide," vol. i. p. 89.-TODD. d In number more Than all thy life had slain before. "So the dead which he slew at his death, were more than they which he slew in his life," Judges xvi. 30.-NEWTON. e Drunk with idolatry, drunk with wine. This distinction of drunkenness is scriptural. See Isaiah xxix. 9.-DUNSTER. In Silo. Where the tabernacle and ark were at that time.-NEWTON. So fond are mortal men, &c. Agreeable to the common maxim, " Quos Deus vult perdere, dementat prius."-THYER. And as an evening dragon came, &c. Mr. Calton says that Milton certainly dictated And not as an evening dragon came. Samson did not set upon them like an evening dragon, but darted ruin on their heads, like the thunder-bearing eagle. Mr. Sympson, to the same purpose, proposes to read, And not as evening dragon came, but as an eagle, &c. Mr. Thyer understands it otherwise, and explains it without any alteration of the text, to which I rather incline. One might produce, says he, authorities enough from the natural 914, to show that serpents tevour fowis: that of Ddrovandus » suficient, und erves foly of his smile. Speaking of the food of ements, esa - Eznim avs, et necianAm. de Seret mum avium pulos in dis adhuc tegentes D'ever frame. Ime, lib. in c. 3. miles brought in to every erenmstance. It's common mough among he ancient poets, to been with sereni strate one action, when one anot Mton foes the same he introducing the sale of the ing merely in allision to the order in which the Philistines were parade ans@teate; and the misen ens one of the eagle, to express the moutity of that vengeaza vla Samson took of his enemies-NEWTIN * Villaticas altres," Plin. lib. i. seet. 17.-Bichanson In the "Ajax" of Sophocles, it is said that his enemies, if they aw him appear, would be terrified like birds at the appearance of the vulture or the eagle, v. 157. —Jurtis. Apuleius describes an eagle, in predan superne sese ruere, filmninis vice," Find lhi. The ancients described heroes of great prowess and activity in war as thunderbolts. See Spanheim - De Usu et Præstanza Numismatum," Dissert, v., where he treats of the epithets bestowed on the successors of Alexander, and among others that of "thunderer."-DUNSTER. ad imit. Like that self2egotten bard. The introduction of the phoenix is particularly censured by Dr. Johnson. Tertullian, Ambrose, and others of the Fathers, have however cited the phoenix as a rational argu- | ment of a resurrection.-DUNSTER. 1 Embost. Probably from the Italian "emboscare," to enclose in a thicket, as Dr. Johnson observes. It appears to have been used by our old poets as a term of hunting, applied more particularly to the hart.-TODD. A holocaust. An entire burnt-offering. Else, generally, only part of the beast was burnt.-RICHARDSON. ¤ Her fame survives A secular bird ages of lives. The construction and meaning of the whole period I conceive to be this :-Virtue, given for lost, like the phoenix consumed and now teemed from out her ashy womb, revives, reflourishes; and though her body die, which was the case of Samson, yet her fame survives a phoenix many ages: for the comma after "survives" in all the editions should be omitted, as Mr. Calton has observed as well as myself. The phoenix, says he, lived a thousand years according to some, and hence it is called here" a secular bird."- Ergo quoniam sex diebus cuncta Dei opera perfecta sunt; per secula sex, id est, annorum sex millia, manere hoc statu mundum necesse est." Lactantius, " Div. Inst." lib. vii. c. 14. The fame of virtue, the Semi-chorus saith, "survives," outlives, this "secular bird" nges. The comma, which is in all the editions after "survives," breaks the construction. -NEWTON. Many Man. Come, come, no time for lamentation now A life heroick; on his enemies Fully revenged, hath left them years of mourning, r Will send for all my kindred, all my friends, • No time for lamentation now, &c. 1710 1715 1720 1725 1730 In the "Hecuba" of Euripides, Hecuba, when she is informed of the heroical death of her daughter Polyxena, after expressing her grief, corrects it with similar reflections, ver. 591.-DUNSTER. P To the sons of Caphtor. Caphtor it should be, and not Chaptor, as in several editions and the sons of Caphtor are Philistines, originally of the island Caphtor or Crete. The people were called Caphtorim, Cheretim, Ceretim, and afterwards Cretians. A colony of them settled in Palestine, and there went by the name of Philistim.-MEADOWCOURT. a Nothing is here for tears, &c. The whole of this speech of Manoah is in a high degree pleasing and interesting from this place to the conclusion it gradually rises in beauty, so as to form one of the most captivating parts of this admirable tragedy.-DUNSTER. Let us go find the body, &c. When Sarpedon is slain in the Iliad, Jupiter gives Phoebus a commission to find the body, and have all due obsequies and funeral rites paid it. See "Il." xvi. 667, &c. Compare also the rites paid to the corpses of Patroclus and Hector, "Il." xviii. xxiv.-Dunster. Will send for all my kindred, all my friends, &c. This is founded upon what the Scripture saith, Judges xvi. 31, which the poet has finely improved:" Then his brethren, and all the house of his father, came down and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Ashtaol, in the buryingplace of Manoah his father."-NEWTON. The poet, by "silent obsequy," in this description of the last respect intended to be paid to Samson, alludes to the custom observed at the Jewish funerals; at which all the near relations of the deceased came to the house in their mourning dress, and sat down upon the ground in silence; whilst in another part of the house were heard the voices of mourners, and the sound of instruments, hired for the purpose: these exclamations continued till the performed, when the nearest relations resumed their melancholy posture.-TODD. rites were ann War's mind. He mit bere allude to the custom of Vita cisgis pour the umbs of eminent persons.-TODD. Znacistoe is very fine, and excellently suited to the beginning: muco to as nece a passage out of Aristotle, which may SHOP VÀ BIS 18 ang iyong as nely, and the sense of which he hath expressed NJË NOVIT, 3o Tasing pity and fear, or terrour, to purge the c. and be exemplifies it here in Manoah and the Cíveis, aber der varous ar aqvus of passion, arlescing in the divine dispensations, and thereby inculcsang i most distractive lesson to the reader.—Nawros. Or the general character of this poem it may be proper to cite the opinions of my pre decessors. Samson Agonistes is the only tragedy that Mton finished, though he sketched out the plans of several, and proposed the subjects of more, in his manuscript preserved in |