the phoenix in the last scene; which is faulty, not only as it is incongruous to the personage to whom it is ascribed, but it is so evidently contrary to reason and nature, that it ought never to be mentioned but as a fable in any serious poem.

Another species of impropriety is the unsuitableness of thoughts to the general character of the poem. The seriousness and solemnity of tragedy necessarily rejects 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 buried; but O yet more miserable!

66

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 and bad news, seems to want elevation:

Manoah." A little stay will bring some notice hither.

Chorus.

"Of good or bad so great, of bad the sooner;

"For evil news rides post, while good news bates."

But of all meanness, that has least to plead which is produced by mere verbal conceits; which, depending 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 inconveniencies 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 Samson 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.

Since I have thus pointed out the faults of Milton, critical integrity requires that I should endeavour to display his excellencies, though they will not easily be discovered in short questions, 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:

66

"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 representation 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

66

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 repulsion: 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 expostulations and wishes, as reason too often submits to learn from despair.

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 any attempt produce any other effect than to strengthen their shoots by lopping their luxuriance. JOHNSON.

(e) When I remarked that Jonson, in his comedy of The Fox, was a close copier of the ancients, it occurred to me to say something upon the celebrated drama of Samson Agonistes; which, though less beholden to the Greek poets in its dialogue than the comedy above-mentioned, is in all other particulars as complete an imitation of the Ancient Tragedy, as the distance of times and the difference of languages will admit of.

It is professedly built according to ancient rule and example; and the author, by taking Aristotle's definition of tragedy for his motto, fairly challenges the critick to examine and compare it by that test. His close adherence to the model of the Greek tragedy is in nothing more conspicuous than in the simplicity of his diction; in this particular he has curbed his fancy with so tight a hand, that, knowing as we do the fertile vein of his genius, we cannot but lament the fidelity of his imitation; for there is a harshness in the metre of his Chorus, which to a certain degree seems to border upon pedantry and affectation; he premises that the measure is indeed of all sorts, but I must take leave to observe that in some places it is no measure at all, or such at least as the ear will not patiently endure, nor which any recitation can

(c) From Mr. Cumberland's Observer, vol. iv. No. 111.

make harmonious. By casting out of his composition the strophe and antistrophe, those stanzas which the Greeks appropriated to singing, or in one word by making his Chorus monostrophick, he has robbed it of that lyrick beauty, which he was capable of bestowing in the highest perfection; and why he should stop short in this particular, when he had otherwise gone so far in imitation, is not easy to guess; for surely it would have been quite as natural to suppose those stanzas, had he written any, might be sung, as that all the other parts, as the drama now stands with a Chorus of such irregular measure, might be recited or given in representation.

Now it is well known to every man conversant in the Greek theatre, how the Chorus, which in fact is the parent of the drama, came in process of improvement to be woven into the fable, and from being at first the whole grew in time to be only a part: The fable being simple, and the characters few, the striking part of the spectacle rested upon the singing and dancing of the interlude, if I may so call it, and to these the people were too long accustomed and too warmly attached, to allow of any reform for their exclusion; the tragick poet therefore never got rid of his Chorus, though the writers of the Middle Comedy contrived to dismiss theirs, and probably their fable being of a more lively character, their scenes were better able to stand without the support of musick and spectacle, than the mournful fable and more languid recitation of the tragedians. That the tragick authors laboured against the Chorus, will appear from their efforts to expel Bacchus and his Satyrs from the stage, in which they were long time opposed by the audience, and at last by certain ingenious expedients, which were a kind of compromise with the publick, effected their point: This in part was brought about by the introduction of a fuller scene and a more active fable, but the Chorus with its accompaniments kept its place; and the poet, who seldom ventured upon introducing more than three speakers on the scene at the same time, qualified the sterility of his business by giving to the Chorus a share of the dialogue, who, at the same time that they furnished the stage with numbers, were not counted among the speaking characters according to the rigour of the usage above-mentioned. A man must be an enthusiast for antiquity, who can find charms in the dialogue-part of a Greek