a

sities. Oh, the ecstatic entertainment, when they could behold their food immediately increase to the distributer's hand, and see their God in person feeding and refreshing his creatures! Oh, envied happiness! But why do I say envied? as if our God did not still preside over our temperate meals, cheerful hours, and innocent conversations.

But though the sacred story is every where full of miracles not inferior to this, and though in the midst of those acts of divinity he never gave the least hint of a design to become a secular prince, yet had not hitherto the apostles themselves any other than hopes of worldly power, preferment, riches and

pomp; for Peter, upon an accident of ambition among the apostles, hearing his Master explain that his kingdom was not of this world, was so scandalized that he whom he had so long followed should suffer the ignominy, shame, and death, which he foretold, that he took him aside and said, “Be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee;' for which he suffered a severe reprehension from his Master, as having in his view the glory of man rather than that of God.

The great change of things began to draw near, when the Lord of nature thought fit as a Saviour and a Deliverer to make his public entry into Jerusalem, with more than the power and joy, but none of the ostentation and pomp of a triumph: he came humble, meek, and lowly; with an unfelt new ecstacy, multitudes strewed his way with garments and olive branches, crying with loud gladness and acclamation, · Hosannah to the Son of David! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!' At this great King's accession to

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his throne, men were not ennobled, but saved; crimes were not remitted, but sins forgiven; he did not bestow medals, honours, favours, but health, joy, sight, speech. The first object the blind ever saw was the Author of sight; while the lame ran before, and the dumb repeated the hosannah. Thus attended, he entered into his own house, the sacred temple, and by his divine authority expelled traders and worldlings that profaned it; and thus did he for a time use a great and despotic power, to let unbelievers understand that it was not want of, but superiority to all worldly dominion, that made him not exert it. But is this then the Saviour? Is this the Deliverer? Shall this obscure Nazarene command Israel and sit on the throne of David? Their proud and disdainful hearts, which were petrified with the love and pride of this world, were impregnable to the reception of so mean a benefactor, and were now enough exasperated with benefits to conspire his death. Our Lord was sensible of their design, and prepared his disciples for it, by recounting to them now more distinctly what should befali him; but Peter, with an ungrounded resolution, and in a flush of temper, made a sanguine protestation, that though all men were offended in him, yet would not he be offended. It was a great article of our Saviour's business in the world, to bring us to a sense of our inability without God's assistance, to do any thing great or good: he therefore told Peter, who thought so well of his courage and fidelity, that they would both fail him, and even he should deny him thrice that very night.

• But what heart can conceive, what tongue

utter the sequel? Who is that yonder, buffeted, mocked, and spurned? Whom do they drag like a felon?' Whither do they carry my Lord, my King, my Saviour, and 'my God? And will he die to expiate these very injuries? See where they have nailed the Lord and Giver of life? How his wounds blacken, his body writhes, his heart heaves with pity and with agony! Oh, Almighty Sufferer, look down, look down from thy triumphant infamy. Lo, he inclines his head to his sacred bosom! Hark, he groans! see, he expires! The earth trembles, the temple rends, the rocks burst, the dead arise. Which are the quick? which are the dead? Sure nature, all nature, is departing with her Creator.'

T.

STEELE.

No. 357. SATURDAY, APRIL 19.

-Quis talia fando
Temperet à lachrymis?- VIRG. Æn.
Who can relate such woes without a tear?

THE tenth book of Paradise Lost has a greater variety of persons in it than any other in the whole poem. The author, upon the winding up of his action, introduces all those who had any concern in it, and shows, with great beauty the influence which it had upon each of them. It is like the last act of a well-written tragedy, in which all who had a part in it are generally drawn up before the audience, and represented under those circumstances in which the determi. nation of the action places them,

man;

I shall therefore consider this book under four heads; in relation to the celestial, the infernal, the human, and the imaginary persons who have their respective parts allotted in it. To begin with the celestial persons: the

guardian angels of Paradise are described as returning to heaven upon the fall of man, in order to approve their vigilance; their arrival, their manner of reception, with the sorrow which appeared in themselves, and in those spirits who are said to rejoice at the conversion of a sinner, are very finely laid together in the following lines:

Up into heaven from Paradise in haste
Th’ angelic guards ascended, mute and sad
For

for of his state by this they knew;
Much wond'ring how the subtle fiend had stol'n
Entrance unseen. Soon as th' unwelcome news
From earth arriv'd at heaven-gate, displeas'd
All were who heard: dim sadness did not spare
That time celestial visages; yet mixt
With pity, violated not their bliss.
About the new arrived, in multitudes
Th'ethereal people ran, to hear and know
How all befel. They towards the throne supreme
Accountable made haste, to make appear,
With righteous plea, their utmost vigilance,
And easily approv'd; when the Most High
Eternal Fatlicr, from his secret cloud

Amidst, in thunder utter'd thus his voice. The same divine person who, in the foregoing parts of this poem, interceded for our first parents before their fall, overthrew the rebel angels, and created the world, is now represented as descending to Paradise, and pronouncing sentence upon the three offenders. The cool of the evening being a circumstance with which holy writ

introduces this great scene, it is poetically described by our author, who has also kept religiously to the form of words in which the three several sentences were passed upon Adam, Eve, and the serpent. He has rather chosen to neglect the numerousness of his verse than to deviate from those speeches which are recorded on this great occasion. The guilt and confusion of our first parents standing naked before their Judge, is touched with great beauty. Upon the arrival of Sin and Death into the works of the creation, the Almighty is again introduced as speaking to his angels that surrounded him.

See! with what heat these dogs of hell advance,
To waste and havoc yonder world, which I
So fair and good created, &c.

The following passage is formed upon that glorious image in holy writ, which compares the voice of an innumerable host of angels, uttering hallelujahs, to the voice of mighty thunderings, or of many waters:

He ended, and the heavenly audience loud
Sung hallelujah, as the sound of seas,
Through multitude that sung: Just are thy ways,
Righteous are thy decrees in all thy works,
Who can extenuate thee?-

Though the author in the whole course of his poem, and particularly in the book we are now examining, has infinite allusions to places of scripture, I have only taken notice, in my remarks, of such as are of a poetical nature, and which are woven with great beauty into the