As the Red Sea and Jordan once he cleft,
When to the Promised Land their fathers pass'd;
To his due time and providence I leave them.

So spake Israel's true King, and to the Fiend
Made answer meet, that made void all his wiles.
So fares it when with Truth Falsehood contends.

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BOOK IV.

THE ARGUMENT.

Satan, persisting in the temptation of our Lord, shows him imperial Rome in its greatest pomp and splendour, as a power which he probably would prefer before that of the Parthians; and tells him that he might with the greatest ease expel Tiberius, restore the Romans to their liberty, and make himself master not only of the Roman empire, but, by so doing, of the whole world, and inclusively of the throne of David. Our Lord, in reply, expresses his contempt of grandeur and worldly power, notices the luxury, vanity, and profligacy, of the Romans, declaring how little they merited to be restored to that liberty which they had lost by their misconduct, and briefly refers to the greatness of his own future kingdom. Satan, now desperate, to enhance the value of his proffered gifts, professes that the only terms on which he will bestow them, are our Saviour's falling down and worshipping him. Our Lord expresses a firm but temperate indignation at such a proposition, and rebukes the tempter by the title of 'Satan for ever damn'd.' Satan, abashed, attempts to justify himself: he then assumes a new ground of temptation, and proposing to Jesus the intellectual gratifications of wisdom and knowledge, points out to him the celebrated seat of ancient learning, Athens, its schools, and other various resorts of learned teachers and their disciples; accompanying the view with a highlyfinished panegyric on the Grecian musicians, poets, orators, and philosophers of the different sects. Jesus replies, by showing the vanity and insufficiency of the boasted heathen philosophy: and prefers to the music, poetry, eloquence, and didactic policy, of the Greeks, those of the inspired Hebrew writers. Satan, irritated at the failure of all his attempts, upbraids the indiscretion of our Saviour in rejecting his offers: and having, in ridicule of his expected kingdom, foretold the sufferings that our Lord was to undergo, carries him back into the wilderness, and leaves him there. Night comes on: Satan raises a tremendous storm, and attempts farther to alarm Jesus with frightful dreams, and terrific threatening spectres; which however have no effect upon him. A calm, bright, beautiful morning succeeds to the horrors of the night. Satan again presents himself to our blessed Lord, and, from noticing the storm of the preceding night as pointed chiefly at him, takes occasion once more to insult him with an account of the sufferings which he was certainly to undergo. This only draws from our Lord a brief rebuke. Satan, now at the height of his desperation, confesses that he had frequently watched Jesus from his birth, purposely to discover if he was the Messiah; and, collecting from what passed at the river Jordan that he most probably was so, he had from that

time more assiduously followed him, in hopes of gaining some advantage over him, which would most effectually prove that he was not really that Divine Person destined to be his fatal enemy.' In this he acknowledges that he has hitherto completely failed: but still determines to make one more trial of him. Accordingly he conveys him to the temple at Jerusalem, and, placing him on a pointed eminence, requires him to prove his divinity either by standing there, or casting himself down with safety. Our Lord reproves the Tempter, and at the same time manifests his own divinity by standing on this dangerous point. Satan, amazed and terrified, instantly falls; and repairs to his infernal compeers to relate the bad success of his enterprise. Angels in the mean time convey our blessed Lord to a beautiful valley, and, while they minister to him a repast of celestial food, celebrate his victory in a triumphant hymn.

PERPLEX'D and troubled at his bad success
The Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,
Discover'd in his fraud, thrown from his hope
So oft, and the persuasive rhetoric

That sleek'd his tongue, and won so much on Eve,
So little bere, nay lost; but Eve was Eve,
This far his over-match, who, self-deceived
And rash, before-hand had no better weigh'd
The strength he was to cope with, or his own:
But as a man who had been matchless held

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In cunning, over-reach'd where least he thought,
To salve his credit, and for every spite,

Still will be tempting him who foils him still,
And never cease, though to his shame the more;
Or as a swarm of flies in vintage time,

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About the wine-press where sweet must is pour'd,
Beat off, returns as oft with humming sound;
Or surging waves against a solid rock,

Though all to shivers dash'd, th' assault renew,
Vain battery, and in froth or bubbles end;
So Satan, whom repulse upon repulse
Met ever, and to shameful silence brought,
Yet gives not o'er though desp'rate of success,
And his vain importunity pursues.

He brought our Saviour to the western side

Of that high mountain, whence he might behold

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Another plain, long, but in breadth not wide,
Wash'd by the southern sea, and on the north
To equal length back'd with a ridge of hills,

That screen'd the fruits of th' earth and seats of men
From cold Septentrion blasts, thence in the midst
Divided by a river, of whose banks

On each side an imperial city stood,
With towers and temples proudly elevate
On seven small hills, with palaces adorn'd
Porches and theatres, baths, aqueducts,
Statues and trophies, and triumphal arcs,
Gardens and groves presented to his eyes,
Above the highth of mountains interposed:
By what strange parallax or optic skill
Of vision multiply'd through air, or glass
Of telescope, were curious to inquire:
And now the Tempter thus his silence broke:
The city which thou seest no other deem

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Than great and glorious Rome, queen of the earth

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So far renown'd, and with the spoils enrich'd

Of nations; there the capitol thou seest

Above the rest lifting his stately head
On the Tarpeian rock, her citadel
Impregnable; and there Mount Palatine,
Th' imperial palace, compass huge and high
The structure, skill of noblest architects,
With gilded battlements, conspicuous far,
Turrets and terraces, and glitt'ring spires.
Many a fair edifice besides, more like
Houses of Gods, so well I have disposed
My aery microscope, thou may'st behold
Outside and inside both, pillars and roofs,
Carved work, the hand of famed artificers
In cedar, marble, ivory, or gold.

Thence to the gates cast round thine eye, and see
What conflux issuing forth, or entering in,
Pretors, proconsuls to their provinces

Hasting, or on return, in robes of state;
Lictors and rods, the ensigns of their power,
Legions and cohorts, turms of horse and wings;
Or embassies from regions far remote
In various habits on the Appian road,

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Or on th' Emilian, some from farthest south,
Syene, and where the shadow both way falls,
Meroe, Nilotic isle, and, more to west,
The realm of Bocchus to the Blackmoor sea;

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From th' Asian kings, and Parthian among these,
From India and the golden Chersonese,

And utmost Indian isle, Taprobane,

Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreath'd;
From Gallia, Gades, and the British west,
Germans and Scythians, and Sarmatians north
Beyond Danubius to the Tauric pool.

All nations now to Rome obedience pay,

To Rome's great Emperor, whose wide domain
In ample territory, wealth and power,
Civility of manners, arts, and arms,

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And long renown, thou justly may'st prefer
Before the Parthian; these two thrones except,
The rest are barb'rous, and scarce worth the sight,
Shared among petty kings too far removed;

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These having shown thee, I have shown thee all
The kingdoms of the world, and all their glory.
This emperor hath no son, and now is old,

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Old and lascivious, and from Rome retired
To Capreæ, an island small but strong

On the Campanian shore, with purpose there
His horrid lusts in private to enjoy,
Committing to a wicked favourite

All public cares, and yet of him suspicious
Hated of all, and hating; with what ease,
Indued with regal virtues as thou art,
Appearing, and beginning noble deeds,

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Might'st thou expel this monster from his throne,

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