and restoration; that his last days were his best days; and that, like the sun, whose name he bore, he "looked largest at his setting."

"His name, Samson," says Marcus Dods," refers not to his strength, but to his temper. It means 'Sunny.' This was what the people saw in him-an inexhaustible joyousness of disposition that buoyed him up in danger and difficulty, revealed itself in many practical jokes, and made him seem to the down-trodden people, whose future was clouded and gloomy, as the sun rising upon and cheering them." And that Milton's view was substantially the same appears from a magnificent passage in his prose writings, in which he eompares a king to Samson, and speaks of "his illustrious and sunny locks waving and curling about his god-like shoulders."

Now let me indicate what seems the poet's design. Evidently, in his judgment, Samson is one of the finest specimens of constitutional greatness; to him Samson, as seen at the last, with his ripe experience of men and things, chastened by sorrow, disciplined by adversity, is a manysided man; and the object of the poet is to bring his hero into contact with a variety of persons-to place him, as it were, in a variety of situations-in order that the several aspects and elements of his noble nature may all the more distinctly appear. Minute analysis would illustrate this; and, although I cannot attempt an exhaustive review, I shall endeavour to indicate by samples the mode of treatment pursued.

Behold Samson, then, before the prison, or on his way to the place of retirement. It is a holiday, and the very cessation from wonted employment has served to waken up tormenting thoughts.

66 I seek

This unfrequented place, to find some ease-
Ease to the body some, none to the mind
From restless thoughts, that, like a deadly swarm
Of hornets armed, no sooner found alone,

But rush upon me thronging, and present

Times past-what once I was, and what am now."

He is perplexed by the mystery of life-the mystery of his own life. Shortly after coming to England, when walking in a cemetery beside the sea, I was arrested by a memorial of a very touching character. On a pedestal rested a broken column of polished'granite, and underneath was an inscription, with the name of the departed, and a simple note of his birth and death, from which it appeared that he had been cut off at the early age of twenty. We are startled and surprised by such a fact as this. It was a ship wrecked almost after leaving the harbour—a case of promise unfulfilled, hopes blasted, work left undone. Well, Samson cannot solve the enigma of his own life. Why the circumstances of his birth, why the nature of his upbringing, why his dedication to God, why the prediction of his conquest of the Philistines, if it is all to end in this inglorious way?

"Promise was, that I

Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver :
Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him

Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves,

Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke."

Ah, but Samson comes right at last! He takes blame to himself; he reproaches himself again and again: "Whom have I to complain of but myself?" "So foolish was I, and ignorant," and "as a beast before Thee." And, on the other hand, he glorifies God. This is a dreadful lot for one who used to move a king in Israel,-the champion of the oppressed, and the scourge of the Philistian foe. But he dares not call in question the ordering of God, who doeth all things well.

"I must not quarrel with the will

Of highest dispensation, which herein

Haply had ends above my reach to know."

Let us next see how his character, and views, and feelings come out under the friction of intercourse with others.

The first to appear on the stage are certain of his old neighbours from Zorah and Eshtaol-his friends and former subjects. He takes their visit in good part; and it is interesting to observe how their presence brings up the past, and reminds him of his relation to the southern tribes. His first thought is his own miserable condition; but his second is, What do the men of Israel say of me?

"Tell me, friends,

Am I not sung and proverbed for a fool

In every street? Do they not say, How well
Are come upon him his deserts ?"

How natural this is! Yes; Napoleon in his island prison; Bajazet, in his iron cage; Charles V., in the monastery of Yuste-all who, having once filled the world's eye, are now reduced to small proportions and robbed of power—all are alike anxious to know the estimation in which they are held, what men are saying of them. But Samson soars beyond this seeming pettiness. He is the statesman and warrior, and comes out with an indignant reproof of the heads of tribes, who, instead of recognising the day of their visitation, instead of availing themselves of his great exploits, were (like Scotland's nobles in the case of Wallace) jealous of his fame, meanly truckled to the Philistines, and were even prepared to surrender their deliverer into the enemy's hand.

In reply to the Chorus, who say,

"Yet Israel still serves, with all his sons,"

Samson thus breaks forth,

"That fault I take not on me, but transfer

On Israel's governors and heads of tribes,

Who, seeing those great acts which God had done

Singly by me against their conquerors,

Acknowledged not, or not at all considered

Deliverance offered."

The fact is, that on one occasion the Israelites, instead of flocking to Samson's standard, and seconding his effort to throw off the Philistian yoke, bound him, and gave him into the enemy's hands, willing to buy peace at the price of his life. God has often to deliver His people in spite of themselves.

But here comes his

"Reverend sire,

With careful step, locks white as down,

Old Manoah."

And now Samson is the loving, respectful son. He does not forget the high position which he has occupied in Israel; but he feels this day, and keenly feels, that by his foolish frailty he has done something to bring his father's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave. The interview is a very touching one. At first the old man is shocked by the contrast between what Samson was and what he is ("O miserable change!") and is disposed to call in question the justice of God in thus afflicting one whom He had raised so high :—

"Alas! methinks, whom God hath chosen once
To worthiest deeds, if he through frailty err,
He should not so o'erwhelm, and as a thrall
Subject him to so foul indignities,

Be it but for honour's sake of former deeds."

But Samson gently reproves him, and (as throughout) takes all the blame to himself. Manoah then passes to the depressing thought (depressing to every gracious and thoughtful Israelite-much more to him) that Samson's downfal is God's dishonour and Dagon's glory. To him this is the bitterest element in the case :

"So Dagon shall be magnified; and God,

Besides whom is no god, compared with idols,
Disglorified, blasphemed, and had in scorn
By the idolatrous rout amidst their wine;
Which to have come to pass by means of thee,
Samson, of all thy sufferings think the heaviest ;
Of all reproach, the most with shame that ever
Could have befallen thee, and thy father's house."

But here Samson rises with the occasion. The thought of the dishonour done to God has hitherto been his "chief affliction, shame, and sorrow-the anguish of his soul;" but he cannot doubt that God will, in some other way, and by some other means, vindicate Himself. Mark his noble faith:

"This only hope relieves me, that the strife
With me hath end: all the contest is now
"Twixt God and Dagon: Dagon hath presumed,
Me overthrown, to enter lists with God-

His deity comparing and preferring
Before the God of Abraham. He, be sure,
Will not connive or linger, thus provoked;
But will arise, and His great name assert:
Dagon must stoop, and shall ere long receive
Such a discomfit, as shall quite despoil him
Of all these boasted trophies won on me,
And with confusion blank his worshippers."

And now Manoah broaches the subject of deliverance by a ransom. But he meets with no encouragement. Samson has made up his mind to lie where he is, till

VOL. XXII.-FIFTH SERIES.

F

"Oft invocated death

Hasten the welcome end of all my pains."

And when his father suggests that God may yet have some great work for him to do, (else why the restoration of his strength?) he thus breaks out in a strain of exquisite pathos :

"All otherwise to me my thoughts portend,

That these dark orbs no more shall treat with light,

Nor the other light of life continue long,

But yield to double darkness nigh at hand :

So much 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 scene changes. Samson is now the deeply injured husband. Delilah dares to come-professing a desire to see his face, and to become acquainted with his condition, and to serve him in aught within her reach. And here we have a noble specimen of Milton's dramatic power. Both parties put forth all their strength: she to cajole and delude, he to unmask the traitress, and to expose her wiles. She makes nothing by her fawning approach:

66 Out, out, hyena! these are thy wonted arts,

And arts of every woman false like thee."

But then he ought not to be too severe ! It was weakness and love that caused her to do what she did: weakness, common to the sex-curiosity to know a secret, and an irresistible propensity to publish it (a weakness moreover paralleled by his own, for why should he for mere importunity have surrendered his strength to a woman?); and love, for, had she not an assurance from the lords that all they designed regarding him was his safe custody, and would she not then have him all to herself? But Samson rends her flimsy argument to pieces :

"Weakness is thy excuse,

And I believe it; weakness to resist
Philistian gold: if weakness may excuse,
What murderer, what traitor, parricide,
Incestuous, sacrilegious, but may plead it?
All wickedness is weakness; that plea therefore
With God or man will gain thee no remission.
But love constrained thee! Call it furious rage
To satisfy thy lust: love seeks to have love;

My love how couldst thou hope, who took'st the way
To raise in me inexpiable hate,

Knowing, as needs I must, by thee betrayed?"

Nay, but she is not to be so easily beaten off. She tries another tack: "I was pressed on the ground of religion—how meritorious it would be to entrap the common enemy, the irreligious dishonourer of Dagon : "

"What had I

To oppose against such powerful arguments?
Only my love of thee held long debate,

And combatted in silence all these reasons

With hard contest: at length, that grounded maxim,
So rife and celebrated in the mouths

Of wisest men, that to the public good

Private respects must yield, with grave authority

Took full possession of me, and prevailed;

Virtue, as I thought, truth, duty, so enjoining."

But another withering exposure awaited her: "I was an enemy, was I?
Yet thou wert my wife.”

"Being once a wife, for me thou wast to leave
Parents and country; nor was I their subject,
Nor under their protection, but my own;
Thou mine, not theirs: if aught against my life
Thy country sought of thee, it sought unjustly,
Against the law of nature, law of nations;
No more thy country, but an impious crew
Of men conspiring to uphold their state
By worse than hostile deeds, violating the ends
For which our country is a name so dear;
Not therefore to be obeyed. But zeal moved thee!
To please thy gods thou didst it! Gods, unable
To acquit themselves, and prosecute their foes
But by ungodly deeds, the contradiction

Of their own deity, gods cannot be;

Less therefore to be pleased, obey'd, or feared.

These false pretexts, and varnish'd colours, failing,

Bare in thy guilt, how foul must thou appear!

One more attempt she makes to appease the wrath of her much injured husband: "I will make interest to get thee forth from this loatsome prison-house, and I will carefully tend thee to old age."

"No! no! Of my condition take no care;

It fits not thou and I long since are twain."

"This jail I count the house of liberty

To thine, whose doors my feet shall never enter."
"Let me approach at least, and touch thy hand."

"Not for thy life! lest fierce remembrance wake
My sudden rage to tear thee joint by joint."

And now the real nature of the woman comes out, and she stands revealed in her true colours-a heathen and a hypocrite: "Let me be cursed in Israel; I shall be blessed in my native land!"

"I shall be named among the famousest
Of women, sung at solemn festivals,
Living and dead recorded; who, to save
Her country from a fierce destroyer, chose
Above the faith of wedlock bands; my tomb
With odours visited and annual flowers;

Not less renowned than in Mount Ephraim

Jael, who with inhospitable guile

Smote Sisera sleeping, through the temples nailed.