But as I rose out of the laving stream, He was well pleas'd; by which I knew the time I learn not yet, perhaps I need not know; 280.-out of the laving stream,] Alluding, I fancy, to the phrase laver of regeneration so frequently applied to baptism. It may be observed in general of this soliloquy of our Saviour, that it is not only excellently well adapted to the present condition of the divine speaker, but also very artfully introduced by the poet to give us a history of his hero from his birth to the very scene with which the poem is opened. Thyer. 281. eternal doors] So in Psalm xxiv. 7, 9. everlasting doors. 286. the time Now full,] Alluding to the Scripture phrase, the fulness of time. When the fulness of time was come &c. Gal. iv. 4. 293. For what concerns my knowledge God reveals.] The The whole soliloquy is formed upon VOL. III. 280 285 290 an opinion, which hath authorities enough to give it credit, viz. that Christ was not, by virtue of the personal union of the two natures, and from the first moment of that union, possessed of all the knowledge of the AOгOZ, as far as the capacity of a human mind would admit. [See Le Blanc's Elucidatio Status Controversiarum &c. cap. 3.] In his early years he increased in wisdom, and in stature. St. Luke ii. 52. And Beza observes upon this place, that, ipsa OTTOS plenitudo sese, prout et quatenus ipsi libuit, humanitati assumtæ insinuavit: quicquid garriant matæologi, et novi Ubiquitarii Eutychiani. Gerhard, a Lutheran professor of divinity, has the same meaning, or none at all, in what I am going to transcribe. Anima Christi, juxta naturalem, et habitualem scientiam vere profecit, λy omniscio gyas D So spake our Morning Star then in his rise, And looking round on every side beheld suam, quæ est actu omnia scire et cognoscere, per assumtam humanitatem non semper exerente. [Joh. Gerhardi Loci Theol. tom. i. loc. iv. cap. 12.] Grotius employs the same principle, to explain St. Mark xiii. 82. Videtur mihi, ni meliora docear, hic locus non impie posse exponi hunc in modum, ut dicamus divinam Sapientiam, menti humanæ Christi effectus suos impressisse pro temporum ratione. Nam quid aliud est, si verba non torquemus, προέκοπτε σοφία, Luc. ii. 52? And our Tillotson approved the opinion. "It is not "unreasonable to suppose, that "the Divine Wisdom, which "dwelt in our Saviour, did com"municate itself to his human "soul according to his pleasure, " and so his human Nature might "at some times not know some "things. And if this be not ad"mitted, how can we understand "that passage concerning our "Saviour, Luke ii. 52. that "Jesus grew in wisdom and "stature?" [Sermons, vol. ix. p. 273.] Grotius could find scarce any thing in antiquity to support his explication: but there is something in Theodoret very much to his purpose, which I owe to Whitby's Stricture Patrum, p. 190. [dourov pogons, ut videtur,] τοιαυτα κατ' εκείνο του καιρου εγινώσκουσης, όσα ή ενοικουσα θεότης arxa.-Non est Dei Verbi ignorantia, sed Formæ servi, quæ tanti per illud tempus sciebat, quanta Deitas inhabitans revelabat. Repreh. Anath. quarti Cyrilli, tom. iv. p. 713. If some 295 things might be supposed unknown to Christ, without prejudice to the union, being not revealed to him by the united Word, it will follow that, till some certain time, even the union itself might be unknown to him. This time seems to have been, in Milton's scheme, after the soliloquy, but before the forty days of fasting were ended, and the Demon entered upon the scene of action: and then was a fit occasion to give him a feeling of his own strength, when he was just upon the point of being attacked by such an adversary. Calton. In the Paradise Lost, where the divine persons are speakers, Milton has so chastened his pen, that we meet with few poetical images, and chiefly scriptural sentiments, delivered, as nearly as may be, in scriptural, and almost always in unornamented, language. But the Poet seems to consider this circumstance of the Temptation (if I may venture so to express myself) as the last, perfect, completion of the initiation of the man Jesus in the mystery of his own divine nature and office; at least he feels himself entitled to make our Saviour while on earth, and "inshrined in fleshly tabernacle," speak in a certain degree ανθρωπίνως, or, after the manner of men. Accordingly all the speeches of our blessed Lord, in this poem, are far more elevated than any language that is put into the mouth of the divine speakers in any part of the Paradise Lost. Dunster. A pathless desert, dusk with horrid shades; 294. So spake our Morning Star] So our Saviour is called in the Revelation, xxii. 16. the bright and morning star: and it is properly applied to him here at his first rising. 294. And thus Spenser, in his Hymn of heavenly love. 300 For solitude some times is best so eiety. Such solitude before choicest sol ciety. Or we must allow that an Alexandrine verse (as it is called) may be admitted into blank verse as well as into rhyme. 302. Mr. Dunster cannot ac O blessed well of love! O flower of cede to Bishop Newton's manner grace! O glorious Morning Star! &c. Dunster. 296. -on every side beheld A pathless desert, dusk with horrid shades ;] Compare Virgil's Æn. ix. 381, Sylva fuit, late dumis atque ilice nigrâ Horrida, quam densi complerant undique sentes: Rara per occultos lucebat semita calles. And Æn. i. 165. Horrentique atrum nemus imminet umbra. Dunster. He of scanning these lines. Come take my milk for gall, ye 298. —by human steps untrod;] standing his singular skill in Silius Italicus, xvii. 502. -negatas Gressibus humanis Alpes. Dunster, 302. Such solitude before choicest society.] This verse is of the same measure as one in the Paradise Lost, ix. 249. and is to be scanned in the same manner. music, appears to have had a very bad ear; so that it is hard to say, on what principle he modulated his lines." But Milton (he adds)" says in the Apolog. Smectymn. sect. vi. This good hap I had from a careful education, to be inured and seasoned betimes with the best Full forty days he pass'd, whether on hill and elegantest authors of the learned tongues, and thereto brought an ear that could measure a just cadence, and scan without articulating; rather nice and humorous in what was tolerable, than patient to read every drawling versifier.' Prose Works, vol. i. 120. This is spoken against hobbling distichs in Bishop Hall's satires." But surely we may in general suppose that Milton purposely introduced lines of this kind with a view to variety in his numbers. And they often have a good effect: which indeed we should mar if we could really alter the measure by alteration of the accent. But no one will in fact read vanquish or choicest with the last syllable accented; the attempt at improvement is more aukward than the supposed fault; which we should correct, if it be a fault, by pronouncing the words in question without any strong accent on either syllable. E. 306. to defend him from the dew,] The dews of that country were very considerable. Maundrell, in his Travels, when within little more than half a day's journey of Mount Hermon, says, 805 810 "we were sufficiently instructed by experience what the holy Psalmist means by the dew of Hermon, (Ps. cxxxiii. 3.) our tents being as wet with it, as if it had rained all night." Dunster. 307.-one cave] Read, some cave. Jortin. 310. they at his sight grew mild,] All this is very common in description, but here very judiciously employed as a mark of the returning Paradisiacal state. Warburton G. Fletcher, in his Christ's Triumph on Earth, has given a similar but more diffuse description of the effects of our Lord's presence on the wild beasts in the wilderness. Giles Fletcher (the younger brother of Phineas Fletcher, author of the Purple Island, and cousin of John Fletcher the dramatic poet) published his Christ's Victory and Triumph in 1610. It is in four parts, and the subject of the second part (above referred to) is our Lord's Temptation; but it is not often that we can trace our Author to any part of it. The whole poem has considering the age in which it great merit, was written. The change which Milton Nor sleeping him nor waking harm'd, his walk Be here supposes in the disposition of the wild beasts, upon the appearance of perfect innocence in a human form amongst them, corresponds with his descriptions of them in the Par. Lost. fore the fall they are harmless, void of ferocity to each other, and even affectionate towards man. Immediately after the fall they begin to grow savage. See P. L. iv. 340. and x. 707. It is remarkable that Abp. Secker, in his Sermon on the Temptation, from the words of St. Mark, i. 13. who says that our blessed Lord was with the wild beasts, infers that the fiercest animals were in reality" awed by his presence, and so far laid aside their savage nature for a time." Dunster. 312 -and noxious worm] This beautiful description is formed upon that short hint in St. Mark's Gospel, i. 13. and was with the wild beasts. A circumstance not mentioned by the other Evangelists, but excellently improved by Milton to show how the ancient prophecies began to be fulfilled, Isa. xi. 6-9. Ixv. 25. Ezek. xxxiv. 25; and how Eden was raised in the waste wilderness. But the word worm, though joined with the epithet noxious, may give too low an idea to some readers: but as we observed upon the Paradise Lost, ix. 1068, where Satan is called false worm, it is a general name for the reptile kind, and a serpent is called the mortal worm by Shakespeare. 2 Henry VI. act iii. and so likewise by Cowley in his Davideis, book i. 312. Worm is also used for a serpent, by Crashaw, in his Sospetto d'Herode, stanz. lix. and in the Midsummer Night's Dream, act iii. Could not a worm, an adder do as much? And again in Antony and Cleopatra, the aspic is called "the pretty worm of Nilus;" on which Johnson observes, that " worm is the Teutonic word for serpent. We have the blind-worm and slowworm still in our language, and the Norwegians call an enormous monster, seen sometimes in the northern ocean, the sea-worm." Dunster. 314. But now an aged man &c.] As the Scripture is entirely silent about what personage the Tempter assumed, the poet was at liberty to indulge his own fancy; and nothing, I think, could be better conceived for his present purpose, or more likely to prevent suspicion of fraud. The poet might perhaps take the hint from a design of David Vinkboon's, where the Devil is represented addressing himself to our Saviour under the appearance of an old man. It is to be met with among Vischer's cuts to the Bible, and is engraved by Landerselt. Thyer. |