Twice by a voice inviting him to eat:

Of thee these forty days none hath regard,

315

Forty and more deserted here indeed.

To whom thus Jesus. What conclud'st thou hence?

They all had need, I as thou seest have none.
How hast thou hunger then? Satan replied.
Tell me if food were now before thee set,
Would'st thou not eat? Thereafter as I like
The giver, answer'd Jesus. Why should that
Cause thy refusal? said the subtle fiend.
Hast thou not right to all created things?
Owe not all creatures by just right to thee
Duty and service, not to stay till bid,

313. —wand'ring here was fed] It appears that Milton conceived the wilderness, where Hagar wandered with her son, and where the Israelites were fed with manna, and where Elijah retreated from the rage of Jezebel, to be the same with the wil-' derness where our Saviour was tempted. And yet it is certain that they were very different places, for the wilderness, where Hagar wandered, was the wilderness of Beersheba, Gen. xxi. 14. and where the Israelites were fed with manna was the wilderness of Sin, Exod. xvi. 1. and where Elijah retreated was in the wilderness, a day's journey from Beersheba, 1 Kings xix. 4. and where our Saviour was tempted, was the wilderness near Jordan: but our author considers all that tract of country as one and the same wilderness, though distinguished by different names from the different places adjoining.

320

325

But tender all their pow'r? nor mention I
Meats by the Law unclean, or offer'd first
To idols, those young Daniel could refuse;
Nor proffer'd by an enemy, though who

Would scruple that, with want oppress'd? Behold
Nature asham'd, or better to express,

Troubled that thou should'st hunger, hath purvey'd
From all the elements her choicest store

To treat thee as beseems, and as her Lord
With honour, only deign to sit and eat.

He spake no dream, for as his words had end,

329.-those young Daniel could refuse?] Dan. i. 8. But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank: and the reason assigned by commentators is, because in those and most other countries they used to offer some part of what they eat and drank to their gods; and therefore Daniel refused to partake of the provisions from the king's table, as of meats offered to idols, and consequently unclean. The poet had before mentioned Daniel at his pulse, ver. 278; and Moses in the mount, and Elijah in the wilderness, are brought in several times, as history affords no instances of abstinence so like our Saviour's.

333. hath purvey'd
From all the elements &c.]

Interea gustus elementa per omnia
quærunt.
Juvenal, xi. 14.
Infudere epulas auro, quod terra, quod

aer,

Quod pelagus Nilusque dedit, quod luxus inani

330

335

Ambitione furens toto quæsivit in orbe. Lucan, Pharsal. x. 155,

Dunster.

337. He spake no dream,] This was no dream as before ver. 264. but a reality. And the banquet here furnished by Satan is like that prepared by Armida for her lovers. Tasso, cant. x. st. 64.

Apprestar sù l'herbetta, ou' è più densa

L'ombra, e vicino al suon de l' acque
chiare

Fece disculti vasi altera mensa,
E ricca di vivande elette, e care.
Era qui ciò, ch' ogni stagion dis-
pensa;

Ciò che dona la terra, d manda il

mare:

Ciò che l'arte condisce, e cento belle
Servivano al convito accorte ancelle.
Under the curtain of the green-wood
shade,

Beside the brook, upon the velvet
grass,

In massy vessel of pure silver made,
A banquet rich and costly furnish'd

was;

All beasts, all birds beguild by fowler's trade,

All fish were there in floods or seas

that pass,

All dainties made by art, and at the table

An hundred virgins serv'd. Fairfax.

Our Saviour lifting up his

eyes beheld

In ample space under the broadest shade
A table richly spread, in regal mode,
With dishes pil'd, and meats of noblest sort
And savour, beasts of chace, or fowl of
game,
In pastry built, or from the spit, or boil'd,

340. A table richly spread, &c.] This temptation is not recorded in Scripture, but is however invented with great consistency, and very aptly fitted to the present condition of our Saviour. This way of embellishing his subject is a privilege which every poet has a just right to, provided he observes harmony and decorum in his hero's character; and one may further add, that Milton had in this particular place still a stronger claim to an indulgence of this kind, since it was a pretty general opinion among the Fathers, that our Saviour underwent many more temptations than those which are mentioned by the Evangelists; nay Origen goes so far as to say, that he was every day, whilst he continued in the wilderness, attacked by a fresh one. The beauties of this description are too obvious to escape any reader of taste. It is copious, and yet expressed with a very elegant conciseness. Every proper circumstance is mentioned, and yet it is not at all clogged or incumbered, as is often the case, with too tedious a detail of particulars. It was a scene entirely fresh to our author's imagination, and nothing like it had before occurred in his Paradise Lost, for which reason he has been the more diffuse, and

840

laboured it with greater care, with 'the same good judgment that makes him in other places avoid expatiating on scenes which he had before described. See the note on his short description of night at the end of the first book. In a word, it is in my opinion worked up with great art and beauty, and plainly shews the crudity of that notion which so much prevails among superficial readers, that Milton's genius was upon the decay when he wrote his Paradise Regained. Thyer.

340.richly spread, in regal mode,] Regal mode was perhaps intended to glance at the luxury and expense of the Court at that time: it is however well covered by classical authority.

-epulæque ante ora paratæ

Regifico luzu. Virg. Æn. vi. 604.
Instituunt de more epulas, festamque
per urbem
Regifice extructis celebrant convivia
mensis.
Sil. Ital. xi. 272.
Dunster.

343. In pastry built,] The pastry in the beginning of the seventeenth century was frequently of considerable magnitude and solidity. If the pie, in which Geoffrey Hudson, afterwards King James's dwarf, when eight years old, was served up at an entertainment given by the Duke of Buckingham, had

Gris-amber-steam'd; all fish from sea or shore,
Freshet, or purling brook, of shell or fin,
And exquisitest name, for which was drain'd

Pontus, and Lucrine bay, and Afric coast. Alas how simple, to these cates compar'd, Was that crude apple that diverted Eve! And at a stately side-board by the wine That fragrant smell diffus'd, in order stood