An empty cloud. However, many books

Wise men have said are wearisome; who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not

A spirit and judgment equal or superior,

(And what he brings what need he elsewhere seek?) 325 Uncertain and unsettled still remains,

Deep vers'd in books, and shallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting toys,

And trifles for choice matters, worth a sponge;

As children gath'ring pebbles on the shore.

Or if I would delight my private hours
With music or with poem, where so soon
As in our native language can I find

330

That solace? all our law and story strew'd

With hymns, our psalms with artful terms inscrib'd, Our Hebrew songs and harps in Babylon,

336

That pleas'd so well our victor's ear, declare

That rather Greece from us these arts deriv'd;

Ill imitated, while they loudest sing

The vices of their deities and their own

In fable, hymn, or song, so personating

Their gods ridiculous, and themselves past shame.
Remove their swelling epithets, thick laid

As varnish on a harlot's cheek, the rest,

Thin sown with aught of profit or delight,

340

345

321 books] Butler's Rem. by Thyer, vol. ii. p. 489, 'No man is the wiser for his books until he is above them.'

344 varnish] Hamlet, act iii. sc. i.

'The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring art.' Dunster.

Will far be found unworthy to compare

With Sion's songs, to all true tastes excelling,
Where God is prais'd aright, and godlike men,
The holiest of holies, and his saints:

(Such are from God inspir'd, not such from thee,) 350 Unless where moral virtue is express'd

By light of nature not in all quite lost.
Their orators thou then extoll'st, as those
The top of eloquence, statists indeed,
And lovers of their country, as may seem;
But herein to our prophets far beneath,
As men divinely taught, and better teaching
The solid rules of civil government
In their majestic unaffected style,

Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome.

In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt,
What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so,
What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat;
These only with our law best form a king.

355

360

350 Such are] This passage is considered obscure and perplexed by the commentators. Mr. Dunster's transposition (placing verse 351 and 352 after verse 345) certainly renders it clearer; but this being unauthorized by any edition, I would read thus

the rest

Thin sown with aught of profit or delight,
Will far be found unworthy to compare

With Sion's songs; (to all true taste excelling

Where God is prais'd aright, and god-like men,

The holiest of holies, and his saints,

Such are from God inspir'd, not sent from thee;)
Unless where moral virtue is express'd.

Thus, without any alteration, I think the passage is clear.

365

So spake the Son of God; but Satan, now,
Quite at a loss, (for all his darts were spent,)
Thus to our Saviour with stern brow reply'd.
Since neither wealth, nor honour, arms, nor arts,
Kingdom, nor empire pleases thee, nor aught
By me propos'd in life contemplative
Or active, tended on by glory or fame,

What dost thou in this world? the wilderness
For thee is fittest place; I found thee there,
And thither will return thee; yet remember

370

What I foretell thee, soon thou shalt have cause
To wish thou never hadst rejected thus
Nicely or cautiously my offer'd aid,

375

Which would have set thee in short time with ease

On David's throne, or throne of all the world,
Now at full age, fulness of time, thy season,
When prophecies of thee are best fulfill'd.
Now contrary, if I read aught in heav'n,

Or heav'n write aught of fate, by what the stars,
Voluminous, or single characters,

In their conjunction met, give me to spell,

380

385

Sorrows, and labours, opposition, hate,

Attend thee, scorns, reproaches, injuries,

Violence, and stripes, and lastly cruel death;

A kingdom they portend thee, but what kingdom,
Real or allegoric, I discern not;

Nor when; eternal sure, as without end,

366 darts] Eurip. Hecub. 603.

Καὶ ταῦτα μὲνδήνοῦς ἐτοξέυσεν μάτην. Dunster.

390

Without beginning; for no date prefixt
Directs me in the starry rubric set.

So saying he took, (for still he knew his pow'r
Not yet expir'd,) and to the wilderness

Brought back the Son of God, and left him there,
Feigning to disappear. Darkness now rose,
As daylight sunk, and brought in low'ring night,
Her shadowy offspring, unsubstantial both,
Privation mere of light and absent day.
Our Saviour, meek and with untroubled mind
After his aery jaunt, though hurried sore,
Hungry and cold betook him to his rest,
Wherever, under some concourse of shades,

395

400

Whose branching arms thick intertwin'd might shield From dews and damps of night his shelter'd head; 406 But, shelter'd, slept in vain, for at his head

The tempter watch'd, and soon with ugly dreams Disturb'd his sleep: and either tropic now

'Gan thunder, and both ends of heav'n the clouds 410

From many a horrid rift abortive pour'd

Fierce rain with light'ning mix'd, water with fire

In ruin reconcil'd: nor slept the winds

Within their stony caves, but rush'd abroad

411 rift] Virg. Æn. iii. 196.

'Involvere diem nimbi et nox humida cœlum

Abstulit; ingeminant abruptis nubibus ignes.' Dunster.

and Lucret. ii. 213-5.

414 stony] Lucret. vi. 194.

'Speluncasque velut, saxis pendentibus structas
Cernere; quas ventei quom tempestate coorta
Conplerunt,' &c.

Dunster

415

420

From the four hinges of the world, and fell
On the vext wilderness, whose tallest pines,
Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest oaks
Bow'd their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts,
Or torn up sheer: Ill wast thou shrouded then,
O patient Son of God, yet only stood'st
Unshaken! nor yet staid the terror there;
Infernal ghosts and hellish furies round [shriek'd,
Environ'd thee; some howl'd, some yell'd, some
Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou
Sat'st unappall'd in calm and sinless peace.
Thus pass'd the night so foul, till morning fair
Came forth with pilgrim steps in amice gray;
Who with her radiant finger still'd the roar
Of thunder, chas'd the clouds, and laid the winds,
And grisly spectres, which the fiend had rais'd
To tempt the Son of God with terrors dire.
And now the sun with more effectual beams

Had cheer'd the face of earth, and dried the wet
From drooping plant or dropping tree; the birds,
Who all things now behold more fresh and green,
After a night of storm so ruinous,

Clear'd up their choicest notes in bush and spray,
To gratulate the sweet return of morn :

423 Environ'd] Shakesp. Rich. III. act i. sc. v.

—a legion of foul fiends

Environ'd me and howled in my ears.'

427 amice] Spens. F. Qu. i. iv. 18.

Dunster.

'Array'd in habit black and amice thin.' Newton.

425

430

436

438 gratulate]" 'And early birds with songs congratulate.' Marino's Slaught. of the Innocents, p. 126. (Trans.)