Turrets, and Terraffes, and glitt'ring Spires.
Many a fair Edifice befides, more like
Houfes of Gods (fo well I have difpos'd
My Airy Microscope) thou mayft behold,

Outfide and Infide both, Pillars, and Roofs
Carv'd Work, the Hand of fam'd Artificers
In Cedar, Marble, Ivory, or Gold.

Thence to the Gates caft round thine Eye, and fee
What Conflux iffuing forth, or entring in,

Prætors, Proconfuls to their Provinces

Hafting, or on Return, in Robes of State,

Lictors and Rods the Enfigns of their Power,

Legions and Cohorts, Turms of Horse, and Wings; Or Embaffies from Regions far remote

In various Habits on the Appian Road,

Or on th' Emilian

THE Reply of the Son of God confifts of several Lines well-deferving of Notice, particularly these on the Vanity of Embaffies:

Then Embaffies thou shew'ft

From Nations far and nigh; what Honour that,

But tedious Waste of Time to fit and hear

So many hollow Compliments and Lyes,

Outlandish Flatteries

And the following on the Caufes of the Degeneracy and Servitude of the Roman People:

For him I was not fent, nor yet to free

That People Victor once, now vile and bafe,
Deservedly made vassal, who once just,

Frugal, and mild, and temp'rate, conquer'd well,

But govern

ill the Nations under Yoke,

Peeling their Provinces, exhausted all

By Luft and Rapine; first ambitious grown
Of Triumph, that infulting Vanity;

Then cruel, by their Sports to Blood inur'd
Of fighting Beasts, and Men to Beasts expos'd,
Luxurious by their Wealth, and greedier still,
And from the daily Scene effeminate.

What wife and valiant Man would feek to free
These thus degen'rate, by themselves enflav❜d,
Or could of inward Slaves make outward free ?

JESUS

Thence to the famous Orators repair,

Those antient, whofe refiftless Eloquence
Wielded at Will that fierce Democratie,

Shook th' Arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' Throne:

To fage Philofophy next lend thine Ear,
From Heav'n defcended to the low-rooft House
Of Socrates; fee there his Tenement,

Whom well-infpir'd the Oracle pronounc'd
Wifeft of Men; from whofe Mouth iffued forth
Mellifluous Streams that water'd all the Schools
Of Academicks old and new, with those
Sirnam'd Peripateticks, and the Sect
Epicurean, and the Stoick fevere.

In the Lines where the Attic Bird trills her thickwarbled Notes, and where Iliffus rolls his whispering Stream, how sweetly expreffive, and how full of Mufick is every Word! But in numbering up the Tribes of Philofophers, how artfully rugged and harsh is the Verse that mentions the Sect

Epicurean, and the Stoick fevere!

In

In our Saviour's next Reply to Satan are fome judicious Reflections on over-much Reading, which deserve the Attention of every belluo librorum, of every one who haunts Libraries and hovers over Books, like a Ghost over hidden Treafures, which he is not capable of applying to the least Use. How often are fuch Men seen, without any other Guide but fome wild Prejudice, or fome whimfical Paffion, wandering from Volume to Volume, and groping through endless Pages, bewildered, bemoped, and fo long accustomed to Darkness, that they cannot bear the Light. The more they read, the more ignorant they grow; the farther they advance in Errour, and the farther they recede from Truth. The Opinions which are heaped up in their Minds, are not their own Opinions, are not those which the Understanding admits, but fuch as intrude into the Memory; are Opinions to which their Minds are wedded by Chance, and not by Choice. Men may thus read inceffantly without being inftructed; and, to use the Words of an infpired Writer, be ever learning and never able to come to the Knowledge of the Truth, for want of those Qualifications which Milton requires in the following strong Lines.

Wife Men have faid are wearifome; who reads

Inceffantly, and to his reading brings not

A

A Spirit and Judgment equal or fuperiour,

(And what he brings, what needs he elsewhere seeks?)

Uncertain and unfettled still remains,

Deep vers'd in Books, and fhallow in himself,
Crude or intoxicate, collecting Toys,

And Trifles for choice Matters, worth a Spunge;
As Children gath'ring Pebbles on the Shore.

THE Tempter almost hopeless of Succefs, having been foil'd at ev'ry Weapon, and baffled in every Wile, conveys our Saviour back to the Defart. There he leaves him wearied and wanting Reft at the Clofe of Day, whilst he fummons all his Minifters and Powers of Darkness to affist in raising a dreadful Tempeft, and in trying whether the Mind of the Son of God was to be fhaken and fubdued by TerA ftormy Night, and a fair Morning that fucceeds it, are described here with every beautiful Circumstance. It scarcely is excell'd by any Description in Paradife Loft.

rour.

Darkness now rofe

As Day-Light funk, and brought in lowring Night, Her fhad'wy Offspring, unfubftantial both,

Privation meer of Light and absent Day.