}

THE DEATH OF SAMSON °

OCCASIONS drew me early to this city;
And, as the gates I entered with sunrise,
The morning trumpets festival proclaimed
Through each high street. Little I had despatched,
When all abroad was rumored that this day
Samson should be brought forth, to show the people
Proof of his mighty strength in feats and games.
I sorrowed at his captive state, but minded
Not to be absent at that spectacle.
The building was a spacious theatre,

Half round on two main pillars vaulted high,
With seats where all the lords, and each degree
Of sort, might sit in order to behold;

The other side was open, where the throng

On banks and scaffolds under sky might stand:

I among these aloof obscurely stood.

The feast and noon grew high, and sacrifice

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Had filled their hearts with mirth, high cheer, and wine,

When to their sports they turned. Immediately

Was Samson as a public servant brought,

In their state livery clad; before him pipes
And timbrels; on each side went armed guards;
Both horse and foot before him and behind,
Archers and slingers, cataphracts, and spears.
At sight of him the people with a shout
Rifted the air, clamoring their god with praise,
Who had made their dreadful enemy their thrall.
He patient, but undaunted, where they led him,
Came to the place; and what was set before him,
Which without help of eye might be assayed,
To heave, pull, draw, or break, he still performed

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All with incredible, stupendous force,
None daring to appear antagonist.

At length, for intermission' sake, they led him
Between the pillars; he his guide requested
5 (For so from such as nearer stood we heard),
As overtired, to let him lean a while

With both his arms on those two massy pillars, That to the arched roof gave main support. He unsuspicious led him; which when Samson 10 Felt in his arms, with head a while inclined, And eyes fast fixed, he stood, as one who prayed, Or some great matter in his mind revolved: At last, with head erect, thus cried aloud: "Hitherto, Lords, what your commands imposed 15 I have performed, as reason was, obeying, Not without wonder or delight beheld; Now, of my own accord, such other trial

I mean to show you of my strength yet greater
As with amaze shall strike all who behold."
20 This uttered, straining all his nerves, he bowed;
As with the force of winds and waters pent

When mountains tremble, those two massy pillars
With horrible convulsion to and fro

He tugged, he shook, till down they came, and drew 25 The whole roof after them with burst of thunder Upon the heads of all who sat beneath,

Lords, ladies, captains, counsellors, or priests,
Their choice nobility and flower, not only
Of this, but each Philistian city round,
30 Met from all parts to solemnize this feast.
Samson, with these immixed, inevitably
Pulled down the same destruction on himself;
The vulgar only scaped, who stood without.

A POET'S IDEAL°

AND long it was not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and pattern of the best and honorablest things; not presuming to 5 sing high praises of heroic men, or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and the practice of all that which is praiseworthy. These reasonings, together with a certain niceness of nature, an honest haughtiness, and self-esteem either of what I was, or what I might be (which 10 let envy call pride), and lastly that modesty, whereof, though not in the title-page, yet here I may be excused to make some beseeming profession; all these uniting the supply of their natural aid together, kept me still above those low descents of mind, beneath which he must deject 15 and plunge himself, that can agree to saleable and unlawful prostitutions.

Next (for hear me out, readers), that I may tell ye whither my younger feet wandered; I betook me among those lofty fables and romances, which recount in solemn 20 cantos the deeds of knighthood founded by our victorious kings, and from hence had in renown over all Christendom. There I read it in the oath of every knight, that he should defend to the expense of his best blood, or of his life, if it so befell him, the honor and chastity of virgin 25 or matron; from whence even then I learned what a noble virtue chastity sure must be, to the defence of which so many worthies, by such a dear adventure of themselves, had sworn. And if I found in the story afterward, any of them, by word or deed, breaking that oath, I judged it 30 the same fault of the poet as that which is attributed to

Homer, to have written indecent things of the Gods. Only this my mind gave me, that every free and gentle spirit, without that oath, ought to be born a knight, nor needed to expect the gilt spur, or the laying of a sword 5 upon his shoulder to stir him up both by his counsel and his arms, to secure and protect the weakness of any attempted chastity. So that even these books, which to many others have been the fuel of wantonness and loose living, I cannot think how, unless by divine indulgence, 10 proved to me so many incitements, as you have heard, to the love and steadfast observation of that virtue which abhors the society of bordelloes.°

THE CHARACTER OF THE EARL OF SHAFTES-
BURY

Of these the false Achitophel was first,
A name to all succeeding ages curst:
For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,
Restless, unfixed in principles and place,
In power unpleased, impatient of disgrace;
A fiery soul, which working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay
And o'er-informed the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity,

Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high,
He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;

Else, why should he, with wealth and honor blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please,
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won
To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son,
Got, while his soul did huddled notions try,
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
In friendship false, implacable in hate,
Resolved to ruin or to rule the state;

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