THE ARGUMENT. The Disciples of Jesus, uneasy at his long absence, reason among themselves concerning it. Mary also gives vent to her maternal anxiety: in the expression of which she recapitulates many cir cumstances respecting the birth and early life of her Son.-Satan again meets his Infernal Council, reports the bad success of his first temptation of our Blessed Lord, and calls upon them for counsel and assistance. Belial proposes the tempting of Jesus with women. Satan rebukes Belial for his dissoluteness, charging on him all the profligacy of that kind ascribed by the poets to the Heathen Gods, and rejects his proposal as in no respect likely to succeed. Satan then suggests other modes of temptation, parti cularly proposing to avail himself of the circumstance of our Lord's hungering; and, taking a band of chosen Spirits with him, returns to resume his enterprise. Jesus hungers in the desert.-Night comes on; the manner in which our Saviour passes the night is described. Morning advances. Satan again appears to Jesus, and after expressing wonder that he should be so en. tirely neglected in the wilderness, where others had been miraculously fed, tempts him with a sumptuous banquet of the inost luxurious kind. This he rejects, and the banquet vanishes.Satan, finding our Lord not to be assailed on the ground of ap petite, tempts him again by offering him riches, as the means of acquiring power: This Jesus also rejects, producing many instances of great actions performed by persons under virtuous poverty, and specifying the danger of riches, and the cares and pains inseparable from power and greatness. PARADISE REGAINED. BOOK II. MEANWHILE the new-baptiz'd, who yet remain'd The city of palms, Ænon, and Salem old, On this side the broad lake Genezaret, Send thy Messiah forth, the time is come; Mock us with his blest sight, then snatch him hence; Soon we shall see our Hope, our Joy, return.' Thus they, out of their plaints, new hope resume To find whom at the first they found unsought : But to his mother Mary, when she saw Others return'd from baptism, not her son, Nor left at Jordan, tidings of him none, Within her breast though calm, her breast though Motherly cares and fears got head, and rais'd [clad: Some troubled thoughts, which she in sighs thus [pure, 'O, what avails me now that honour high To have conceiv'd of God, or that salute, "Hail highly favour'd, among women bless'd!" While I to sorrows am no less advanc'd, And fears as eminent, above the lot Of other women, by the birth I bore; In such a season born, when scarce a shed Could be obtain'd to shelter him or me From the bleak air; a stable was our warmth, A manger his; yet soon enforc'd to fly Thence into Egypt, till the murderous king Were dead, who sought his life, and missing fill'd With infant blood the streets of Bethlehem; From Egypt home return'd, in Nazareth Hath been our dwelling many years; his life Private, unactive, calm, contemplative, Little suspicious to' any king; but now, Full grown to man, acknowledg'd, as I hear, By John the Baptist, and in public shown, Son own'd from Heaven by his Father's voice, I look'd for some great change; to honour? no, But trouble, as Old Simeon plain foretold, That to the fall and rising he should be Of many in Israel, and to a sign Spoken against, that through my very soul But where delays he now? some great intent Thus Mary, pondering oft, and oft to mind 'Princes, Heaven's ancient sons, ethereal Thrones Demonian Spirits now, from the' element |