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laws of Aristotelian criticism: and, omitting, at present, all other considerations, whether it exhibits a beginning, a middle, and an end. The beginning is undoubtedly beautiful and proper, opening with a graceful abruptness, and proceeding naturally to a mournful recital of facts necessary to be known: _Samson_. A little onward lend thy guiding hand To these dark steps, a little further on; For yonder bank hath choice of sun and shade: There I am wont to sit, when any chance Relieves me from my task of servile toil, Daily in the common prison else enjoin'd me.-- O, wherefore was my birth from Heav'n foretold Twice by an Angel?-- Why was my breeding order'd and prescrib'd, As of a person separate to God, Design'd for great exploits; if I must die Betray'd, captiv'd, and both my eyes put out?-- Whom have I to complain of but myself? Who this high gift of strength committed to me, In what part lodg'd, how easily bereft me, Under the seal of silence could not keep: But weakly to a woman must reveal it. His soliloquy is interrupted by a chorus or company of men of his own tribe, who condole his miseries, extenuate his fault, and conclude with a solemn vindication of divine justice. So that at the conclusion of the first act there is no design laid, no discovery made, nor any disposition formed towards the consequent event. In the second act, Manoah, the father of Samson, comes to seek his son, and, being shewn him by the chorus, breaks out into lamentations of his misery, and comparisons of his present with his former state, representing to him the ignominy which his religion suffers, by the festival this day celebrated in honour of Dagon, to whom the idolaters ascribed his overthrow. --Thou bear'st Enough, and more, the burthen of that fault; Bitterly hast thou paid, and still art paying That rigid score. A worse thing yet remains, This day the Philistines a popular feast Here celebrate in Gaza; and proclaim Great pomp, and sacrifice, and praises loud To Dagon, as their God who hath deliver'd Thee, Samson, bound and blind, into their hands, Them out of thine, who slew'st them many a slain. Samson, touched with this reproach, makes a reply equally penitential and pious, which his father considers as the effusion of prophetick confidence: _Samson_.--He, be sure, Will not connive, or linger, thus provok'd, But will arise and his
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