Chalybean temper'd steel, and frock of mail,
Adamantean proof;
But safest he who stood aloof,
When insupportably his foot advanced
Spurned them to death by troops. The bold Priamides
Fled from his lion ramp; old warriors turn'd
Their plated backs under his heel,
Or, groveling, soil'd their crested helmets in the dust.'

These are the words of Milton in describing that 'heroic Nazarete,'
'God's champion'--

'Promis'd by heavenly message twice descending';

heralded, like Pelides,

'By an angel of his birth,
Who from his father's field
Rode up in flames after his message told';

these are the celestial words which describe the celestial prowess of
the Hebrew monomachist, the irresistible Sampson; and are hardly less
applicable to the 'champion paramount' of Greece confederate.

[Footnote 9: 'To his own knowledge'--see, for proof of this, the
gloomy serenity of his answer to his dying victim, when, predicting
his approaching end:--

'Enough; I know my fate: to die--to see no more
My much-lov'd parents, and my native shore,' &c. &c.]

This, therefore, this unique conception, with what power they might,
later Greek poets adopted; and the other Homeric characters they
transplanted somewhat monotonously, but at times, we are willing to
admit, and have already admitted, improving and solemnizing the
original epic portraits when brought upon the stage. But all this
extent of obligation amongst later poets of Greece to Homer serves
less to argue his opulence than their penury. And if, quitting the one
great blazing jewel, the Urim and Thummim of the _Iliad_, you descend
to individual passages of poetic effect; and if amongst these a fancy
should seize you of asking for a specimen of the _Sublime_ in
particular, what is it that you are offered by the critics? Nothing
that we remember beyond one single passage, in which the god Neptune
is described in a steeple chase, and 'making play' at a terrific
pace. And certainly enough is exhibited of the old boy's hoofs, and
their spanking qualities, to warrant our backing him against a
railroad for a rump and dozen; but, after all, there is nothing to
grow frisky about, as Longinus does, who gets up the steam of a
blue-stocking enthusiasm, and boils us a regular gallop of ranting, in
which, like the conceited snipe[10] upon the Liverpool railroad, he
thinks himself to run a match with Sampson; and, whilst affecting to
adm