th him wrought
To swerve from truth or change his constant mind,
Though single. From amidst them forth he passed,
Long way through hostile scorn, which he sustained
Superior, nor of violence feared aught:
And with retorted scorn his back he turned
On those proud towers to swift destruction doomed."

_Paradise Regained_ and _Samson Agonistes_ were published in 1671. The
first of these treated in four books Christ's temptation in the
wilderness, a subject that had already been handled in the Spenserian
allegorical manner by Giles Fletcher, a brother of the Purple Islander,
in his _Christ's Victory and Triumph_, 1610. The superiority of
_Paradise Lost_ to its sequel is not without significance. The
Puritans were Old Testament men. Their God was the Hebrew Jehovah,
whose single divinity the Catholic mythology had overlaid with the
{160} figures of the Son, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. They
identified themselves in thought with his chosen people, with the
militant theocracy of the Jews. Their sword was the sword of the Lord
and of Gideon. "To your tents, O Israel," was the cry of the London
mob when the bishops were committed to the Tower. And when the fog
lifted, on the morning of the battle of Dunbar, Cromwell exclaimed,
"Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered: like as the sun
riseth, so shalt thou drive them away."

_Samson Agonistes_, though Hebrew in theme and in spirit, was in form a
Greek tragedy. It had chorus and semi-chorus, and preserved the
so-called dramatic unities; that is, the scene was unchanged, and there
were no intervals of time between the acts. In accordance with the
rules of the Greek theater, but two speakers appeared upon the stage at
once, and there was no violent action. The death of Samson is related
by a messenger. Milton's reason for the choice of this subject is
obvious. He himself was Samson, shorn of his strength, blind, and
alone among enemies; given over

"to the unjust tribunals, under change of times,
And condemnation of the ungrateful multitude."

As Milton grew older he discarded more and more the graces of poetry,
and relied purely upon the structure and the thought. In _Paradise
Lost_, although there is little resemblance to Elisabethan work--such
as one notices in _Comus_ and the {161} Christmas hymn--yet the style
is rich, especially in the earlier books. But in _Paradise Regained_
it is severe to bareness, and in _Samson_, eve