It is not meant, “thou shalt not tempt me,” but rather, “it is not permitted me to tempt God.” In this extreme case Jesus depends on God’s protection. This is the devil’s final defeat and the seraphic company for which our great Example had refused to ask instantly surrounds and receives him. Angelic quires
“the Son of God, our Saviour meek,
Sung victor, and from heavenly feast refresh’t,
Brought on His way with joy; He unobserv’d,
Home to His mother’s house private return’d.”(P. R. iv. 636–9.)
Warton wished to expunge this passage, considering it an unworthy conclusion. It is to be hoped that there are many readers of Milton who are able to see what is the value of these four lines, particularly of the last.
It is hardly necessary to say more in order to show how peculiarly Milton is endowed with that quality which is possessed by all great poets—the power to keep in contact with the soul of man.
THE MORALITY OF BYRON’S POETRY. “THE CORSAIR.”
[This is an abstract of an essay four times as long written many years ago. Although so much has been struck out, the substance is unaltered, and the conclusion is valid for the author now as then.]
Byron above almost all other poets, at least in our day, has been set down as immoral. In reality he is moral, using the word in its proper sense, and he is so, not only in detached passages, but in the general drift of most of his poetry. We will take as an example “The Corsair.”
Conrad is not a debauched buccaneer. He was not—
“by Nature sent
To lead the guilty—guilt’s worst instrument.”
He had been betrayed by misplaced confidence.