_Samson Agonistes_, though Hebrew in theme and spirit, was in form a Greek tragedy. It has 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 Elizabethan work--such as one notices in _Comus_ and the Christmas hymn--yet the style is rich, especially in the earlier books. But in _Paradise Regained_ it is severe to bareness, and in _Samson_, even to ruggedness. Like Michelangelo, with whose genius he had much in common, Milton became impatient of finish or of mere beauty. He blocked out his work in masses, left rough places and surfaces not filled in, and inclined to express his meaning by a symbol, rather than work it out in detail. It was a part of his austerity, his increasing preference for structural over decorative methods, to give up rime for blank verse. His latest poem, _Samson Agonistes_, is a metrical study of the highest interest. Milton was not quite alone among the poets of his time in espousing the popular cause. Andrew Marvell, who was his assistant in the Latin secretaryship and sat in Parliament for Hull, after the Restoration, was a good Republican, and wrote a fine _Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland_. There is also a rare imaginative quality in his _Song of the Exiles in Bermuda_, _Thoughts in a Garden_, and _The Girl Describes her Fawn_. George Wither, who was imprisoned for his satires, also took the side of the Parliament, but there is little that is distinctively Puritan in his poetry. * * * * * 1. Milton's Poetical Works. Edited by David Masson. London: Macmillan & Co., 1882. 3 vols. 2. Selections from Milton's Prose. Edited by F.D. Myers. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1883. (Parchment Series.) 3. England's Antiphon. By George Macdonald. London: Macmillan & Co., 1868. 4. Robert Herrick's Hesperides. London: George Routledge & Sons, 1885. (Morley's Universal Library). 5. Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici and Hydriotaphia. Edited by Willis Bund. Sampson Low & Co., 1873. 6. Thomas Fuller's Good Thoughts in Bad Times. Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1863. 7. Walton's Complete Angler. Edited by Sir Harris Nicolas. London: Chatto & Windus, 1875. CHAPTER V. FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE DEATH OF POPE. 1660-1744.