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 great name assert: Dagon must stoop, and shall ere long receive Such a discomfit, as shall quite despoil him Of all these boasted trophies won on me. _Manoah_. With cause this hope relieves thee, and these words I as a prophecy receive; for God, Nothing more certain, will not long defer To vindicate the glory of his name. This part of the dialogue, as it might tend to animate or exasperate Samson, cannot, I think, be censured as wholly superfluous; but the succeeding dispute, in which Samson contends to die, and which his father breaks off, that he may go to solicit his release, is only valuable for its own beauties, and has no tendency to introduce any thing that follows it. The next event of the drama is the arrival of Dalila, with all her graces, artifices, and allurements. This produces a dialogue, in a very high degree elegant and instructive, from which she retires, after she has exhausted her persuasions, and is no more seen nor heard of; nor has her visit any effect but that of raising the character of Samson. In the fourth act enters Harapha, the giant of Gath, whose name had never been mentioned before, and who has now no other motive of coming, than to see the man whose strength and actions are so loudly celebrated: