Conceiving, or, remote from Heaven, enshrin'd For Adam and his chosen sons, whom thou, Or lightning, thou shalt fall from Heaven, trod down Shall chase thee, with the terrour of his voice, Now enter; and begin to save mankind. Thus they the Son of God, our Saviour meek, Sung victor, and from heavenly feast refresh'd, Brought on his way with joy; he, unobserv'd, Home to his mother's house private return’d. 638 THE END OF PARADISE REGAINED. SAMSON AGONISTES: A DRAMATICK POEM, Τραγῳδια μιμησις πράξεως σπεδαιας, &c. Aristot. Poet Cap. 6. Tragedia est imitatio actionis seriæ, &c. per misericordiam et metum perficiens talium affectuum lustrationem. SAMSON AGONISTES. Of that sort of Dramatick Poem which is TRAGEDY, as it was anciently com, posed, hath been ever held the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other poems therefore said by Aristotle to be of power by raising pity and fear, or terrour, to purge the mind of those and such like passions, that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, stirred up by reading or seeing those pas sions well imitated. Nor is Nature wanting in her own effects to make good his assertion for so, in physick, things of melancholick hue and quality are used against melancholy, sour against sour, salt to remove salt humours. Hence philosophers and other gravest writers, as Cicero, Plutarch, |