“I have lately read his Samson, which has more of the antique spirit than any production of any other modern poet.  He is very great.”  Thus Goethe to Eckermann, in his old age.  The period of life is noticeable, for “Samson Agonistes” is an old man’s poem as respects author and reader alike.  There is much to repel, little to attract a young reader; no wonder that Macaulay, fresh from college, put it so far below “Comus,” to which the more mature taste is disposed to equal it.  It is related to the earlier work as sculpture is to painting, but sculpture of the severest school, all sinewy strength; studious, above all, of impressive truth.  “Beyond these an ancient fisherman and a rock are fashioned, a rugged rock, whereon with might and main the old man drags a great net from his cast, as one that labours stoutly.  Thou wouldest say that he is fishing with all the might of his limbs, so big the sinews swell all about his neck, grey-haired though he is, but his strength is as the strength of youth."[9] Behold here the Milton of “Samson Agonistes,” a work whose beauty is of metal rather than of marble, hard, bright, and receptive of an ineffaceable die.  The great fault is the frequent harshness of the style, principally in the choruses, where some strophes are almost uncouth.  In the blank verse speeches perfect grace is often united to perfect dignity:  as in the farewell of Dalila:—­

   “Fame if not double-faced is double-mouthed,
    And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds;
    On both his wings, one black, the other white,
    Bears greatest names in his wild aery flights. 
    My name perhaps among the circumcised,
    In Dan, in Judah, and the bordering tribes,
    To all posterity may stand defamed,
    With malediction mentioned, and the blot
    Of falsehood most unconjugal traduced. 
    But in my country where I most desire,
    In Ecron, Gaza, Asdod, and in Gath,
    I shall be named among the famousest
    Of women, sung at solemn festivals,
    Living and dead recorded, who to save
    Her country from a fierce destroyer, chose
    Above the faith of wedlock-bands; my tomb
    With odours visited and annual flowers.”

The scheme of “Samson Agonistes” is that of the Greek drama, the only one appropriate to an action of such extreme simplicity, admitting so few personages, and these only as foils to the hero.  It is, but for its Miltonisms of style and autobiographic and political allusion, just such a drama as Sophocles or Euripides would have written on the subject, and has all that depth of patriotic and religious sentiment which made the Greek drama so inexpressibly significant to Greeks.  Consummate art is shown in the invention of the Philistine giant, Harapha, who not only enriches the meagre action, and brings out strong features in the character of Samson, but also prepares the reader for the catastrophe.  We must say reader, for though the drama might conceivably be acted with effect