Samson's complaint is therefore too
elaborate to be natural:
As in the land of darkness, yet in light,
To live a life half dead, a living death,
And bury'd; but, O yet more miserable!
Myself, my sepulchre, a moving grave,
Buried, yet not exempt,
By privilege of death and burial,
From worst of other evils, pains and wrongs.
All allusions to low and trivial objects, with which contempt is usually
associated, are doubtless unsuitable to a species of composition which
ought to be always awful, though not always magnificent. The remark
therefore of the chorus on good or bad news seems to want elevation:
_Manoah_. A little stay will bring some notice hither.
_Chor_. Of good _or_ bad so great, of bad the sooner;
For evil news _rides post_, while good news _baits_.
But of all meanness that has least to plead which is produced by mere
verbal conceits, which, depending only upon sounds, lose their existence
by the change of a syllable. Of this kind is the following dialogue:
_Chor_. But had we best retire? I see a _storm_.
_Sams_. Fair days have oft contracted wind and rain.
_Chor_. But this another kind of tempest brings.
_Sams_. Be less abstruse, my riddling days are past.
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