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.
Chor. Look now for no enchanting voice, nor fear
The bait of honied words; a rougher tongue
Draws hitherward; I know him by his stride,
The giant Harapha. ————
And yet more despicable are the lines in which Manoah's paternal kindness is commended by the chorus:
Fathers are wont to lay up for their sons,
Thou for thy son art bent to lay out all. ————
Samson's complaint of the inconveniencies of imprisonment is not wholly without verbal quaintness:
—I, a prisoner chain'd, scarce freely draw
The air, imprison'd also, close and damp.
