Milton is indebted for some of the finest passages in the Paradise Lost to Marino's "Sospetti D'Herode."
The most notorious ill-fortune must, in the end, yield to the untiring courage of philosophy--as the most stubborn city to the ceaseless vigilance of an enemy. Salmanezer, as we have it in the holy writings, lay three years before Samaria: yet it fell. Sardanapalus--see Diodorus--maintained himself seven in Nineveh: but to no purpose. Troy expired at the close of the second lustrum: and Azoth, as Aristæus declares upon his honor as a gentleman, opened at last her gates to Psammitticus, after having barred them for the fifth part of a century.
"Thou wretch!--thou vixen!--thou shrew!"--said I to my wife on the morning after our wedding--"thou witch!--thou hag!--thou whippersnapper!--thou sink of iniquity!--thou fiery-faced quintessence of all that is abominable!--thou--thou--" Here standing upon tiptoe, seizing her by the throat, and placing my mouth close to her ear, I was preparing to launch forth a new and more decided epithet of opprobrium which should not fail, if ejaculated, to convince her of her insignificance, when, to my extreme horror and astonishment, I discovered that _I had lost my breath_.
The phrases "I am out of breath," "I have lost my breath," &c. are often enough repeated in common conversation, but it had never occurred to me that the terrible accident of which I speak could _boná fide_ and actually happen! Imagine--that is if you have a fanciful turn--imagine I say, my wonder--my consternation--my despair!
There is a good genius, however, which has never, at any time, entirely deserted me. In my most ungovernable moods I still retain a sense of propriety, _et le chemin des passions me conduit_--as Rousseau says it did him--_à la philosophie veritable_.
Although I could not at first precisely ascertain to what degree the occurrence had affected me, I unhesitatingly determined to conceal at all events the matter from my wife until farther experience should discover to me the extent of this my unheard of calamity. Altering my countenance, therefore, in a moment, from its bepuffed and distorted appearance, to an expression of arch and coquettish benignity, I gave my lady a pat on the one cheek, and a kiss on the other, and without saying one syllable, (Furies! I could not,) left her astonished at my drollery, as I pirouetted out of the room in a _Pas de Zephyr_.