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PREFACE.

THE reading of Paradise Lost for the first time forms, or should form, an era in the life of every one possessed of taste and poetic feeling. To my own mind that time is ever present. It was just as I was emerging from mere boyhood; the season was summer; the scene a residence amid wood and water, at the foot of mountains, over which I beheld each morning the sun rising, invested with all his glories. The companion of Paradise Lost was the Jerusalem Delivered, in Hoole's tame version 'tis true, but perhaps at that age the couplet was more grateful to my ear than the stanza. The two poems combined to hold me in an ecstasy of delight. Alas! that such happy days can never return, not even in imagination! Some time after for in those days books were not plentiful with me--I procured the whole of Milton's poetry. I was of course enchanted with Comus, and even then I could discern and admire the chaste, severe, and classic beauties of Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. Ever since the poetry of Milton has formed my constant

study,—a source of delight in prosperity, of strength and consolation in adversity.

It is now somewhat more than a quarter of a century since I first conceived the idea of endeavouring to render this noble poetry more intelligible, and consequently more attractive and useful to readers in general. The result has been the present volume, and an annotated edition of the Poems, now ready for the press. In this last, though the notes will probably not occupy a third of the space occupied by those in Todd's edition, they will, I believe, be found to elucidate the text more fully; for nothing is left unexplained that seemed to require elucidation. I have neither the wish nor the hope to supplant that work; it will probably always remain as the Variorum edition, a garner into which wheat and chaff are gathered with equal care.

The expositor of Milton should endeavour to vie with Milton in knowledge. Coming into the world nearly two centuries later, it is neither a merit nor a boast that my scientific knowledge should be more extensive and more correct than his; my task was to go back, and try to place myself in Milton's position with respect to science. Fortunately, in my early days I had acquired a knowledge of Hebrew, so that I have been able to read the Old Testament through in the original. I have not however thought it necessary to follow him into Targums and Mishnas; for I do not think he gathered any poetic fruit in these thickets. With our own old literature and with that of modern Italy I have long been familiar; while on

that of Greece and Rome I have bestowed only too much of my time and labour. I cannot, it is true, say that I regret having written the Mythology of Greece and Italy, for it has procured me consideration abroad and, alien as the subject is from the usual turn of the English mind, it seems to have taken a place in our literature. But, though I may have best elucidated the rural poetry of Virgil, and though I look back with pleasure to an excursion to Mantua to ascertain the scenery of the Bucolics, and to other circumstances connected with the Classics, yet I do most sincerely regret the time I devoted to them; for it was an act of the merest folly in one unconnected with Schools and Universities, more especially in me, whose views of what is of real importance in the languages and works of the ancients differ so much from those which generally prevail in our seats of learning. From these works I have derived no advantage whatever, and I have not even had the satisfaction of knowing in what estimation they are held, as those who read such books rarely give public expression to their opinions. Had I devoted that time and labour to modern literature, the result might have been widely different. The present volume may perhaps decide the question.

Though this volume is chiefly intended to serve as a companion and introduction to my own edition of the Poems, it will answer that purpose with any edition. In the First Part, which is purely biographic, I have collected everything that seemed of importance respecting Milton, his family, and his friends. The Second is de

voted to his Opinions, among which, since the discovery of his work on Christian Doctrine, those on religion must hold a prominent place. Had I felt any scruples about developing them-which was not the case-they would have been removed by the example of the Bishop of Winchester, who, with that regard for truth and free inquiry which is so becoming and so laudable in a Christian prelate, has permitted his valuable translation of that work to be published in a form which has given it a far wider circulation than this volume can ever hope to obtain. I will take the opportunity here of mentioning that the eminent prelate to whom this work is inscribed is totally unacquainted with the contents. But he, too, is a sincere friend to truth and free inquiry, and he knows that falsehood and deceit form no part of my character.

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The Third Part contains, first, an account of Milton's poetry anterior to Paradise Lost, and then what may termed an Anthology from his prose works. It seemed to me to be a mere act of justice to his memory to draw these gems forth from the obscurity in which they lay, as forming portions of treatises which possess so little interest for readers of the present times. I have analysed two of these treatises, as specimens of Milton's reasoning powers.

An Introduction to Paradise Lost concludes the volume. In this I have given everything that appeared to me calculated to illustrate that poem. Some parts of it may appear to be, and perhaps are, rather illustrative of Scripture. I might say, they are therefore only the more valu

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