An Introduction to the Prose and Poetical Works of John Milton / Comprising All the Autobiographic Passages in His Works, the More Explicit Presentations of His Ideas of True Liberty.

by John Milton

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AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PROSE
AND POETICAL WORKS OF
JOHN MILTON

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AN INTRODUCTION
TO THE
PROSE AND POETICAL WORKS
OF
JOHN MILTON

Comprising all the Autobiographic Passages in his Works, the more Explicit
Presentations of his Ideas of True Liberty

COMUS, LYCIDAS, and SAMSON AGONISTES

With Notes and Forewords

BY

HIRAM CORSON, LL.D.

Professor of English Literature in the Cornell University

NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd.
1899

All rights reserved

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Copyright, 1899,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith
Norwood Mass. U.S.A.

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'Servant of God, well done! Well hast thou fought

The better fight, who single hast maintained

Against revolted multitudes the cause

Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms,

And for the testimony of truth hast borne

Universal reproach, far worse to bear

Than violence; for this was all thy care—

To stand approved in sight of God, though worlds

Judged thee perverse.'

—Paradise Lost, VI. 29-37.

'O mighty-mouthed inventor of harmonies,

O skilled to sing of Time or Eternity,

God-gifted organ-voice of England,

Milton, a name to resound for ages;

Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,

Starred from Jehovah's gorgeous armories,

Tower as the deep-domed empyrean

Rings to the roar of an angel onset—

Me rather all that bowery loneliness,

The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring,

And bloom profuse and cedar arches

Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean,

Where some refulgent sunset of India

Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle,

And crimson-hued the stately palmwoods

Whisper in odorous heights of even.'

—Tennyson.

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