Life of John Milton

by Richard Garnett

WHEN THE ASSAULT WAS INTENDED TO THE CITY [NOVEMBER, 1642.]

Captain, or Colonel, or Knight in arms,
Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize,
If deed of honour did thee ever please,
Guard them, and him within protect from harms.
He can requite thee, for he knows the charms
That call fame on such gentle acts as these,
And he can spread thy name o'er lands and seas,
Whatever clime the sun's bright circle warms.
Lift not thy spear against the Muse's bower:
The great Emathian conqueror bid spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground; and the repeated air
Of sad Electra's poet had the power
To save the Athenian walls from ruin bare.

If this strain seems deficient in the fierceness befitting a besieged patriot, let it be remembered that Milton's doors were literally defenceless, being outside the rampart of the City.

We now approach the most curious episode of Milton's life, and the most irreconcilable with the conventional opinion of him. Up to this time this heroic existence must have seemed dull to many, for it has been a life without love. He has indeed, in his beautiful Sonnet to the Nightingale (about 1632), professed himself a follower of Love: but if so, he has hitherto followed at a most respectful distance. Yet he had not erred, when in the Italian sonnet, so finely rendered in Professor Masson's biography, he declared the heart his vulnerable point:—

"Young, gentle-natured, and a simple wooer,
Since from myself I stand in doubt to fly,
Lady, to thee my heart's poor gift would I
Offer devoutly; and by tokens sure
I know it faithful, fearless, constant, pure,
In its conceptions graceful, good, and high.
When the world roars, and flames the startled sky;
In its own adamant it rests secure;
As free from chance and malice ever found,
And fears and hopes that vulgar minds confuse,
As it is loyal to each manly thing
And to the sounding lyre and to the Muse.
Only in that part is it not so sound
Where Love hath set in it his cureless sting."

It is highly probable that the very reaction from party strife turned the young man's fancies to thoughts of love in the spring of 1643. Escorted, we must fear, by a chorus of mocking cuckoos, Milton, about May 21st, rode into the country on a mysterious errand. It is a ghoulish and ogreish idea, but it really seems as if the elder Milton quartered his progeny upon his debtors, as the ichneumon fly quarters hers upon caterpillars. Milton had, at all events for the last sixteen years, been regularly drawing interest from an Oxfordshire squire, Richard Powell of Forest Hill, who owed him £500, which must have been originally advanced by the elder Milton. The Civil War had no doubt interfered with Mr. Powell's ability to pay interest, but, on the other hand, must have equally impaired Milton's ability to exact it; for the Powells were Cavaliers, and the Parliament's writ would run but lamely in loyal Oxfordshire. Whether Milton went down on this eventful Whitsuntide in the capacity of a creditor cannot now be known; and a like uncertainty envelops the precise manner of the metamorphosis of Mary Powell into Mary Milton. The maiden of seventeen may have charmed him by her contrast to the damsels of the metropolis, she may have shielded him from some peril, such as might easily beset him within five miles of the Royalist headquarters, she may have won his heart while pleading for her harassed father; he may have fancied hers a mind he could mould to perfect symmetry and deck with every accomplishment, as the Gods fashioned and decorated Pandora. Milton also seems to imply that his, or his bride's, better judgment was partly overcome by "the persuasion of friends, that acquaintance, as it increases, will amend all." It is possible, too, that he had long been intimate with his debtor's family, and that Mary had previously made an impression upon him. If not, his was the most preposterously precipitate of poets' marriages; for a month after leaving home he presented a mistress to his astounded nephews and housekeeper. The newly-wedded pair were accompanied or quickly followed by a bevy of the bride's friends and relatives, who danced and sang and feasted for a week in the quiet Puritan house, then departed—and after a few weeks Milton finds himself moved to compose his tract on the "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce."

How many weeks? The story seemed a straightforward one until Professor Masson remarked what had before escaped attention. According to Phillips, an inmate of the house at the period—"By that time she had for a month, or thereabouts, led a philosophical life (after having been used to a great house, and much company and joviality), her friends, possibly incited by her own desire, made earnest suit by letter to have her company the remaining part of the summer, which was granted, on condition of her return at the time appointed, Michaelmas or thereabout. Michaelmas being come, and no news of his wife's return, he sent for her by letter, and receiving no answer sent several other letters, which were also unanswered, so that at last he dispatched down a foot-messenger; but the messenger came back without an answer. He thought it would be dishonourable ever to receive her again after such a repulse, and accordingly wrote two treatises," &c. Here we are distinctly assured that Mary Milton's desertion of her husband, about Michaelmas, was the occasion of his treatise on divorce. It follows that Milton's tract must have been written after Michaelmas. But the copy in the British Museum belonged to the bookseller Thomason, who always inscribed the date of publication on every tract in his collection, when it was known to him, and his date, as Professor Masson discovered, is August 1. Must we believe that Phillips's account is a misrepresentation? Must we, in Pattison's words, "suppose that Milton was occupying himself with a vehement and impassioned argument in favour of divorce for incompatibility of temper, during the honeymoon"? It would certainly seem so, and if Milton is to be vindicated it can only be by attention to traits in his character, invisible on its surface, but plainly discoverable in his actions.

The grandeur of Milton's poetry, and the dignity and austerity of his private life, naturally incline us to regard him as a man of iron will, living by rule and reason, and exempt from the sway of passionate impulse. The incident of his marriage, and not this incident alone, refutes this conception of his character; his nature was as lyrical and mobile as a poet's should be. We have seen "Comus" and "Lycidas" arise at another's bidding, we shall see a casual remark beget "Paradise Regained." He never attempts to utter his deepest religious convictions until caught by the contagious enthusiasm of a revolution. If any incident in his life could ever have compelled him to speak or die it must have been the humiliating issue of his matrimonial adventure. To be cast off after a month's trial like an unsatisfactory servant, to forfeit the hope of sympathy and companionship which had allured him into the married state, to forfeit it, unless the law could be altered, for ever! The feelings of any sensitive man must find some sort of expression in such an emergency. At another period what Milton learned in suffering would no doubt have been taught in song. But pamphlets were then the order of the day, and Milton's "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce," in its first edition, is as much the outpouring of an overburdened heart as any poem could have been. It bears every mark of a hasty composition, such as may well have been written and printed within the last days of July, following Mary Milton's departure. It is short. It deals with the most obvious aspects of the question. It is meagre in references and citations; two authors only are somewhat vaguely alleged, Grotius and Beza. It does not contain the least allusion to his domestic circumstances, nor anything unless the thesis itself, that could hinder his wife's return. Everything betokens that it was composed in the bitterness of wounded feeling upon the incompatibility becoming manifest; but that he had not yet arrived at the point of demanding the application of his general principle to his own special case. That point would be reached when Mary Milton deliberately refused to return, and the chronology of the greatly enlarged second edition, published in the following February, entirely confirms Phillips's account. In one point only he must be wrong. Mary Milton's return to her father's house cannot have been a voluntary concession on Milton's part, but must have been wrung from him after bitter contentions. Could we look into the household during those weeks of wretchedness, we should probably find Milton exceedingly deficient in consideration for the inexperienced girl of half his age, brought from a gay circle of friends and kindred to a grave, studious house. But it could not well have been otherwise. Milton was constitutionally unfit "to soothe and fondle," and his theories cannot have contributed to correct his practice. His "He for God only, she for God in him," condenses every fallacy about woman's true relation to her husband and her Maker. In his Tractate on Education there is not a word on the education of girls, and yet he wanted an intellectual female companion. Where should the woman be found at once submissive enough and learned enough to meet such inconsistent exigencies? It might have been said to him as afterwards to Byron: "You talk like a Rosicrucian, who will love nothing but a sylph, who does not believe in the existence of a sylph, and who yet quarrels with the whole universe for not containing a sylph."

If Milton's first tract on divorce had not been a mere impromptu, extorted by the misery of finding "an image of earth and phlegm" in her "with whom he looked to be the co-partner of a sweet and gladsome society," he would certainly have rendered his argument more cogent and elaborate. The tract, in its inspired portions, is a fine impassioned poem, fitter for the Parliament of Love than the Parliament at Westminster. The second edition is far more satisfactory as regards that class of arguments which alone were likely to impress the men of his generation, those derived from the authority of the Scriptures and of divines. In one of his principal points all Protestants and philosophers will confess him to be right, his reference of the matter to Scripture and reason, and repudiation of the mediæval canon law. It is not here, nevertheless, that Milton is most at home. The strength of his position is his lofty idealism, his magnificent conception of the institution he discusses, and his disdain for whatever degrades it to conventionality or mere expediency. "His ideal of true and perfect marriage," says Mr. Ernest Myers, "appeared to him so sacred that he could not admit that considerations of expediency might justify the law in maintaining sacred any meaner kind, or at least any kind in which the vital element of spiritual harmony was not." Here he is impregnable and above criticism, but his handling of the more sublunary departments of the subject must be unsatisfactory to legislators, who have usually deemed his sublime idealism fitter for the societies of the blest than for the imperfect communities of mankind. When his "doctrine and discipline" shall have been sanctioned by lawgivers, we may be sure that the world is already much better, or much worse.

As the girl-wife vanishes from Milton's household her place is taken by the venerable figure of his father. The aged man had removed with his son Christopher to Reading, probably before August, 1641, when the birth of a child of his name—Christopher's offspring as it should seem—appears in the Reading register. Christopher was to exemplify the law of reversion to a primitive type. Though not yet a Roman Catholic like his grandfather, he had retrograded into Royalism, without becoming on that account estranged from his elder brother. The surrender of Reading to the Parliamentary forces in April, 1643, involved his "dissettlement," and the migration of his father to the house of John, with whom he was moreover better in accord in religion and politics. Little external change resulted, "the old gentleman," says Phillips, "being wholly retired to his rest and devotion, with the least trouble imaginable." About the same time the household received other additions in the shape of pupils, admitted, Phillips is careful to assure us, by way of favour, as M. Jourdain selected stuffs for his friends. Milton's pamphlet was perhaps not yet published, or not generally known to be his, or his friends were indifferent to public sentiment. Opinion was unquestionably against Milton, nor can he have profited much by the support, however practical, of a certain Mrs. Attaway, who thought that "she, for her part, would look more into it, for she had an unsanctified husband, that did not walk in the way of Sion, nor speak the language of Canaan," and by and by actually did what Milton only talked of doing. We have already seen that he had incurred danger of prosecution from the Stationers' Company, and in July, 1644, he was denounced by name from the pulpit by a divine of much note, Herbert Palmer, author of a book long attributed to Bacon. But, if criticised, he was read. By 1645 his Divorce tract was in the third edition, and he had added three more pamphlets—one to prove that the revered Martin Bucer had agreed with him; two, the "Tetrachordon" and "Colasterion," directed against his principal opponents, Palmer, Featley, Caryl, Prynne, and an anonymous pamphleteer, who seems to have been a somewhat contemptible person, a serving-man turned attorney, but whose production contains some not unwelcome hints on the personal aspects of Milton's controversy. "We believe you count no woman to due conversation accessible, as to you, except she can speak Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French, and dispute against the canon law as well as you." Milton's later tracts are not specially interesting, except for the reiteration of his fine and bold idealism on the institution of marriage, qualified only by his no less strenuous insistance on the subjection of woman. He allows, however, that "it is no small glory to man that a creature so like him should be made subject to him," and that "particular exceptions may have place, if she exceed her husband in prudence and dexterity, and he contentedly yield; for then a superior and more natural law comes in, that the wiser should govern the less wise, whether male or female."

Milton's seminary, meanwhile, was prospering to such a degree as to compel him to take a more commodious house. Was it necessity or enthusiasm that kept him to a task so little compatible with the repose he must have needed even for such intellectual exercise as the "Areopagitica," much more for the high designs he had not ceased to meditate in verse? Enthusiasm, one would certainly say, only that it is impossible to tell to what extent his father's income, chiefly derived from money out at interest, may have been impaired by the confusion of the times. Whether he had done rightly or wrongly in taking the duties of a preceptor upon himself, his nephew's account attests the self-sacrificing zeal with which he discharged them: we groan as we read of hours which should have been devoted to lonely musing or noble composition passed in "increasing as it were by proxy" his knowledge of "Frontinus his Stratagems, with the two egregious poets Lucretius and Manilius." He might also have been better employed than in dictating "A tractate he thought fit to collect from the ablest of divines who have written on that subject of atheism, Amesius, Wollebius," &c. Here should be comfort for those who fear with Pattison that Milton's addiction to politics deprived us of unnumbered "Comuses." The excerpter of Amesius and Wollebius, as we have so often insisted, needed great stimulus for great achievements. Such stimulus would probably have come superabundantly if he could at this time have had his way, for the most moral of men was bent on assuming a direct antagonism to conventional morality. He had maintained that marriage ought to be dissolved for mere incompatibility; his case must have seemed much stronger now that incompatibility had produced desertion. He was not the man to shrink from acting on his opinion when the fit season seemed to him to have arrived; and in the summer of 1645 he was openly paying his addresses to "a very handsome and witty gentlewoman, one of Dr. Davis's daughters." Considering the consequences to the female partner to the contract, it is clear that Miss Davis could not be expected to entertain Milton's proposals unless her affection for him was very strong indeed. It is equally clear that he cannot be acquitted of selfishness in urging his suit unless he was quite sure of this, and his own heart also was deeply interested. An event was about to occur which seems to prove that these conditions were wanting.

Nearly two years have passed since we have heard of Mary Milton, who has been living with her parents in Oxfordshire. Her position as a nominal wife must have been most uncomfortable, but there is no indication of any effort on her part to alter it, until the Civil War was virtually terminated by the Battle of Naseby, June, 1645. Obstinate malignants had then nothing to expect but fine and forfeiture, and their son-in-law's Puritanism may have presented itself to the Powells in the light of a merciful dispensation. Rumours of Milton's suit to Miss Davis may also have reached them; and they would know that an illegal tie would be as fatal to all hopes of reconciliation as a legal one. So, one day in July or August, 1645, Milton, paying his usual call on a kinsman named Blackborough,[3] not otherwise mentioned in his life, who lived in St. Martin's-le-Grand Lane, where the General Post Office now stands, "was surprised to see one whom he thought to have never seen more, making submission and begging pardon on her knees before him." There are two similar scenes in his writings, of which this may have formed the groundwork, Dalila's visit to her betrayed husband in "Samson Agonistes," and Eve's repentance in the tenth book of "Paradise Lost." Samson replies, "Out, out, hyæna!" Eve's "lowly plight"

"in Adam wrought
Commiseration;...
As one disarmed, his anger all he lost,
And thus with peaceful words upraised her soon."

Phillips appears to intimate that the penitent's reception began like Dalila's and ended like Eve's. "He might probably at first make some show of aversion and rejection; but partly his own generous nature, more inclinable to reconciliation than to perseverance in anger and revenge, and partly the strong intercession of friends on both sides, soon brought him to an act of oblivion, and a firm league of peace for the future." With a man of his magnanimous temper, conscious no doubt that he had himself been far from blameless, such a result was to be expected. But it was certainly well that he had made no deeper impression than he seems to have done upon "the handsome and witty gentlewoman." One would like to know whether she and Mistress Milton ever met, and what they said to and thought of each other. For the present, Mary Milton dwelt with Christopher's mother-in-law, and about September joined her husband in the more commodious house in the Barbican whither he was migrating at the time of the reconciliation. It stood till 1864, when it was destroyed by a railway company.

Soon after removing to the Barbican, Milton set his Muse's house in order, by publishing such poems, English and Latin, as he deemed worthy of presentation. It is a remarkable proof both of his habitual cunctativeness and his dependence on the suggestions of others, that he should so long have allowed such pieces to remain uncollected, and should only have collected them at all at the solicitation of the publisher, Humphrey Moseley. The transaction is most honourable to the latter. "It is not any private respect of gain," he affirms; "for the slightest pamphlet is nowadays more vendible than the works of learnedest men, but it is the love I bear to our own language.... I know not thy palate, how it relishes such dainties, nor how harmonious thy soul is: perhaps more trivial airs may please better.... Let the event guide itself which way it will, I shall deserve of the age by bringing forth into the light as true a birth as the Muses have brought forth since our famous Spenser wrote." The volume was published on Jan. 2, 1646. It is divided into two parts, with separate title-pages, the first containing the English poems, the second the Latin. They were probably sold separately. The frontispiece, engraved by Marshall, is unfortunately a sour and silly countenance, passing as Milton's, but against which he protests in four lines of Greek appended, which the worthy Marshall seems to have engraved without understanding them. The British Museum copy in the King's Library contains an additional MS. poem of considerable merit, in a hand which some have thought like Milton's, but few now believe it to have been either written or transcribed by him. It is dated 1647, but for which circumstance one might indulge the fancy that the copy had been a gift from him to some Italian friend, for the binding is Italian, and the book must have seen Italy.

Milton was now to learn what he afterwards taught, that "they also serve who only stand and wait." He had challenged obloquy in vindication of what he deemed right: the cross actually laid upon him was to fill his house with inimical and uncongenial dependants on his bounty and protection. The overthrow of the Royalist cause was utterly ruinous to the Powells. All went to wreck on the surrender of Oxford in June, 1646. The family estate was only saved from sequestration by a friendly neighbour taking possession of it under cover of his rights as creditor; the family mansion was occupied by the Parliamentarians, and the household stuff sold to the harpies that followed in their train; the "malignant's" timber went to rebuild the good town of Banbury. It was impossible for the Powells to remain in Oxfordshire, and Milton opened his doors to them as freely as though there had never been any estrangement. Father, mother, several sons and daughters came to dwell in a house already full of pupils, with what inconvenience from want of room and disquiet from clashing opinions may be conjectured. "Those whom the mere necessity of neighbourhood, or something else of a useless kind," he says to Dati, "has closely conjoined with me, whether by accident or the tie of law, they are the persons who sit daily in my company, weary me, nay, by heaven, almost plague me to death whenever they are jointly in the humour for it." Milton's readiness to receive the mother, deemed the chief instigator of her daughter's "frowardness," may have been partly due to the situation of the latter, who gave him a daughter on July 29, 1646. In January, 1647, Mr. Powell died, leaving his affairs in dire confusion. Two months afterwards Milton's father followed him at the age of eighty-four, partly cognisant, we will hope, of the gift he had bestowed on his country in his son. It was probably owing to the consequent improvement in Milton's circumstances that he about this time gave up his pupils, except his nephews, and removed to a smaller house in High Holborn, not since identified; the Powells also removing to another dwelling. "No one," he says of himself at this period, "ever saw me going about, no one ever saw me asking anything among my friends, or stationed at the doors of the Court with a petitioner's face. I kept myself almost entirely at home, managing on my own resources, though in this civil tumult they were often in great part kept from me, and contriving, though burdened with taxes in the main rather oppressive, to lead my frugal life." The traces of his literary activity at this time are few—preparations for a history of England, published long afterwards, an ode, a sonnet, correspondence with Dati, some not very successful versions of the Psalms. He seems to have been partly engaged in preparing the treatise on Christian Doctrine, which was fortunately reserved for a serener day. In undertaking it at this period he was missing a great opportunity. He might have been the apostle of toleration in England, as Roger Williams had been in America. The moment was most favourable. Presbyterianism had got itself established, but could not pretend to represent the majority of the nation. It had been branded by Milton himself in the memorable line: "New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large." The Independents were for toleration, the Episcopalians had been for the time humbled by adversity, the best minds in the nation, including Cromwell, were Seekers or Latitude men, or sceptics. Here was invitation enough for a work as much greater than the "Areopagitica" as the principle of freedom of thought is greater than the most august particular application of it. Milton might have added the better half of Locke's fame to his own, and compelled the French philosophers to sit at the feet of a Bible-loving Englishman. But unfortunately no external impulse stirred him to action, as in the case of the "Areopagitica." Presbyterians growled at him occasionally; they did not fine or imprison him, or put him out of the synagogue. Thus his pen slumbered, and we are in danger of forgetting that he was, in the ordinary sense of that much-abused term, no Puritan, but a most free and independent thinker, the vast sweep of whose thought happened to coincide for a while with the narrow orbit of so-called Puritanism.

Impulse to work of another sort was at hand. On January 30, 1649, Charles the First's head rolled on the scaffold. On February 13th was published a pamphlet from Milton's hand, which cannot have been begun before the King's trial, another proof of his feverish impetuosity when possessed by an overmastering idea. The title propounds two theses with very different titles to acceptance. "The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates proving that it is lawful, and hath been held so through all ages, for any who have the power to call to account a tyrant or wicked king, and after due conviction to depose and put him to death: if the ordinary magistrate have neglected or denied to do it." That kings have no more immunity than others from the consequences of evil doing is a proposition which seemed monstrous to many in Milton's day, but which will command general assent in ours. But to lay it down that "any who has the power" may interpose to correct what he chooses to consider the laches of the lawful magistrate is to hand over the administration of the law to Judge Lynch—rather too high a price to pay for the satisfaction of bringing even a bad king to the block. Milton's sneer at "vulgar and irrational men, contesting for privileges, customs, forms, and that old entanglement of iniquity, their gibberish laws," is equivalent to an admission that his party had put itself beyond the pale of the law. The only defence would be to show that it had acted under great and overwhelming necessity; but this he takes for granted, though knowing well that it was denied by more than half the nation. His argument, therefore, is inconclusive, except that portion of it which modern opinion allows to pass without argument. He seems indeed to admit in his "Defensio Secunda" that the tract was written less to vindicate the King's execution than to saddle the protesting Presbyterians with a share of the responsibility. The diction, though robust and spirited, is not his best, and, on the whole, the most admirable feature in his pamphlet is his courage in writing it. He was to speak yet again on this theme as the mouthpiece of the Commonwealth, thus earning honour and reward; it was well to have shown first that he did not need this incentive to expose himself to Royalist vengeance, but had prompting enough in the intensity of his private convictions.

He had flung himself into a perilous breach. "Eikon Basilike"—most timely of manifestoes—had been published only four days before the appearance of "The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates." Between its literary seduction and the horror generally excited by the King's execution, the tide of public opinion was turning fast. Milton no doubt felt that no claim upon him could be equal to that which the State had a right to prefer. He accepted the office of "Secretary for Foreign Tongues" to the Committee of Foreign Affairs, a delegation from the Council of State of forty-one members, by which the country was at that time governed. Vane, Whitelocke, and Marten were among the members of the committee. The specified duties of the post were the preparation and translation of despatches from and to foreign governments. These were always in Latin,—the Council, says that sturdy Briton, Edward Phillips, "scorning to carry on their affairs in the wheedling, lisping jargon of the cringing French." But it must have been understood that Milton's pen would also be at the service of the Government outside the narrow range of official correspondence. The salary was handsome for the time—£288, equivalent to about £900 of our money. It was an honourable post, on the manner of whose discharge the credit of England abroad somewhat depended; the foreign chanceries were full of accomplished Latinists, and when Blake's cannon was not to be the mouthpiece, the Commonwealth's message needed a silver trumpet. It was also as likely as any employment to make a scholar a statesman. If in some respects it opposed new obstacles to the fulfilment of Milton's aspirations as a poet, he might still feel that it would help him to the experience which he had declared to be essential: "He who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem, that is, a composition and pattern of the best and honourablest things, not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he have within himself the experience and the practice of all that which is praiseworthy." Up to this time Milton's experience of public affairs had been slight; he does not seem to have enjoyed the intimate acquaintance of any man then active in the making of history. In our day he would probably have entered Parliament, but that was impossible under a dispensation which allowed a Parliament to sit till a Protector turned it out of doors. He was, therefore, only acting upon his own theory, and he seems to us to have been acting wisely as well as courageously, when he consented to become a humble but necessary wheel of the machinery of administration, the Orpheus among the Argonauts of the Commonwealth.

---

CHAPTER V.

Milton was appointed Secretary for Foreign Tongues on March 15, 1649. He removed from High Holborn to Spring Gardens to be near the scene of his labours, and was soon afterwards provided with an official residence in Whitehall Palace, a huge intricacy of passages and chambers, of which but a fragment now remains. His first performance was in some measure a false start; for the epistle offering amity to the Senate of Hamburg, clothed in his best Latin, was so unamiably regarded by that body that the English envoy never formally delivered it. An epistle to the Dutch on the murder of the Commonwealth's ambassador, Dorislaus, by refugee Cavaliers, had a better reception; and Milton was soon engaged in drafting, not merely translating, a State paper designed for the press—observations on the peace concluded by Ormond, the Royalist commander in Ireland, with the confederated Catholics in that country, and on the protest against the execution of Charles I. volunteered by the Presbytery of Belfast. The commentary was published in May, along with the documents. It is a spirited manifesto, cogent in enforcing the necessity of the campaign about to be undertaken by Cromwell. Ireland had at the moment exactly as many factions as provinces; and never, perhaps, since the days of Strongbow had been in a state of such utter confusion. Employed in work like this, Milton did not cease to be "an eagle towering in his pride of place," but he may seem to have degenerated into the "mousing owl" when he pounced upon newswriters and ferreted unlicensed pamphlets for sedition. True, there was nothing in this occupation formally inconsistent with anything he had written in the "Areopagitica"; yet one wishes that the Council of State had provided otherwise for this particular department of the public service. Nothing but a sense of duty can have reconciled him to a task so invidious; and there is some evidence of what might well have been believed without evidence—that he mitigated the severity of the censorship as far as in him lay. He was not to want for better occupation, for the Council of State was about to devolve upon him the charge of answering the great Royalist manifesto, "Eikon Basilike."

The controversy respecting the authorship of the "Eikon Basilike" is a remarkable instance of the degree in which literary judgment may be biassed by political prepossession. In the absence of other testimony one might almost stamp a writer as Royalist or Parliamentarian according as his verdict inclined to Charles I. or Bishop Gauden. In fact, it is no easy matter to balance the respective claims of two entirely different kinds of testimony. The external evidence of Charles's authorship is worth nothing. It is almost confined to the assertions, forty years after the publication, of a few aged Cavaliers, who were all morally certain that Charles wrote the book, and to whom a fiction supplying the accidental lack of external testimony would have seemed laudable and pious. The only wonder is that such legends are not far more numerous. On the other hand, the internal evidence seems at first sight to make for the king. The style is not dissimilar to that of the reputed royal author; the sentiments are such as would have well become him; the assumed character is supported throughout with consistency; and there are none of the slips which a fabricator might have been thought hardly able to avoid. The supposed personator of the King was unquestionably an unprincipled time-server. Is it not an axiom that a worthy book can only proceed from a worthy mind?

"If this fail,
The pillared firmament is rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble!"

Against such considerations we have to set the stubborn facts that Bishop Gauden did actually claim the authorship that he preferred his claim to the very persons who had the strongest interest in exploding it; that he invoked the testimony of those who must have known the truth, and could most easily have crushed the lie; that he convinced not only Clarendon, but Charles's own children, and received a substantial reward. In the face of these undeniable facts, the numerous circumstances used with skill and ingenuity by Dr. Wordsworth to invalidate his claim, are of little weight. The stronger the apparent objections, the more certain that the proofs in Gauden's hands must have been overwhelming, and the greater the presumption that he was merely urging what had always been known to several persons about the late king. When, with this conviction, we recur to the "Eikon," and examine it in connection with Gauden's acknowledged writings, the internal testimony against him no longer seems so absolutely conclusive. Gauden's style is by no means so bad as Hume represents it. Many remarkable parallels between it and the diction of the "Eikon" have been pointed out by Todd, and the most searching modern investigator, Doble. We may also discover one marked intellectual resemblance. Nothing is more characteristic in the "Eikon" than its indirectness. The writer is full of qualifications, limitations, allowances; he fences and guards himself, and seems always on the point of taking back what he has said, but never does; and veers and tacks, tacks and veers, until he has worked himself into port. The like peculiarity is very observable in Gauden, especially in his once-popular "Companion to the Altar." There is also a strong internal argument against Charles's authorship in the preponderance of the theological element. That this should occupy an important place in the writings of a martyr for the Church of England was certainly to be expected, but the theology of the "Eikon" has an unmistakably professional flavour. Let any man read it with an unbiassed mind, and then say whether he has been listening to a king or to a chaplain. "One of us," pithily comments Archbishop Herring. "I write rather like a divine than a prince," the assumed author acknowledges, or is made to acknowledge. When to these considerations is added that any scrap of the "Eikon" in the King's handwriting would have been treasured as an inestimable relic, and that no scrap was ever produced, there can be little question as to the verdict of criticism. For all practical purposes, nevertheless, the "Eikon" in Milton's time was the King's book, for everybody thought it so. Milton hints some vague suspicions, but refrains from impugning it seriously, and indeed the defenders of its authenticity will be quite justified in asserting that if Gauden had been dumb, Criticism would have been blind.

According to Selden's biographer, Cromwell was at first anxious that the "Eikon" should be answered by that consummate jurist, and it was only on his declining the task that it came into Milton's hands. That he also would have declined it but for his official position may be inferred from his own words: "I take it on me as a work assigned, rather than by me chosen or affected." His distaste may further be gauged by his tardiness; while "The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates" had been written in little more than a week, his "Eikonoklastes," a reply to a book published in February, did not appear until October 6th. His reluctance may be partly explained by his feeling that "to descant on the misfortunes of a person fallen from so high a dignity, who hath also paid his final debt both to nature and his faults, is neither of itself a thing commendable, nor the intention of this discourse." The intention it may not have been, but it was necessarily the performance. The scheme of the "Eikon" required the respondent to take up the case article by article, a thing impossible to be done without abundant "descant" of the kind which Milton deprecates. He is compelled to fight the adversary on the latter's chosen ground, and the eloquence which might have swept all before it in a discussion of general principles is frittered away in tiresome wrangling over a multitude of minutiæ. His vigorous blows avail but little against the impalpable ideal with which he is contending; his arguments might frequently convince a court of justice, but could do nothing to dispel the sorcery which enthralled the popular imagination. Milton's "Eikonoklastes" had only three editions, including a translation, within the year; the "Eikon Basilike" is said to have had fifty.

Milton's reputation as a political controversialist, however, was not to rest upon "Eikonoklastes," or to be determined by a merely English public. The Royalists had felt the necessity of appealing to the general verdict of Europe, and had entrusted their cause to the most eminent classical scholar of the age. To us the idea of commissioning a political manifesto from a philologist seems eccentric; but erudition and the erudite were never so highly prized as in the seventeenth century. Men's minds were still enchained by authority, and the precedents of Agis, or Brutus, or Nehemiah, weighed like dicta of Solomon or Justinian. The man of Greek, or Latin, or Hebrew learning was, therefore, a person of much greater consequence than he is now, and so much the more if he enjoyed a high reputation and wrote good Latin. All these qualifications were combined in Claudius Salmasius, a Frenchman, who had laid scholars under an eternal obligation by his discovery of the Palatine MS. of the Anthology at Heidelberg, and who, having embraced Protestantism from conviction, lived in splendid style at Leyden, where the mere light of his countenance—for he did not teach—was valued by the University at three thousand livres a year. It seems marvellous that a man should become dictator of the republic of letters by editing "Solinus" and "The Augustan History," however ably; but an achievement like this, not a "Paradise Lost" or a "Werther" was the sic itur ad astra of the time. On the strength of such Salmasius had pronounced ex cathedra on a multiplicity of topics, from episcopacy to hair-powder, and there was no bishop and no perfumer between the Black Sea and the Irish who would not rather have the scholar for him than against him. A man, too, to be named with respect; no mere annotator, but a most sagacious critic; peevish, it might be, but had he not seven grievous disorders at once? One who had shown such independence and integrity in various transactions of his life, that we may be very sure that Charles II.'s hundred Jacobuses, if ever given or even promised, were the very least of the inducements that called him into the field against the executioners of Charles I.

Whether, however, the hundred Jacobuses were forthcoming or not, Salmasius's undertaking was none the less a commission from Charles II., and the circumstance put him into a false position, and increased the difficulty of his task. Human feeling is not easily reconciled to the execution of a bad magistrate, unless he has also been a bad man. Charles I. was by no means a bad man, only a mistaken one. He had been guilty of many usurpations and much perfidy: but he had honestly believed his usurpations within the limits of his prerogative; and his breaches of faith were committed against insurgents whom he regarded as seamen look upon pirates, or shepherds upon wolves. Salmasius, however, pleading by commission from Charles's son, can urge no such mitigating plea. He is compelled to maintain the inviolability even of wicked sovereigns, and spends two-thirds of his treatise in supporting a proposition to state which is to refute it in the nineteenth century. In the latter part he is on stronger ground. Charles had unquestionably been tried and condemned by a tribunal destitute of legal authority, and executed contrary to the wish and will of the great majority of his subjects. But this was a theme for an Englishman to handle. Salmasius cannot think himself into it, nor had he sufficient imagination to be inspired by Charles as Burke (who, nevertheless, has borrowed from him) was to be inspired by Marie Antoinette.

His book—entitled "Defensio Regia pro Carolo I."—appeared in October or November, 1649. On January 8, 1650, it was ordered by the Council of State "that Mr. Milton do prepare something in answer to the Book of Salmasius, and when he hath done it bring it to the Council." There were many reasons why he should be entrusted with this commission, and only one why he should not; but one which would have seemed conclusive to most men. His sight had long been failing. He had already lost the use of one eye, and was warned that if he imposed this additional strain upon his sight, that of the other would follow. He had seen the greatest astronomer of the age condemned to inactivity and helplessness, and could measure his own by the misery of Galileo. He calmly accepted his duty along with its penalty, without complaint or reluctance. If he could have performed his task in the spirit with which he undertook it, he would have produced a work more sublime than "Paradise Lost."

This, of course, was not possible. The efficiency of a controversialist in the seventeenth century was almost estimated in the ratio of his scurrility, especially when he wrote Latin. From this point of view Milton had got his opponent at a tremendous disadvantage. With the best will in the world, Salmasius had come short in personal abuse, for, as the initiator of the dispute, he had no personal antagonist. In denouncing the general herd of regicides and parricides he had hurt nobody in particular, while concentrating all Milton's lightnings on his own unlucky head. They seared and scathed a literary dictator whom jealous enemies had long sighed to behold insulted and humiliated, while surprise equalled delight at seeing the blow dealt from a quarter so utterly unexpected. There is no comparison between the invective of Milton and of Salmasius; not so much from Milton's superiority as a controversialist, though this is very evident, as because he writes under the inspiration of a true passion. His scorn of the presumptuous intermeddler who has dared to libel the people of England is ten thousand times more real than Salmasius's official indignation at the execution of Charles. His contempt for Salmasius's pedantry is quite genuine; and he revels in ecstasies of savage glee when taunting the apologist of tyranny with his own notorious subjection to a tyrannical wife. But the reviler in Milton is too far ahead of the reasoner. He seems to set more store by his personalities than by his principles. On the question of the legality of Charles's execution he has indeed little argument to offer; and his views on the wider question of the general responsibility of kings, sound and noble in themselves, suffer from the mass of irrelevant quotation with which it was in that age necessary to prop them up. The great success of his reply ("Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio") arose mainly from the general satisfaction that Salmasius should at length have met with his match. The book, published in or about March, 1651, instantly won over European public opinion, so far as the question was a literary one. Every distinguished foreigner then resident in London, Milton says, either called upon him to congratulate him, or took the opportunity of a casual meeting. By May, says Heinsius, five editions were printed or printing in Holland, and two translations. "I had expected nothing of such quality from the Englishman," writes Vossius. The Diet of Ratisbon ordered "that all the books of Miltonius should be searched for and confiscated." Parisian magistrates burned it on their own responsibility. Salmasius himself was then at Stockholm, where Queen Christina, who did not, like Catherine II., recognize the necessity of "standing by her order," could not help letting him see that she regarded Milton as the victor. Vexation, some thought, contributed as much as climate to determine his return to Holland. He died in September, 1653, at Spa, as, remote from books, but making his memory his library, he was penning his answer. This unfinished production, edited by his son, appeared after the Restoration, when the very embers of the controversy had grown cold, and the palm of literary victory had been irrevocably adjudged to Milton.

Milton could hear the plaudits, he could not see the wreaths. The total loss of his sight may be dated from March, 1652, a year after the publication of his reply. It was then necessary to provide him with an assistant—that no change should have been made in his position or salary shows either the value attached to his services or the feeling that special consideration was due to one who had voluntarily given his eyes for his country. "The choice lay before me," he writes, "between dereliction of a supreme duty and loss of eyesight; in such a case I could not listen to the physician, not if Æsculapius himself had spoken from his sanctuary; I could not but obey that inward monitor, I know not what, that spoke to me from heaven." In September, 1654, he described the symptoms of his infirmity to his friend, the Greek Philaras, who had flattered him with hopes of cure from the dexterity of the French oculist Thevenot. He tells him how his sight began to fail about ten years before; how in the morning he felt his eyes shrinking from the effort to read anything; how the light of a candle appeared like a spectrum of various colours; how, little by little, darkness crept over the left eye; and objects beheld by the right seemed to waver to and fro; how this was accompanied by a kind of dizziness and heaviness which weighed upon him throughout the afternoon. "Yet the darkness which is perpetually before me seems always nearer to a whitish than to a blackish, and such that, when the eye rolls itself, there is admitted, as through a small chink, a certain little trifle of light." Elsewhere he says that his eyes are not disfigured:

"Clear
To outward view of blemish or of spot."

These symptoms have been pronounced to resemble those of glaucoma. Milton himself, in "Paradise Lost," hesitates between amaurosis ("drop serene") and cataract ("suffusion"). Nothing is said of his having been recommended to use glasses or other precautionary contrivances. Cheselden was not yet, and the oculist's art was probably not well understood. The sufferer himself, while not repining or despairing of medical assistance, evidently has little hope from it. "Whatever ray of hope may be for me from your famous physician, all the same, as in a case quite incurable, I prepare and compose myself accordingly. My darkness hitherto, by the singular kindness of God, amid rest and studies, and the voices and greetings of friends, has been much easier to bear than that deathly one. But if, as is written, 'Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,' what should prevent me from resting in the belief that eyesight lies not in eyes alone, but enough for all purposes in God's leading and providence? Verily, while only He looks out for me, and provides for me, as He doth; teaching me and leading me forth with His hand through my whole life, I shall willingly, since it hath seemed good to Him, have given my eyes their long holiday. And to you I now bid farewell, with a mind not less brave and steadfast than if I were Lynceus himself for keenness of sight." Religion and philosophy, of which no brighter example was ever given, did not, in this sore trial, disdain the support of a manly pride:—

"What supports me, dost thou ask?
The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied
In liberty's defence, my noble task,
O! which all Europe rings from side to side;
This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask,
Content though blind, had I no better guide."

Noble words, and Milton might well triumph in his victory in the field of intellectual combat. But if his pamphlet could have put Charles the First's head on again, then, and then only, could it have been of real political service to his party.

Milton's loss of sight was accompanied by domestic sorrow, though perhaps not felt with special acuteness. Since the birth of his eldest daughter in 1646, his wife had given him three more children—a daughter, born in October, 1648; a son, born in March, 1650, who died shortly afterwards; and another daughter, born in May, 1652. The birth of this child may have been connected with the death of the mother in the same or the following month. The household had apparently been peaceful, but it is unlikely that Mary Milton can have been a companion to her husband, or sympathized with such fraction of his mind as it was given her to understand. She must have become considerably emancipated from the creeds of her girlhood if his later writings could have been anything but detestable to her; and, on the whole, much as one pities her probably wasted life, her disappearance from the scene, if tragic in her ignorance to the last of the destiny that might have been hers, is not unaccompanied with a sense of relief. Great, nevertheless, must have been the blind poet's embarrassment as the father of three little daughters. Much evil, it is to be feared, had already been sown; and his temperament, his affliction, and his circumstances alike nurtured the evil yet to come. He was then living in Petty France, Westminster, having been obliged, either by the necessities of his health or of the public service, to give up his apartments in Whitehall. The house stood till 1877, a forlorn tenement in these latter years; far different, probably, when the neighbourhood was fashionable and the back windows looked on St. James's Park. It is associated with other celebrated names, having been owned by Bentham and occupied by Hazlitt.

The controversy with Salmasius had an epilogue, chiefly memorable in so far as it occasioned Milton to indulge in autobiography, and to record his estimate of some of the heroes of the Commonwealth. Among various replies to his "Defensio," not deserving of notice here, appeared one of especial acrimony, "Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad Cœlum," published about August, 1652. It was a prodigy of scurrilous invective, bettering the bad example which Milton had set (but which hundreds in that age had set him) of ridiculing Salmasius's foibles when he should have been answering his arguments. Having been in Italy, he was taxed with Italian vices: he would have been accused of cannibalism had his path lain towards the Caribee Islands. A fulsome dedication to Salmasius tended to fix the suspicion of authorship upon Alexander Morus, a Frenchman of Scotch extraction, Professor of Sacred History at Amsterdam, and pastor of the Walloon Church, then an inmate of Salmasius's house, who actually had written the dedication and corrected the proof. The real author, however, was Peter Du Moulin, ex-rector of Wheldrake, in Yorkshire. The dedicatory ink was hardly dry ere Morus was involved in a desperate quarrel with Salmasius through the latter's imperious wife, who accused Morus of having been over-attentive to her English waiting-maid, whose patronymic is lost to history under the Latinized form of Bontia. Failing to make Morus marry the damsel, she sought to deprive him of his ecclesiastical and professorial dignities. The correspondence of Heinsius and Vossius shows what intense amusement the affair occasioned to such among the scholars of the period as were unkindly affected towards Salmasius. Morus was ultimately acquitted, but his position in Holland had become uncomfortable, and he was glad to accept an invitation from the congregation at Charenton, celebrated for its lunatics. Understanding, meanwhile, that Milton was preparing a reply, and being naturally unwilling to brave invective in the cause of a book which he had not written, and of a patron who had cast him off, he protested his innocence of the authorship, and sought to ward off the coming storm by every means short of disclosing the writer. Milton, however, esteeming his Latin of much more importance than Morus's character, and justly considering with Voltaire, "que cet Habacuc était capable de tout," persisted in exhibiting himself as the blind Cyclop dealing blows amiss. His reply appeared in May, 1654, and a rejoinder by Morus produced a final retort in August, 1655. Both are full of personalities, including a spirited description of the scratching of Morus's face by the injured Bontia. These may sink into oblivion, while we may be grateful for the occasion which led Milton to express himself with such fortitude and dignity on his affliction and its alleviations:—"Let the calumniators of God's judgments cease to revile me, and to forge their superstitious dreams about me. Let them be assured that I neither regret my lot nor am ashamed of it, that I remain unmoved and fixed in my opinion, that I neither believe nor feel myself an object of God's anger, but actually experience and acknowledge His fatherly mercy and kindness to me in all matters of greatest moment—especially in that I am able, through His consolation and His strengthening of my spirit, to acquiesce in His divine will, thinking oftener of what He has bestowed upon me than of what He has withheld: finally, that I would not exchange the consciousness of what I have done with that of any deed of theirs, however righteous, or part with my always pleasant and tranquil recollection of the same." He adds that his friends cherish him, study his wants, favour him with their society more assiduously even than before, and that the Commonwealth treats him with as much honour as if, according to the customs of the Athenians of old, it had decreed him public support for his life in the Prytaneum.

Milton's tract is also interesting for its pen-portraits of some of the worthies of the Commonwealth, and its indications of his own views on the politics of his troubled times. Bradshaw is eulogized with great elegance and equal truth for his manly courage and strict consistency. "Always equal to himself, and like a consul re-elected for another year, so that you would say he not only judged the King from his tribunal, but is judging him all his life." This was matter of notoriety: one may hope that Milton had equal reason for his praise of Bradshaw's affability, munificence, and placability. The comparison of Fairfax to the elder Scipio Africanus is more accurate than is always or often the case with historical parallels, and by a dexterous turn, surprising if we have forgotten the scholar in the controversialist, Fairfax's failure in statesmanship, as Milton deemed it, is not only extenuated, but is made to usher in the more commanding personality of Cromwell. Cæsar, says Johnson, had not more elegant flattery than Cromwell received from Milton: nor Augustus, he might have added, encomiums more heartfelt and sincere. Milton was one of the innumerable proofs that a man may be very much of a Republican without being anything of a Liberal. He was as firm a believer in right divine as any Cavalier, save that in his view such right was vested in the worthiest; that is, practically, the strongest. An admirable doctrine for 1653,—how unfit for 1660 remained to be discovered by him. Under its influence he had successively swallowed Pride's Purge, the execution of Charles I. by a self-constituted tribunal, and Cromwell's expulsion of the scanty remnant of what had once seemed the more than Roman senate of 1641. There is great reason to believe with Professor Masson that a tract vindicating this violence was actually taken down from his lips. It is impossible to say that he was wrong. Cromwell really was standing between England and anarchy. But Milton might have been expected to manifest some compunction at the disappointment of his own brilliant hopes, and some alarm at the condition of the vessel of the State reduced to her last plank. Authority actually had come into the hands of the kingliest man in England, valiant and prudent, magnanimous and merciful. But Cromwell's life was precarious, and what after Cromwell? Was the ancient constitution, with its halo of antiquity, its settled methods, and its substantial safeguards, wisely exchanged for one life, already the mark for a thousand bullets? Milton did not reflect, or he kept his reflections to himself. The one point on which he does seem nervous is lest his hero should call himself what he is. The name of Protector even is a stumbling-block, though one can get over it. "You have, by assuming a title likest that of Father of your Country, allowed yourself to be, one cannot say elevated, but rather brought down so many stages from your real sublimity, and as it were forced into rank for the public convenience." But there must be no question of a higher title:—

"You have, in your far higher majesty, scorned the title of King. And surely with justice: for if in your present greatness you were to be taken with that name which you were able when a private man to reduce and bring to nothing, it would be almost as if, when by the help of the true God you had subdued some idolatrous nation, you were to worship the gods you had yourself overcome."

This warning, occurring in the midst of a magnificent panegyric, sufficiently vindicates Milton against the charge of servile flattery. The frank advice which he gives Cromwell on questions of policy is less conclusive evidence: for, except on the point of disestablishment, it was such as Cromwell had already given himself. Professor Masson's excellent summary of it may be further condensed thus—1. Reliance on a council of well-selected associates. 2. Absolute voluntaryism in religion. 3. Legislation not to be meddlesome or over-puritanical. 4. University and scholastic endowments to be made the rewards of approved merit. 5. Entire liberty of publication at the risk of the publisher. 6. Constant inclination towards the generous view of things. The advice of an enthusiastic idealist, Puritan by the accident of his times, but whose true affinities were with Mill and Shelley and Rousseau.

An interesting question arises in connection with Milton's official duties: had he any real influence on the counsels of Government? or was he a mere secretary? It would be pleasing to conceive of him as Vizier to the only Englishman of the day whose greatness can be compared with his; to imagine him playing Aristotle to Cromwell's Alexander. We have seen him freely tendering Cromwell what might have been unpalatable advice, and learn from Du Moulin's lampoon that he was accused of having behaved to the Protector with something of dictatorial rudeness. But it seems impossible to point to any direct influence of his mind in the administration; and his own department of Foreign Affairs was neither one which he was peculiarly qualified to direct, nor one in which he was likely to differ from the ruling powers. "A spirited foreign policy" was then the motto of all the leading men of England. Before Milton's loss of sight his duties included attendance upon foreign envoys on State occasions, of which he must afterwards have been to a considerable extent relieved. The collection of his official correspondence published in 1676 is less remarkable for the quantity of work than the quality. The letters are not very numerous, but are mostly written on occasions requiring a choice dignity of expression. "The uniformly Miltonic style of the greater letters," says Professor Masson, "utterly precludes the idea that Milton was only the translator of drafts furnished him." We seem to see him sitting down to dictate, weighing out the fine gold of his Latin sentences to the stately accompaniment, it may be, of his chamber-organ. War is declared against the Dutch; the Spanish ambassador is reproved for his protraction of business; the Grand Duke of Tuscany is warmly thanked for protecting English ships in the harbour of Leghorn; the French king is admonished to indemnify English merchants for wrongful seizure; the Protestant Swiss cantons are encouraged to fight for their religion; the King of Sweden is felicitated on the birth of a son and heir, and on the Treaty of Roeskilde; the King of Portugal is pressed to use more diligence in investigating the attempted assassination of the English minister; an ambassador is accredited to Russia; Mazarin is congratulated on the capture of Dunkirk. Of all his letters, none can have stirred Milton's personal feelings so deeply as the epistle of remonstrance to the Duke of Savoy on the atrocious massacre of the Vaudois Protestants (1655); but the document is dignified and measured in tone. His emotion found relief in his greatest sonnet; blending, as Wordsworth implies, trumpet notes with his habitual organ-music; the most memorable example in our language of the fire and passion which may inspire a poetical form which some have deemed only fit to celebrate a "mistress's eyebrow"[4]:—

"Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept Thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones.
Forget not: in Thy book record their groans
Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piemontese that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To Heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundredfold, who, having learned Thy way,
Early may fly the Babylonian woe."

This is what Johnson calls "carving heads upon cherry-stones!"

Milton's calamity had, of course, required special assistance. He had first had Weckherlin as coadjutor, then Philip Meadows, finally Andrew Marvell. His emoluments had been reduced, in April, 1655, from £288 to £150 a year, but the diminished allowance was made perpetual instead of annual, and seems to have been intended as a retiring pension. He nevertheless continued to work, drawing salary at the rate of £200 a year, and his pen was never more active than during the last months of Oliver's Protectorate. He continued to serve under Richard, writing eleven letters between September, 1658, and February, 1659. With two letters for the restored Parliament after Richard's abdication, written in May, 1659, Milton, though his formal supersession was yet to come, virtually bade adieu to the Civil Service:—

"God doth not need
Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best: His state
Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait."

The principal domestic events in Milton's life, meanwhile, had been his marriage with Katherine, daughter of an unidentified Captain Woodcock, in November, 1656; and the successive loss of her and an infant daughter in February and March, 1658. It is probable that Milton literally never saw his wife, whose worth and the consequent happiness of the fifteen months of their too brief union, are sufficiently attested by his sonnet on the dream in which he fancied her restored to him, with the striking conclusion, "Day brought back my night." Of his daughters at the time, much may be conjectured, but nothing is known; his nephews, whose education had cost him such anxious care, though not undutiful in their personal relations with him, were sources of uneasiness from their own misadventures, and might have been even more so as sinister omens of the ways in which the rising generation was to walk. The fruits of their bringing up upon the egregious Lucretius and Manilius were apparently "Satyr against Hypocrites," i.e., Puritans; "Mysteries of Love and Eloquence;" "Sportive Wit or Muses' Merriment," which last brought the Council down upon John Phillips as a propagator of immorality. In his nephews Milton might have seen, though we may be sure he did not see, how fatally the austerity of the Commonwealth had alienated those who would soon determine whether the Commonwealth should exist. Unconscious of the "engine at the door," he could spend happy social hours with attached friends—Andrew Marvell, his assistant in the secretaryship and poetical satellite; his old pupil Cyriack Skinner; Lady Ranelagh; Oldenburg, the Bremen envoy, destined to fame as Secretary of the Royal Society and the correspondent of Spinoza; and a choice band of "enthusiastic young men who accounted it a privilege to read to him, or act as his amanuenses, or hear him talk." A sonnet inscribed to one of these, Henry Lawrence, gives a pleasing picture of the British Homer in his Horatian hour:—

"Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son,
Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire,
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
Help waste a sullen day, what may be won
From the hard season gaining? Time will run
On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire
The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire
The lily and rose, that neither sowed nor spun.
What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
Of Attic taste, with wine, whence we may rise
To hear the lute well touched, or artful voice
Warble immortal notes and Tuscan air?
He who of those delights can judge, and spare
To interpose them oft, is not unwise."

---

CHAPTER VI.

"Thought by thought in heaven-defying minds
As flake by flake is piled, till some great truth
Is loosened, and the nations echo round."

These lines, slightly altered from Shelley, are more applicable to the slow growth and sudden apparition of "Paradise Lost" than to most of those births of genius whose maturity has required a long gestation. In most such instances the work, however obstructed, has not seemed asleep. In Milton's case the germ slumbered in the soil seventeen or eighteen years before the appearance of a blade, save one of the minutest. After two or three years he ceased, so far as external indications evince, to consciously occupy himself with the idea of "Paradise Lost." His country might well claim the best part of his energies, but even the intervals of literary leisure were given to Amesius and Wollebius rather than Thamyris and Mæonides. Yet the material of his immortal poem must have gone on accumulating, or inspiration, when it came at last, could not so soon have been transmuted into song. It can hardly be doubted that his cruel affliction was, in truth, the crowning blessing of his life. Remanded thus to solemn meditation, he would gradually rise to the height of his great argument; he would reflect with alarm how little, in comparison with his powers, he had yet done to "sustain the expectation he had not refused:" and he would come little by little to the point when he could unfold his wings upon his own impulse, instead of needing, as always hitherto, the impulse of others. We cannot tell what influence finally launched this high-piled avalanche of thrice-sifted snow. The time is better ascertained. Aubrey refers it to 1658, the last year of Oliver's Protectorate. As Cromwell's death virtually closed Milton's official labours, a Genie, overshadowing land and sea, arose from the shattered vase of the Latin Secretaryship.

Nothing is more interesting than to observe the first gropings of genius in pursuit of its aim. Ample insight, as regards Milton, is afforded by the precious manuscripts given to Trinity College, Cambridge, by Sir Henry Newton Puckering (we know not how he got them), and preserved by the pious care of Charles Mason and Sir Thomas Clarke. By the portion of the MSS. relating to Milton's drafts of projected poems, which date about 1640-1642, we see that the form of his work was to have been dramatic, and that, in respect of subject, the swift mind was divided between Scripture and British History. No fewer than ninety-nine possible themes—sixty-one Scriptural, and thirty-eight historical or legendary—are jotted down by him. Four of these relate to "Paradise Lost." Among the most remarkable of the other subjects are "Sodom" (the plan is detailed at considerable length, and, though evidently impracticable, is interesting as a counterpart of "Comus"), "Samson Marrying," "Ahab," "John the Baptist," "Christus Patiens," "Vortigern," "Alfred the Great," "Harold," "Athirco" (a very striking subject from a Scotch legend), and "Macbeth," where Duncan's ghost was to have appeared instead of Banquo's, and seemingly taken a share in the action. "Arthur," so much in his mind when he wrote the "Epitaphium Damonis," does not appear at all. Two of the drafts of "Paradise Lost" are mere lists of dramatis personæ, but the others indicate the shape which the conception had then assumed in Milton's mind as the nucleus of a religious drama on the pattern of the mediæval mystery or miracle play. Could he have had any vague knowledge of the autos of Calderon? In the second and more complete draft Gabriel speaks the prologue. Lucifer bemoans his fall and altercates with the Chorus of Angels. Eve's temptation apparently takes place off the stage, an arrangement which Milton would probably have reconsidered. The plan would have given scope for much splendid poetry, especially where, before Adam's expulsion, "the Angel causes to pass before his eyes a masque of all the evils of this life and world," a conception traceable in the eleventh book of "Paradise Lost." But it is grievously cramped in comparison with the freedom of the epic, as Milton must soon have discovered. That he worked upon it appears from the extremely interesting fact, preserved by Phillips, that Satan's address to the Sun is part of a dramatic speech which, according to Milton's plan in 1642 or 1643, would have formed the exordium of his tragedy. Of the literary sources which may have originated or enriched the conception of "Paradise Lost" in Milton's mind we shall speak hereafter. It must suffice for the present to remark that his purpose had from the first been didactic. This is particularly visible in the notes of alternative subjects in his manuscripts, many of which palpably allude to the ecclesiastical and political incidents of his time, while one is strikingly prophetic of his own defence of the execution of Charles I. "The contention between the father of Zimri and Eleazar whether he ought to have slain his son without law; next the ambassadors of the Moabites expostulating about Cosbi, a stranger and a noblewoman, slain by Phineas. It may be argued about reformation and punishment illegal, and, as it were, by tumult. After all arguments driven home, then the word of the Lord may be brought, acquitting and approving Phineas." It was his earnest aim at all events to compose something "doctrinal and exemplary to a nation." "Whatsoever," he says in 1641, "whatsoever in religion is holy and sublime, in virtue amiable or grave, whatsoever hath passion or admiration in all the changes of that which is called fortune from without, or the wily subtleties and refluxes of man's thoughts from within—all these things with a solid and treatable smoothness to paint out and describe; teaching over the whole book of sanctity and virtue, through all the instances of example, with much delight, to those especially of soft and delicious temper who will not so much as look upon Truth herself unless they see her elegantly drest, that, whereas the paths of honesty and good life appear more rugged and difficult, though they be indeed easy and pleasant, they would then appear to all men easy and pleasant though they were rugged and difficult in deed." An easier task than that of "justifying the ways of God to man" by the cosmogony and anthropology of "Paradise Lost."

If it is true—and the fact seems well attested—that Milton's poetical vein flowed only from the autumnal equinox to the vernal[5], he cannot well have commenced "Paradise Lost" before the death of Cromwell, or have made very great progress with it ere his conception of his duty called him away to questions of ecclesiastical policy. The one point on which he had irreconcilably differed from Cromwell was that of a State Church; Cromwell, the practical man, perceiving its necessity, and Milton, the idealist, seeing only its want of logic. Unfortunately, this inconsequence existed only for the few thinkers who could in that age rise to the acceptance of Milton's premises. In his "Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes," published in February, 1659, he emphatically insists that the civil magistrate has neither the right nor the power to interfere in matters of religion, and concludes: "The defence only of the Church belongs to the magistrate. Had he once learnt not further to concern himself with Church affairs, half his labour might be spared and the commonwealth better tended." It is to be regretted that he had not entered upon this great subject at an earlier period. The little tract, addressed to the Republican members of Parliament, is designedly homely in style, and the magnificence of Milton's diction is still further tamed down by the necessity of resorting to dictation. It is nevertheless a powerful piece of argument, in its own sphere of abstract reason unanswerable, and only questionable in that lower sphere of expediency which Milton disdained. In the following August appeared a sequel with the sarcastic title, "Considerations on the likeliest means to remove Hirelings out of the Church." The recipe is simple and efficacious—cease to hire them, and they will cease to be hirelings. Suppress all ecclesiastical endowments, and let the clergyman be supported by free-will offerings. The fact that this would have consigned about half the established clergy to beggary does not trouble him; nor were they likely to be greatly troubled by a proposal so sublimely impracticable. Vested interests can only be over-ridden in times of revolution, and 1659, in outward appearance a year of anarchy, was in truth a year of reaction. For the rest, it is to be remarked that Milton scarcely allowed the ministry to be followed as a profession, and that his views on ecclesiastical organization had come to coincide very nearly with those now held by the Plymouth Brethren.

There is much plausibility in Pattison's comparison of the men of the Commonwealth disputing about matters of this sort on the eve of the Restoration, to the Greeks of Constantinople contending about the Azymite controversy while the Turks were breaching their walls. In fact, however, this blindness was not confined to one party. Anthony Wood, a Royalist, writing thirty years afterwards, speaks of the Restoration as an event which no man expected in September, 1659. The Commonwealth was no doubt dead as a Republic. "Pride's Purge," the execution of Charles, and Cromwell's expulsion of the remnant of the Commons, had long ago given it mortal wounds. It was not necessarily defunct as a Protectorate, or a renovated Monarchy: the history of England might have been very different if Oliver had bequeathed his power to Henry instead of to Richard. No such vigorous hand taking the helm, and the vessel of the State drifting more and more into anarchy, the great mass of Englishmen, to the frustration of many generous ideals, but to the credit of their practical good sense, pronounced for the restoration of Charles the Second. It is impossible to think without anger and grief of the declension which was to ensue, from Cromwell enforcing toleration for Protestants to Charles selling himself to France for a pension, from Blake at Tunis to the Dutch at Chatham. But the Restoration was no national apostasy. The people as a body did not decline from Milton's standard, for they had never attained to it; they did not accept the turpitudes of the new government, for they did not anticipate them. So far as sentiment inspired them, it was not love of license, but compassion for the misfortunes of an innocent prince. Common sense, however, had much more to do with prompting their action, and common sense plainly informed them that they had no choice between a restored king and a military despot. They would not have had even that if the leading military chief had not been a man of homely sense and vulgar aims; such an one as Milton afterwards drew in—

"Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell
From heaven, for even in heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold."

In the field, or on the quarter-deck, George Monk was the stout soldier, acquitting himself of his military duty most punctually. In his political conduct he laid himself out for titles and money, as little of the ambitious usurper as of the self-denying patriot. Such are they for whom more generous spirits, imprudently forward in revolutions, usually find that they have laboured. "Great things," said Edward Gibbon Wakefield, "are begun by men with great souls and little breeches-pockets, and ended by men with great breeches-pockets and little souls."

Milton would not have been Milton if he could have acquiesced in an ever so needful Henry Cromwell or Charles Stuart. Never quick to detect the course of public opinion, he was now still further disabled by his blindness. There is great pathos in the thought of the sightless patriot hungering for tidings, "as the Red Sea for ghosts," and swayed hither and thither by the narratives and comments of passionate or interested reporters. At last something occurred which none could misunderstand or misrepresent. On February 11th, about ten at night, Mr. Samuel Pepys, being in Cheapside, heard "all the bells in all the churches a-ringing. But the common joy that was everywhere to be seen! The number of bonfires, there being fourteen between St. Dunstan's and Temple Bar, and at Strand Bridge I could at one view tell thirty-one fires. In King Street, seven or eight; and all around burning, roasting, and drinking for rumps. There being rumps tied upon sticks and carried up and down. The butchers at the May Pole in the Strand rang a merry peal with their knives when they were going to sacrifice their rump. On Ludgate Hill there was one turning of the spit that had a rump tied upon it, and another basting of it. Indeed, it was past imagination, both the greatness and the suddenness of it. At one end of the street you would think there was a whole lane of fire, and so hot that we were fain to keep on the further side." This burning of the Rump meant that the attempt of a miserable minority to pose as King, Lords, and Commons, had broken down, and that the restoration of Charles, for good or ill, was the decree of the people. A modern Republican might without disgrace have bowed to the gale, for such an one, unless hopelessly fanatical, denies the divine right of republics equally with that of kings, and allows no other title than that of the consent of the majority of citizens. But Milton had never admitted the rights of the majority: and in his supreme effort for the Republic, "The Ready and Easy Way to establish a free Commonwealth," he ignores the Royalist plurality, and assumes that the virtuous part of the nation, to whom alone he allows a voice, is as desirous as himself of the establishment of a Republic, and only needs to be shown the way. As this was by no means the case, the whole pamphlet rests upon sand: though in days when public opinion was guided not from the press but from the rostrum, many might have been won by the eloquence of Milton's invectives against the inhuman pride and hollow ceremonial of kingship, and his encomiums of the simple order when the ruler's main distinction from the ruled is the severity of his toil. "Whereas they who are the greatest are perpetual servants and drudges to the public at their own cost and charges, neglect their own affairs, yet are not elevated above their brethren; live soberly in their families, walk the street as other men, may be spoken to freely, familiarly, friendly without adoration." Whatever generous glow for equality such words might kindle, was only too likely to be quenched when the reader came to learn on what conditions Milton thought it attainable. His panacea was a permanent Parliament or Council of State, self-elected for life, or renewable at most only in definite proportions, at stated times. The whole history of England for the last twelve years was a commentary on the impotence of a Parliament that had outlived its mandate, and every line of the lesson had been lost upon Milton. He does indeed, near the end, betray a suspicion that the people may object to hand over the whole business of legislation to a self-elected and irresponsible body, and is led to make a remarkable suggestion, prefiguring the federal constitution of the United States, and in a measure the Home Rule and Communal agitations of our own day. He would make every county independent in so far as regards the execution of justice between man and man. The districts might make their own laws in this department, subject only to a moderate amount of control from the supreme council. This must have seemed to Milton's contemporaries the official enthronement of anarchy, and, in fact, his proposal, thrown off at a heat with the feverish impetuosity that characterizes the whole pamphlet, is only valuable as an aid to reflection. Yet, in proclaiming the superiority of healthy municipal life to a centralized administration, he has anticipated the judgment of the wisest publicists of our day, and shown a greater insight than was possessed by the more scientific statesmen of the eighteenth century.

One quality of Milton's pamphlet claims the highest admiration, its audacious courage. On the very eve of the Restoration, and with full though tardy recognition of its probable imminence, he protests as loudly as ever the righteousness of Charles's execution, and of the perpetual exclusion of his family from the throne. When all was lost, it was no disgrace to quit the field. His pamphlet appeared on March 3, 1660; a second edition, with considerable alterations, was for the time suppressed. On March 28th the publisher was imprisoned for vending treasonable books, among which the pamphlet was no doubt included. Every ensuing day added something to the discomfiture of the Republicans, until on May 1st, "the happiest May-day," says that ardent Royalist du lendemain, Pepys, "that hath been many a year to England," Charles II.'s letter was read to a Parliament that none could deny to have been freely chosen, and acclaimed, "without so much as one No." On May 7th, as is conjectured by the date of an assignment made to Cyriack Skinner as security for a loan, Milton quitted his house, and concealed himself in Bartholomew Close, Smithfield. Charles re-entered his kingdom on May 29th, and the hue and cry after regicides and their abettors began. The King had wisely left the business to Parliament, and, when the circumstances of the times, and the sincere horror in which good men held what they called regicide and sacrilege are duly considered, it must be owned that Parliament acted with humanity and moderation. Still, in the nature of things, proscription on a small scale was inevitable. Besides the regicides proper, twenty persons were to be named for imprisonment and permanent incapacitation for office then, and liable to prosecution and possibly capital punishment hereafter. It seemed almost inevitable that Milton should be included. On June 16th his writings against Charles I. were ordered to be burned by the hangman, which sentence was performed on August 27th. A Government proclamation enjoining their destruction had been issued on August 13th, and may now be read in the King's Library at the British Museum. He had not, then, escaped notice, and how he escaped proscription it is hard to say. Interest was certainly made for him. Andrew Marvell, Secretary Morrice, and Sir Thomas Clarges, Monk's brother-in-law, are named as active on his behalf; his brother and his nephew both belonged to the Royalist party, and there is a romantic story of Sir William Davenant having requited a like obligation under which he lay to Milton himself. More to his honour this than to have been the offspring of Shakespeare, but one tale is no better authenticated than the other. The simplest explanation is that twenty people were found more hated than Milton: it may also have seemed invidious to persecute a blind man. It is certainly remarkable that the authorities should have failed to find the hiding-place of so recognizable a person, if they really looked for it. Whether by his own adroitness or their connivance, he avoided arrest until the amnesty resolution of August 29th restored him to the world without even being incapacitated from office. He still had to run the gauntlet of the Serjeant-at-Arms, who at some period unknown arrested him as obnoxious to the resolution of June 16th, and detained him, charging exorbitant fees, until compelled to abate his demands by the Commons' resolution of December 15th. Milton relinquished his house in Westminster, and formed a temporary refuge on the north side of Holborn. His nerves were shaken; he started in his broken sleep with the apprehension and bewilderment natural to one for whom, physically and politically, all had become darkness.

His condition, in sooth, was one of well-nigh unmitigated misfortune, and his bearing up against it is not more of a proof of stoic fortitude than of innate cheerfulness. His cause lost, his ideals in the dust, his enemies triumphant, his friends dead on the scaffold, or exiled, or imprisoned, his name infamous, his principles execrated, his property seriously impaired by the vicissitudes of the times. He had been deprived of his appointment and salary as Latin Secretary, even before the Restoration: and he was now fleeced of two thousand pounds, invested in some kind of Government security, which was repudiated in spite of powerful intercession. Another "great sum" is said by Phillips to have been lost "by mismanagement and want of good advice," whether at this precise time is uncertain. The Dean and Chapter of Westminster reclaimed a considerable property which had passed out of their hands in the Civil War. The Serjeant-at-Arms had no doubt made all out of his captive that the Commons would let him. On the whole, Milton appears to have saved about £1500 from the wreck of his fortunes, and to have possessed about £200 income from the interest of this fund and other sources, destined to be yet further reduced within a few years. The value of money being then about three and a half times as great as now, this modest income was still a fair competence for one of his frugal habits, even when burdened with the care of three daughters. The history of his relations with these daughters is the saddest page of his life. "I looked that my vineyard should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes." If any lot on earth could have seemed enviable to an imaginative mind and an affectionate heart, it would have been that of an Antigone or a Romola to a Milton. Milton's daughters chose to reject the fair repute that the simple fulfilment of evident duty would have brought them, and to be damned to everlasting fame, not merely as neglectful of their father, but as embittering his existence. The shocking speech attributed to one of them is, we may hope, not a fact; and it may not be true to the letter that they conspired to rob him, and sold his books to the ragpickers. The course of events down to his death, nevertheless, is sufficient evidence of the unhappiness of his household. Writing "Samson Agonistes" in calmer days, he lets us see how deep the iron had entered into his soul:

"I dark in light exposed
To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong,
Within doors, or without, still as a fool
In power of others, never in my own."

He probably never understood how greatly he was himself to blame. He had, in the first place, neglected to give his daughters the education which might have qualified them in some measure to appreciate him. The eldest, Anne, could not even write her name; and it is but a poor excuse to say that, though good-looking, she was deformed, and afflicted with an impediment in her speech. The second, Mary, who resembled her mother, and the third, Deborah, the most like her father, were better taught; but still not to the degree that could make them intelligent doers of the work they had to perform for him. They were so drilled in foreign languages, including Greek and Latin (Hebrew and Syriac are also mentioned, but this is difficult of belief), that they could read aloud to him without any comprehension of the meaning of the text. Sixty years afterwards, passages of Homer and Ovid were found lingering as melodious sounds in the memory of the youngest. Such a task, inexpressibly delightful to affection, must have been intolerably repulsive to dislike or indifference: we can scarcely wonder that two of these children (of the youngest we have a better report), abhorred the father who exacted so much and imparted so little. Yet, before visiting any of the parties with inexorable condemnation, we should consider the strong probability that much of the misery grew out of an antecedent state of things, for which none of them were responsible. The infant minds of two of the daughters, and the two chiefly named as undutiful, had been formed by their mother. Mistress Milton cannot have greatly cherished her husband, and what she wanted in love must have been made up in fear. She must have abhorred his principles and his writings, and probably gave free course to her feelings whenever she could have speech with a sympathizer, without caring whether the girls were within hearing. Milton himself, we know, was cheerful in congenial society, but he were no poet if he had not been reserved with the uncongenial. To them the silent, abstracted, often irritable, and finally sightless father would seem awful and forbidding. It is impossible to exaggerate the susceptibility of young minds to first impressions. The probability is that ere Mistress Milton departed this life, she had intentionally or unintentionally avenged all the injuries she could imagine herself to have received from her husband, and furnished him with a stronger argument than any that had found a place in the "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce."

It is something in favour of the Milton girls that they were at least not calculating in their undutifulness. Had they reflected, they must have seen that their behaviour was little to their interest. If they brought a stepmother upon themselves, the blame was theirs. Something must certainly be done to keep Milton's library from the rag-women; and in February, 1663, by the advice of his excellent physician Dr. Paget, he married Elizabeth Minshull, daughter of a yeoman of Wistaston in Cheshire, a distant relation of Dr. Paget's own, and exactly thirty years younger than Milton. "A genteel person, a peaceful and agreeable woman," says Aubrey, who knew her, and refutes by anticipation Richardson's anonymous informant, perhaps Deborah Clarke, who libelled her as "a termagant." She was pretty, and had golden hair, which one connects pleasantly with the late sunshine she brought into Milton's life. She sang to his accompaniment on the organ and bass-viol, but is not recorded to have read or written for him; the only direct testimony we have of her care of him is his verbal acknowledgment of her attention to his creature comforts. Yet Aubrey's memoranda show that she could talk with her husband about Hobbes, and she treasured the letters he had received from distinguished foreigners. At the time of their marriage Milton was living in Jewin Street, Aldersgate, from which he soon afterwards removed to Artillery Walk, Bunhill Fields, his last residence. He lodged in the interim with Millington, the book auctioneer, a man of superior ability, whom an informant of Richardson's had often met in the streets leading his inmate by the hand.

It is at this era of Milton's history that we obtain the fullest details of his daily life, as being nearer to the recollection of those from whom information was sought after his death. His household was larger than might have been expected in his reduced circumstances; he had a man-servant, Greene, and a maid, named Fisher. That true hero-worshipper, Aubrey, tells us that he generally rose at four, and was even then attended by his "man" who read to him out of the Hebrew Bible. Such erudition in a serving-man almost surpasses credibility: the English Bible probably sufficed both. It is easier to believe that some one read to him or wrote for him from seven till dinner time: if, however, "the writing was nearly as much as the reading," much that Milton dictated must have been lost. His recreations were walking in his garden, never wanting to any of his residences, where he would continue for three or four hours at a time; swinging in a chair when weather prevented open-air exercise; and music, that blissful resource of blindness. His instrument was usually the organ, the counterpart of the stately harmony of his own verse. To these relaxations must be added the society of faithful friends, among whom Andrew Marvell, Dr. Paget, and Cyriack Skinner are particularly named. Nor did Edward Phillips neglect his uncle, finding him, as Aubrey implies, "most familiar and free in his conversation to those to whom most sour in his way of education." Milton had made him "a songster," and we can imagine the "sober, silent, and most harmless person" (Evelyn) opening his lips to accompany his uncle's music. Of Milton's manner Aubrey says, "Extreme pleasant in his conversation, and at dinner, supper, etc., but satirical." Visitors usually came from six till eight, if at all, and the day concluded with a light supper, sometimes of olives, which we may well imagine fraught for him with Tuscan memories, a pipe, and a glass of water. This picture of plain living and high thinking is confirmed by the testimony of the Quaker Thomas Ellwood, who for a short time read to him, and who describes the kindness of his demeanour, and the pains he took to teach the foreign method of pronouncing Latin. Even more; "having a curious ear, he understood by my tone when I understood what I read and when I did not, and accordingly would stop me, examine me, and open the most difficult passages to me." Milton must have felt a special tenderness for the Quakers, whose religious opinions, divested of the shell of eccentricity which the vulgar have always mistaken for the kernel, had become substantially his own. He had outgrown Independency as formerly Presbyterianism. His blindness served to excuse his absence from public worship; to which, so long at least as Clarendon's intolerance prevailed in the councils of Charles the Second, might be added the difficulty of finding edification in the pulpit, had he needed it. But these reasons, though not imaginary, were not those which really actuated him. He had ceased to value rites and forms of any kind, and, had his religious views been known, he would have been "equalled in fate" with his contemporary Spinoza. Yet he was writing a book which orthodox Protestantism has accepted as but a little lower than the Scriptures.

"The kingdom of heaven cometh not with observation." We know but little of the history of the greatest works of genius. That something more than usual should be known of "Paradise Lost" must be ascribed to the author's blindness, and consequent dependence upon amanuenses. When inspiration came upon him any one at hand would be called upon to preserve the precious verses, hence the progress of the poem was known to many, and Phillips can speak of "parcels of ten, twenty, or thirty verses at a time." We have already heard from him that Milton's season of inspiration lasted from the autumnal equinox to the vernal: the remainder of the year doubtless contributed much to the matter of his poem, if nothing to the form. His habits of composition appear to be shadowed forth by himself in the induction to the Third Book:—

"Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit—"

"Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note."

This is something more precise than a mere poetical allusion to his blindness, and the inference is strengthened by the anecdote that when "his celestial patroness" "Deigned nightly visitation unimplored," his daughters were frequently called at night to take down the verses, not one of which the whole world could have replaced. This was as it should be. Grand indeed is the thought of the unequalled strain poured forth when every other voice was hushed in the mighty city, to no meaner accompaniment than the music of the spheres. Respecting the date of composition, we may trust Aubrey's statement that the poem was commenced in 1658, and when the rapidity of Milton's composition is considered ("Easy my unpremeditated verse") it may, notwithstanding the terrible hindrances of the years 1659 and 1660, have been, as Aubrey thinks, completed by 1663. It would still require mature revision, which we know from Ellwood that it had received by the summer of 1665. Internal evidence of the chronology of the poem is very scanty. Professor Masson thinks that the first two books were probably written before the Restoration. In support of this view it may be urged that lines 500-505 of Book i. wear the appearance of an insertion after the Restoration, and that in the invocation to the Third Book Milton may be thought to allude to the dangers his life and liberty had afterwards encountered, figured by the regions of nether darkness which he had traversed as a poet.

"Hail holy Light!...
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne."

The only other passage important in this respect is the famous one from the invocation to the Seventh Book, manifestly describing the poet's condition under the Restoration:—

"Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole,
More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged
To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days,
On evil days though fallen and evil tongues;
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,
And solitude; yet not alone, while thou
Visitest my slumbers nightly, or when morn
Purples the east. Still govern thou my song,
Urania, and fit audience find, though few.
But drive far off the barbarous dissonance
Of Bacchus and his revellers, the race
Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard."

This allusion to the licentiousness of the Restoration literature could hardly have been made until its tendencies had been plainly developed. At this time "Paradise Lost" was half finished. ("Half yet remains unsung.") The remark permits us to conclude that Milton conceived and executed his poem as a whole, going steadily through it, and not leaving gaps to be supplied at higher or lower levels of inspiration. There is no evidence of any resort to older material, except in the case of Satan's address to the Sun.

The publication of "Paradise Lost" was impeded like the birth of Hercules. In 1665 London was a city of the dying and the dead; in 1666 the better part of it was laid in ashes. One remarkable incident of the calamity was the destruction of the stocks of the booksellers, which had been brought into the vaults of St. Paul's for safety, and perished with the cathedral. "Paradise Lost" might have easily, like its hero—

"In the singing smoke
Uplifted spurned the ground."

but the negotiations for its publication were not complete until April 27, 1667, on which day John Milton, "in consideration of five pounds to him now paid by Samuel Symmons, and other the considerations herein mentioned," assigned to the said Symmons, "all that book, copy, or manuscript of a poem intituled 'Paradise Lost,' or by whatsoever ether title or name the same is or shall be called or distinguished, now lately licensed to be printed." The other considerations were the payment of the like sum of five pounds upon the entire sale of each of the first three impressions, each impression to consist of thirteen hundred copies. "According to the present value of money," says Professor Masson, "it was as if Milton had received £17 10s. down, and was to expect £70 in all. That was on the supposition of a sale of 3,900 copies." He lived to receive ten pounds altogether; and his widow in 1680 parted with all her interest in the copyright for eight pounds, Symmons shortly afterwards reselling it for twenty-five. He is not, therefore, to be enumerated among those publishers who have fattened upon their authors, and when the size of the book and the unfashionableness of the writer are considered, his enterprise may perhaps appear the most remarkable feature of the transaction. As for Milton, we may almost rejoice that he should have reaped no meaner reward than immortality.

It will have been observed that in the contract with Symmons "Paradise Lost" is said to have been "lately licensed to be printed." The censorship named in "Areopagitica" still prevailed, with the difference that prelates now sat in judgment upon Puritans. The Archbishop gave or refused license through his chaplains, and could not be ignored as Milton had ignored the little Presbyterian Popes; Geneva in his person must repair to Lambeth. Chaplain Tomkyns, who took cognisance of "Paradise Lost," was fortunately a broad-minded man, disposed to live and let live, though scrupling somewhat when he found "perplexity" and "fear of change" imputed to "monarchs." His objections were overcome, and on August 20, 1667—three weeks after the death of Cowley, and eight days after Pepys had heard the deceased extolled as the greatest of English poets—John Milton came forth clad as with adamantine mail in the approbation of Thomas Tomkyns. The moment beseemed the event, it was a crisis in English history, when heaven's "golden scales" for weighing evil against good were hung—

"Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign,"

one weighted with a consuming fleet, the other with a falling minister. The Dutch had just burned the English navy at Chatham; on the other hand, the reign of respectable bigotry was about to pass away with Clarendon. Far less reputable men were to succeed, but men whose laxity of principle at least excluded intolerance. The people were on the move, if not, as Milton would have wished, "a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep," at least a faint and weary nation creeping slowly—Tomkyns and all—towards an era of liberty and reason when Tomkyns's imprimatur would be accounted Tomkyns's impertinence.

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CHAPTER VII.

The world's great epics group themselves in two divisions, which may be roughly defined as the natural and the artificial. The spontaneous or self-created epic is a confluence of traditions, reduced to symmetry by the hand of a master. Such are the Iliad, the Odyssey, the great Indian and Persian epics, the Nibelungen Lied. In such instances it may be fairly said that the theme has chosen the poet, rather than the poet the theme. When the epic is a work of reflection, the poet has deliberately selected his subject, and has not, in general, relied so much upon the wealth of pre-existing materials as upon the capabilities of a single circumstance. Such are the epics of Virgil, Camoens, Tasso, Milton; Dante, perhaps, standing alone as the one epic poet (for we cannot rank Ariosto and Spenser in this class) who owes everything but his creed to his own invention. The traditional epic, created by the people and only moulded by the minstrel, is so infinitely the more important for the history of culture, that, since this new field of investigation has become one of paramount interest, the literary epic has been in danger of neglect. Yet it must be allowed that to evolve an epic out of a single incident is a greater intellectual achievement than to weave one out of a host of ballads. We must also admit that, leaving the unique Dante out of account, Milton essayed a more arduous enterprise than any of his predecessors, and in this point of view may claim to stand above them all. We are so accustomed to regard the existence of "Paradise Lost" as an ultimate fact, that we but imperfectly realize the gigantic difficulty and audacity of the undertaking. To paint the bloom of Paradise with the same brush that has depicted the flames and blackness of the nether world; to make the Enemy of Mankind, while preserving this character, an heroic figure, not without claims on sympathy and admiration; to lend fit speech to the father and mother of humanity, to angels and archangels, and even Deity itself;—these achievements required a Michael Angelo shorn of his strength in every other province of art, that all might be concentrated in song.

It is easy to represent "Paradise Lost" as obsolete by pointing out that its demonology and angelology have for us become mere mythology. This criticism is more formidable in appearance than in reality. The vital question for the poet is his own belief, not the belief of his readers. If the Iliad has survived not merely the decay of faith in the Olympian divinities, but the criticism which has pulverized Achilles as a historical personage, "Paradise Lost" need not be much affected by general disbelief in the personality of Satan, and universal disbelief in that of Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel. A far more vulnerable point is the failure of the purpose so ostentatiously proclaimed, "To justify the ways of God to men." This problem was absolutely insoluble on Milton's data, except by denying the divine foreknowledge, a course not open to him. The conduct of the Deity who allows his adversary to ruin his innocent creature from the purely malignant motive

"That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation,"

without further interposition than a warning which he foresees will be fruitless, implies a grievous deficiency either in wisdom or in goodness, or at best falsifies the declaration:

"Necessity and chance
Approach me not, and what I will is fate."

The like flaw runs through the entire poem, where Satan alone is resolute and rational. Nothing can exceed the imbecility of the angelic guard to which Man's defence is entrusted. Uriel, after threatening to drag Satan in chains back to Tartarus, and learning by a celestial portent that he actually has the power to fulfil his threat, considerately draws the fiend's attention to the circumstance, and advises him to take himself off, which Satan judiciously does, with the intention of returning as soon as convenient. The angels take all possible pains to prevent his gaining an entrance into Paradise, but omit to keep Adam and Eve themselves in sight, notwithstanding the strong hint they have received by finding the intruder

If anything more infatuated can be imagined, it is the simplicity of the All-Wise Himself in entrusting the wardership of the gate of Hell, and consequently the charge of keeping Satan in, to the beings in the universe most interested in letting him out. The sole but sufficient excuse is that these faults are inherent in the subject. If Milton had not thought that he could justify the ways of Jehovah to man he would not have written at all; common sense on the part of the angels would have paralysed the action of the poem; we should, if conscious of our loss, have lamented the irrefragable criticism that should have stifled the magnificent allegory of Sin and Death. Another critical thrust is equally impossible to parry. It is true that the Evil One is the hero of the epic. Attempts have been made to invest Adam with this character. He is, indeed, a great figure to contemplate, and such as might represent the ideal of humanity till summoned to act and suffer. When, indeed, he partakes of the forbidden fruit in disobedience to his Maker, but in compassion to his mate, he does seem for a moment to fulfil the canon which decrees that the hero shall not always be faultless, but always shall be noble. The moment, however, that he begins to wrangle with Eve about their respective shares of blame, he forfeits his estate of heroism more irretrievably than his estate of holiness—a fact of which Milton cannot have been unaware, but he had no liberty to forsake the Scripture narrative. Satan remains, therefore, the only possible hero, and it is one of the inevitable blemishes of the poem that he should disappear almost entirely from the latter books.

These defects, and many more which might be adduced, are abundantly compensated by the poet's vital relation to the religion of his age. No poet whose fame is co-extensive with the civilised world, except Shakespeare and Goethe, has ever been greatly in advance of his times. Had Milton been so, he might have avoided many faults, but he would not have been a representative poet; nor could Shelley have classed him with Homer and Dante, and above Virgil, as "the third epic poet; that is, the third poet the series of whose creations bore a defined and intelligible relation to the knowledge and sentiment and religion of the age in which he lived, and of the ages which followed it, developing itself in correspondence with their development." Hence it is that in the "Adonais," Shelley calls Milton "the third among the sons of light."

A clear conception of the universe as Milton's inner eye beheld it, and of his religious and philosophical opinions in so far as they appear in the poem, is indispensable for a correct understanding of "Paradise Lost." The best service to be rendered to the reader within such limits as ours is to direct him to Professor Masson's discussion of Milton's cosmology in his "Life of Milton," and also in his edition of the Poetical Works. Generally speaking, it may be said that Milton's conception of the universe is Ptolemaic, that for him sun and moon and planets revolve around the central earth, rapt by the revolution of the crystal spheres in which, sphere enveloping sphere, they are successively located. But the light which had broken in upon him from the discoveries of Galileo has led him to introduce features not irreconcilable with the solar centre and ethereal infinity of Copernicus; so that "the poet would expect the effective permanence of his work in the imagination of the world, whether Ptolemy or Copernicus should prevail." So Professor Masson, who finely and justly adds that Milton's blindness helped him "by having already converted all external space in his own sensations into an infinite of circumambient blackness through which he could flash brilliance at his pleasure." His inclination as a thinker is evidently towards the Copernican theory, but he saw that the Ptolemaic, however inferior in sublimity, was better adapted to the purpose of a poem requiring a definite theatre of action. For rapturous contemplation of the glory of God in nature, the Copernican system is immeasurably the more stimulating to the spirit, but when made the theatre of an action the universe fatigues with its infinitude—

"Millions have meaning; after this
Cyphers forget the integer."

An infinite sidereal universe would have stultified the noble description how Satan—

"In the emptier waste, resembling air,
Weighs his spread wings, at leisure to behold
Far off the empyreal heaven, extended wide
In circuit, undetermined square or round,
With opal towers and battlements adorned
Of living sapphire, once his native seat;
And fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendant world, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude close by the moon."

This pendant world, observe, is not the earth, as Addison understood it, but the entire sidereal universe, depicted not as the infinity we now know it to be, but as a definite object, so insulated in the vastness of space as to be perceptible to the distant Fiend as a minute star, and no larger in comparison with the courts of Heaven—themselves not wholly seen—than such a twinkler matched with the full-orbed moon. Such a representation, if it diminishes the grandeur of the universe accessible to sense, exalts that of the supersensual and extramundane regions where the action takes its birth, and where Milton's gigantic imagination is most perfectly at home.

There is no such compromise between religious creeds in Milton's mind as he saw good to make between Ptolemy and Copernicus. The matter was, in his estimation, far too serious. Never was there a more unaccountable misstatement than Ruskin's, that "Paradise Lost" is a poem in which every artifice of invention is consciously employed—not a single fact being conceived as tenable by any living faith. Milton undoubtedly believed most fully in the actual existence of all his chief personages, natural and supernatural, and was sure that, however he might have indulged his imagination in the invention of incidents, he had represented character with the fidelity of a conscientious historian. His religious views, moreover, are such as he could never have thought it right to publish if he had not been intimately convinced of their truth. He has strayed far from the creed of Puritanism. He is an Arian; his Son of God, though an unspeakably exalted being, is dependent, inferior, not self-existent, and could be merged in the Father's person or obliterated entirely without the least diminution of Almighty perfection. He is, moreover, no longer a Calvinist: Satan and Adam both possess free will, and neither need have fallen. The reader must accept these views, as well as Milton's conception of the materiality of the spiritual world, if he is to read to good purpose. "If his imagination," says Pattison, pithily, "is not active enough to assist the poet, he must at least not resist him."

This is excellent advice as respects the general plan of "Paradise Lost," the materiality of its spiritual personages, and its system of philosophy and theology. Its poetical beauties can only be resisted where they are not perceived. They have repeated the miracles of Orpheus and Amphion, metamorphosing one most bitterly obnoxious, of whom so late as 1687 a royalist wrote that "his fame is gone out like a candle in a snuff, and his memory will always stink," into an object of universal veneration. From the first instant of perusal the imagination is led in captivity, and for the first four books at least stroke upon stroke of sublimity follows with such continuous and undeviating regularity that sublimity seems this Creation's first law, and we feel like pigmies transported to a world of giants. There is nothing forced or affected in this grandeur, no visible effort, no barbaric profusion, everything proceeds with a severe and majestic order, controlled by the strength that called it into being. The similes and other poetical ornaments, though inexpressibly magnificent, seem no more so than the greatness of the general conception demands. Grant that Satan in his fall is not "less than archangel ruined," and it is no exaggeration but the simplest truth to depict his mien—

"As when the sun, new risen,
Looks through the horizontal misty air,
Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon,
In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds
On half the nations."

When such a being voyages through space it is no hyperbole to compare him to a whole fleet, judiciously shown at such distance as to suppress every minute detail that could diminish the grandeur of the image—

"As when far off at sea a fleet descried
Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds
Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles
Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring
Their spicy drugs: they on the trading flood,
Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape,
Ply stemming nightly towards the pole: so seemed
Far off the flying Fiend."

These similes, and an infinity of others, are grander than anything in Homer, who would, however, have equalled them with an equal subject. Dante's treatment is altogether different; the microscopic intensity of perception in which he so far surpasses Homer and Milton affords, in our opinion, no adequate compensation for his inferiority in magnificence. That the theme of "Paradise Lost" should have evoked such grandeur is a sufficient compensation for its incurable flaws and the utter breakdown of its ostensible moral purpose. There is yet another department of the poem where Milton writes as he could have written on nothing else. The elements of his under-world are comparatively simple, fire and darkness, fallen angels now huddled thick as leaves in Vallombrosa; anon,

"A forest huge of spears and thronging helms,"

charming their painful steps over the burning marl by

"The Dorian mood
Of flutes and soft recorders;"

the dazzling magnificence of Pandemonium; the ineffable welter of Chaos; proudly eminent over all like a tower, the colossal personality of Satan. The description of Paradise and the story of Creation, if making less demand on the poet's creative power, required greater resources of knowledge, and more consummate skill in combination. Nature must yield up her treasures, whatever of fair and stately the animal and vegetable kingdoms can afford must be brought together, blended in gorgeous masses or marshalled in infinite procession. Here Milton is as profuse as he has hitherto been severe, and with good cause; it is possible to make Hell too repulsive for art, it is not possible to make Eden too enchanting. In his descriptions of the former the effect is produced by a perpetual succession of isolated images of awful majesty; in his Paradise and Creation the universal landscape is bathed in a general atmosphere of lustrous splendour. This portion of his work is accordingly less great in detached passages, but is little inferior in general greatness. No less an authority than Tennyson, indeed, expresses a preference for the "bowery loneliness" of Eden over the "Titan angels" of the "deep-domed Empyrean." If this only means that Milton's Eden is finer than his war in heaven, we must concur; but if a wider application be intended, it does seem to us that his Pandemonium exalts him to a greater height above every other poet than his Paradise exalts him above his predecessor, and in some measure, his exemplar, Spenser.

To remain at such an elevation was impossible. Milton compares unfavourably with Homer in this; his epic begins at its zenith, and after a while visibly and continually declines. His genius is unimpaired, but his skill transcends his stuff. The fall of man and its consequences could not by any device be made as interesting as the fall of Satan, of which it is itself but a consequence. It was, moreover, absolutely inevitable that Adam's fall, the proper catastrophe of the poem, should occur some time before the conclusion, otherwise there would have been no space for the unfolding of the scheme of Redemption, equally essential from the point of view of orthodoxy and of art. The effect is the same as in the case of Shakespeare's "Julius Cæsar," which, having proceeded with matchless vigour up to the flight of the conspirators after Antony's speech, becomes comparatively tame and languid, and cannot be revived even by such a masterpiece as the contention between Brutus and Cassius. It is to be regretted that Milton's extreme devotion to the letter of Scripture has not permitted him to enrich his latter books with any corresponding episode. It is not until the very end that he is again truly himself—

"They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms.
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon.
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way."

Some minor objections may be briefly noticed. The materiality of Milton's celestial warfare has been censured by every one from the days of Sir Samuel Morland,[6] a splenetic critic, who had incurred Milton's contempt by his treachery to Cromwell and Thurloe. Warfare, however, there must be: war cannot be made without weapons; and Milton's only fault is that he has rather exaggerated than minimized the difficulties of his subject. A sense of humour would have spiked his celestial artillery, but a lively perception of the ridiculous is scarcely to be demanded from a Milton. After all, he was borrowing from good poets,[7] whose thought in itself is correct, and even profound; it is only when artillery antedates humanity that the ascription of its invention to the Tempter seems out of place. The metamorphosis of the demons into serpents has been censured as grotesque; but it was imperatively necessary to manifest by some unmistakable outward sign that victory did not after all remain with Satan, and the critics may be challenged to find one more appropriate. The bridge built by Sin and Death is equally essential. Satan's progeny must not be dismissed without some exploit worthy of their parentage. The one passage where Milton's taste seems to us entirely at fault is the description of the Paradise of Fools (iii., 481-497), where his scorn of—

"Reliques, beads,
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,"

has tempted him to chequer the sublime with the ludicrous.

No subject but a Biblical one would have insured Milton universal popularity among his countrymen, for his style is that of an ancient classic transplanted, like Aladdin's palace set down with all its magnificence in the heart of Africa; and his diction, the delight of the educated, is the despair of the ignorant man. Not that this diction is in any respect affected or pedantic. Milton was the darling poet of our greatest modern master of unadorned Saxon speech, John Bright. But it is freighted with classic allusion—not alone from the ancient classics—and comes to us rich with gathered sweets, like a wind laden with the scent of many flowers. "It is," says Pattison, "the elaborated outcome of all the best words of all antecedent poetry—the language of one who lives in the companionship of the great and the wise of past time." "Words," the same writer reminds us, "over and above their dictionary signification, connote all the feeling which has gathered round them by reason of their employment through a hundred generations of song." So it is, every word seems instinct with its own peculiar beauty, and fraught with its own peculiar association, and yet each detail is strictly subordinate to the general effect. No poet of Milton's rank, probably, has been equally indebted to his predecessors, not only for his vocabulary, but for his thoughts. Reminiscences throng upon him, and he takes all that comes, knowing that he can make it lawfully his own. The comparison of Satan's shield to the moon, for instance, is borrowed from the similar comparison of the shield of Achilles in the Iliad, but what goes in Homer comes out Milton. Homer merely says that the huge and massy shield emitted a lustre like that of the moon in heaven. Milton heightens the resemblance by giving the shield shape, calls in the telescope to endow it with what would seem preternatural dimensions to the naked eye, and enlarges even these by the suggestion of more than the telescope can disclose—

"His ponderous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round
Behind him cast; the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening, from the top of Fesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers or mountains in her spotty globe."

Thus does Milton appropriate the wealth of past literature, secure of being able to recoin it with his own image and superscription. The accumulated learning which might have choked the native fire of a feebler spirit was but nourishment to his. The polished stones and shining jewels of his superb mosaic are often borrowed, but its plan and pattern are his own.

One of the greatest charms of "Paradise Lost" is the incomparable metre, which, after Coleridge and Tennyson have done their utmost, remains without equal in our language for the combination of majesty and music. It is true that this majesty is to a certain extent inherent in the subject, and that the poet who could rival it would scarcely be well advised to exert his power to the full unless his theme also rivalled the magnificence of Milton's. Milton, on his part, would have been quite content to have written such blank verse as Wordsworth's "Yew Trees," or as the exordium of "Alastor," or as most of Coleridge's idylls, had his subject been less than epical. The organ-like solemnity of his verbal music is obtained partly by extreme attention to variety of pause, but chiefly, as Wordsworth told Klopstock, and as Mr. Addington Symonds points out more at length, by the period, not the individual line, being made the metrical unit, "so that each line in a period shall carry its proper burden of sound, but the burden shall be differently distributed in the successive verses." Hence lines which taken singly seem almost unmetrical, in combination with their associates appear indispensable parts of the general harmony. Mr. Symonds gives some striking instances. Milton's versification is that of a learned poet, profound in thought and burdened with the further care of ordering his thoughts: it is therefore only suited to sublimity of a solemn or meditative cast, and most unsuitable to render the unstudied sublimity of Homer. Perhaps no passage is better adapted to display its dignity, complicated artifice, perpetual retarding movement, concerted harmony, and grave but ravishing sweetness than the description of the coming on of Night in the Fourth Book:—

"Now came still evening on, and twilight grey
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleased: now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus that led
The stary host rose brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw."

How exquisite the indication of the pauseless continuity of the nightingale's song by the transition from short sentences, cut up by commas and semicolons, to the "linked sweetness long drawn out" of "She all night long her amorous descant sung"! The poem is full of similar felicities, none perhaps more noteworthy than the sequence of monosyllables that paints the enormous bulk of the prostrate Satan:—

"So stretched out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay."

It is a most interesting subject for inquiry from what sources, other than the Scriptures, Milton drew aid in the composition of "Paradise Lost." The most striking counterpart is Calderon, to whom he owed as little as Calderon can have owed to him. "El Magico Prodigioso," already cited as affording a remarkable parallel to "Comus," though performed in 1637, was not printed until 1663, when "Paradise Lost" was already completed.[8] The two great religious poets have naturally conceived the Evil One much in the same manner, and Calderon's Lucifer,

"Like the red outline of beginning Adam,"

might well have passed as the original draft of Milton's Satan:—

"In myself I am
A world of happiness and misery;
This I have lost, and that I must lament
For ever. In my attributes I stood
So high and so heroically great,
In lineage so supreme, and with a genius
Which penetrated with a glance the world
Beneath my feet, that, won by my high merit,
A King—whom I may call the King of Kings,
Because all others tremble in their pride
Before the terrors of his countenance—
In his high palace, roofed with brightest gems
Of living light—call them the stars of heaven—
Named me his counsellor. But the high praise
Stung me with pride and envy, and I rose
In mighty competition, to ascend
His seat, and place my foot triumphantly
Upon his subject thrones. Chastised, I know
The depth to which ambition falls. For mad
Was the attempt; and yet more mad were now
Repentance of the irrevocable deed.
Therefore I chose this ruin with the glory
Of not to be subdued, before the shame
Of reconciling me with him who reigns
By coward cession. Nor was I alone,
Nor am I now, nor shall I be, alone.
And there was hope, and there may still be hope;
For many suffrages among his vassals
Hailed me their lord and king, and many still
Are mine, and many more perchance shall be."

A striking proof that resemblance does not necessarily imply plagiarism. Milton's affinity to Calderon has been overlooked by his commentators; but four luminaries have been named from which he is alleged to have drawn, however sparingly, in his golden urn—Caedmon, the Adamus Exul of Grotius, the Adamo of the Italian dramatist Andreini, and the Lucifer of the Dutch poet Vondel. Caedmon, first printed in 1655, it is but barely possible that he should have known, and ere he could have known him the conception of "Paradise Lost" was firmly implanted in his mind. External evidence proves his acquaintance with Grotius, internal evidence his knowledge of Andreini: and small as are his direct obligations to the Italian drama, we can easily believe with Hayley that "his fancy caught fire from that spirited, though irregular and fantastic composition." Vondel's Lucifer—whose subject is not the fall of Adam, but the fall of Satan—was acted and published in 1654, when Milton is known to have been studying Dutch, but when the plan of "Paradise Lost" must have been substantially formed. There can, nevertheless, be no question of the frequent verbal correspondences, not merely between Vondel's Lucifer and "Paradise Lost," but between his Samson and "Samson Agonistes." Milton's indebtedness, so long ago as 1829, attracted the attention of an English poet of genius, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, who pointed out that his lightning-speech, "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven," was a thunderbolt condensed from a brace of Vondel's clumsy Alexandrines, which Beddoes renders thus:—

"And rather the first prince at an inferior court
Than in the blessed light the second or still less."

Mr. Gosse followed up the inquiry, which eventually became the subject of a monograph by Mr. George Edmundson ("Milton and Vondel," 1885). That Milton should have had, as he must have had, Vondel's works translated aloud to him, is a most interesting proof, alike of his ardour in the enrichment of his own mind, and of his esteem for the Dutch poet. Although, however, his obligations to predecessors are not to be overlooked, they are in general only for the most obvious ideas and expressions, lying right in the path of any poet treating the subject. Je l'aurais bien pris sans toi. When, as in the instance above quoted, he borrows anything more recondite, he so exalts and transforms it that it passes from the original author to him like an angel the former has entertained unawares. This may not entirely apply to the Italian reformer, Bernardino Ochino, to whom, rather than to Tasso, Milton seems indebted for the conception of his diabolical council. Ochino, in many respects a kindred spirit to Milton, must have been well known to him as the first who had dared to ventilate the perilous question of the lawfulness of polygamy. In Ochino's "Divine Tragedy," which he may have read either in the Latin original or in the nervous translation of Bishop Poynet, Milton would find a hint for his infernal senate. "The introduction to the first dialogue," says Ochino's biographer Benrath, "is highly dramatic, and reminds us of Job and Faust." Ochino's arch-fiend, like Milton's, announces a masterstroke of genius. "God sent His Son into the world, and I will send my son." Antichrist accordingly comes to light in the shape of the Pope, and works infinite havoc until Henry VIII. is divinely commissioned for his discomfiture. It is a token, not only of Milton's, but of Vondel's, indebtedness, that, with Ochino as with them, Beelzebub holds the second place in the council, and even admonishes his leader. "I fear me," he remarks, "lest when Antichrist shall die, and come down hither to hell, that as he passeth us in wickedness, so he will be above us in dignity." Prescience worthy of him who

"In his rising seemed
A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat, and public care;
And princely counsel in his face yet shone."

Milton's borrowings, nevertheless, nowise impair his greatness. The obligation is rather theirs, of whose stores he has condescended to avail himself. He may be compared to his native country, which, fertile originally in little but enterprise, has made the riches of the earth her own. He has given her a national epic, inferior to no other, and unlike most others, founded on no merely local circumstance, but such as must find access to every nation acquainted with the most widely-circulated Book in the world. He has further enriched his native literature with an imperishable monument of majestic diction, an example potent to counteract that wasting agency of familiar usage by which language is reduced to vulgarity, as sea-water wears cliffs to shingle. He has reconciled, as no other poet has ever done, the Hellenic spirit with the Hebraic, the Bible with the Renaissance. And, finally, as we began by saying, his poem is the mighty bridge—

"Bound with Gorgonian rigour not to move,"

across which the spirit of ancient poetry has travelled to modern times, and by which the continuity of great English literature has remained unbroken.

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CHAPTER VIII.

In recording the publication of "Paradise Lost" in 1667, we have passed over the interval of Milton's life immediately subsequent to the completion of the poem in 1663. The first incident of any importance is his migration to Chalfont St. Giles, near Beaconsfield, in Buckinghamshire, about July, 1665, to escape the plague then devastating London. Ell wood, whose family lived in the neighbourhood of Chalfont, had at his request taken for him "a pretty box" in that village; and we are, says Professor Masson, "to imagine Milton's house in Artillery Walk shuttered up, and a coach and a large waggon brought to the door, and the blind man helped in, and the wife and the three daughters following, with a servant to look after the books and other things they have taken with them, and the whole party driven away towards Giles-Chalfont." According to the same authority, Chalfont well deserves the name of Sleepy Hollow, lying at the bottom of a leafy dell. Milton's cottage, alone of his residences, still exists, though divided into two tenements. It is a two-storey dwelling, with a garden, is built of brick, with wooden beams, musters nine rooms—though a question arises whether some of them ought not rather to be described as closets; the porch in which Milton may have breathed the summer air is gone, but the parlour retains the latticed casement at which he sat, though through it he could not see. His infirmity rendered the confined situation less of a drawback, and there are abundance of pleasant lanes, along which he could be conducted in his sightless strolls:—

"As one who long in populous city pent,
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,
Forth issuing on a summer's morn to breathe
Among the pleasant villages and farms
Adjoined, from each new thing conceives delight,
The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine,
Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound."

Milton was probably no stranger to the neighbourhood, having lived within thirteen miles of it when he dwelt at Horton. Ellwood could not welcome him on his arrival, being in prison on account of an affray at what should have been the paragon of decorous solemnities—a Quaker funeral. When released, about the end of August or the beginning of September, he waited upon Milton, who, "after some discourses, called for a manuscript of his; which he delivered to me, bidding me take it home with me and read it at my leisure. When I set myself to read it, I found it was that excellent poem which he entitled 'Paradise Lost.'" Professor Masson justly remarks that Milton would not have trusted the worthy Quaker adolescent with the only copy of his epic; we may be sure, therefore, that other copies existed, and that the poem was at this date virtually completed and ready for press. When the manuscript was returned, Ellwood, after "modestly, but freely, imparting his judgment," observed, "Thou hast said much here of Paradise Lost, but what hast thou to say of Paradise Found? He made no answer, but sat some time in a muse; then brake off that discourse, and fell on another subject." The plague was then at its height, and did not abate sufficiently for Milton to return to town with safety until about February in the following year, leaving, it has been asserted, a record of himself at Chalfont in the shape of a sonnet on the pestilence regarded as a judgment for the sins of the King, written with a diamond on a window-pane—as if the blind poet could write even with a pen! The verses, nevertheless, may not impossibly be genuine: they are almost too Miltonic for an imitator between 1665 and 1738, when they were first published.

The public calamity of 1666 affected Milton more nearly than that of 1665. The Great Fire came within a quarter of a mile of his house, and though he happily escaped the fate of Shirley, and did not make one of the helpless crowd of the homeless and destitute, his means were seriously abridged by the destruction of the house in Bread Street where he had first seen the light, and which he had retained through all the vicissitudes of his fortunes. He could not, probably, have published "Paradise Lost" without the co-operation of Samuel Symmons. Symmons's endeavours to push the sale of the book make the bibliographical history of the first edition unusually interesting. There were at least nine different issues, as fresh batches were successively bound up, with frequent alterations of title-page as reasonable cause became apparent to the strategic Symmons. First Milton's name is given in full, then he is reduced to initials, then restored; Symmons's own name, at first suppressed, by and by appears; his agents are frequently changed; and the title is altered to suit the year of issue, that the book may seem a novelty. The most important of all these alterations is one in which the author must have actively participated—the introduction of the Argument which, a hundred and forty years afterwards, was to cause Harriet Martineau to take up "Paradise Lost" at the age of seven, and of the Note on the metre conveying "a reason of that which stumbled many, why this poem rimes not." Partly, perhaps, by help of these devices, certainly without any aid from advertising or reviewing, the impression of thirteen hundred copies was disposed of within twenty months, as attested by Milton's receipt for his second five pounds, April 26, 1669—two years, less one day, since the signature of the original contract. The first printed notice appeared after the edition had been entirely sold. It was by Milton's nephew, Edward Phillips, and was contained in a little Latin essay appended to Buchlerus's "Treasury of Poetical Phrases."

"John Milton, in addition to other most elegant writings of his, both in English and Latin, has recently published 'Paradise Lost,' a poem which, whether we regard the sublimity of the subject, or the combined pleasantness and majesty of the style, or the sublimity of the invention, or the beauty of its images and descriptions of nature, will, if I mistake not, receive the name of truly heroic, inasmuch as by the suffrages of many not unqualified to judge, it is reputed to have reached the perfection of this kind of poetry."

The "many not unqualified" undoubtedly included the first critic of the age, Dryden. Lord Buckhurst is also named as an admirer—pleasing anecdotes respecting the practical expression of his admiration, and of Sir John Denham's, seem apocryphal.

While "Paradise Lost" was thus slowly upbearing its author to the highest heaven of fame, Milton was achieving other titles to renown, one of which he deemed nothing inferior. We shall remember Ellwood's hint that he might find something to say about Paradise Found, and the "muse" into which it cast him. When, says the Quaker, he waited upon Milton after the latter's return to London, Milton "showed me his second poem, called 'Paradise Regained,' and in a pleasant tone said to me, 'This is owing to you; for you put it into my head by the question you put to me at Chalfont; which before I had not thought of.'" Ellwood does not tell us the date of this visit, and Phillips may be right in believing that "Paradise Regained" was entirely composed after the publication of "Paradise Lost"; but it seems unlikely that the conception should have slumbered so long in Milton's mind, and the most probable date is between Michaelmas, 1665, and Lady-day, 1666. Phillips records that Milton could never hear with patience "Paradise Regained" "censured to be much inferior" to "Paradise Lost." "The most judicious," he adds, agreed with him, while allowing that "the subject might not afford such variety of invention," which was probably all that the injudicious meant. There is no external evidence of the date of his next and last poem, "Samson Agonistes," but its development of Miltonic mannerisms would incline us to assign it to the latest period possible. The poems were licensed by Milton's old friend, Thomas Tomkyns, July 2, 1670, but did not appear until 1671. They were published in the same volume, but with distinct title-pages and paginations; the publisher was John Starkey; the printer an anonymous "J.M.," who was far from equalling Symmons in elegance and correctness.

"Paradise Regained" is in one point of view the confutation of a celebrated but eccentric definition of poetry as a "criticism of life." If this were true it would be a greater work than "Paradise Lost," which must be violently strained to admit a definition not wholly inapplicable to the minor poem. If, again, Wordsworth and Coleridge are right in pronouncing "Paradise Regained" the most perfect of Milton's works in point of execution, the proof is afforded that perfect execution is not the chief test of poetic excellence. Whatever these great men may have propounded in theory, it cannot be believed that they would not have rather written the first two books of "Paradise Lost" than ten such poems as "Paradise Regained," and yet they affirm that Milton's power is even more advantageously exhibited in the latter work than in the other. There can be no solution except that greatness in poetry depends mainly upon the subject, and that the subject of "Paradise Lost" is infinitely the finer. Perhaps this should not be. Perhaps to "the visual nerve purged with euphrasy and rue" the spectacle of the human soul successfully resisting supernatural temptation would be more impressive than the material sublimities of "Paradise Lost," but ordinary vision sees otherwise. Satan "floating many a rood" on the sulphurous lake, or "up to the fiery concave towering high," or confronting Death at the gate of Hell, kindles the imagination with quite other fire than the sage circumspection and the meek fortitude of the Son of God. "The reason," says Blake, "why Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell, is because he was a true Poet, and of the Devil's party without knowing it." The passages in "Paradise Regained" which most nearly approach the magnificence of "Paradise Lost," are those least closely connected with the proper action of the poem, the episodes with which Milton's consummate art and opulent fancy have veiled the bareness of his subject. The description of the Parthian military expedition; the picture, equally gorgeous and accurate, of the Roman Empire at the zenith of its greatness; the condensation into a single speech of all that has made Greece dear to humanity—these are the shining peaks of the regained "Paradise," marvels of art and eloquence, yet, unlike "Paradise Lost," beautiful rather than awful. The faults inherent in the theme cannot be imputed to the poet. No human skill could make the second Adam as great an object of sympathy as the first: it is enough, and it is wonderful, that spotless virtue should be so entirely exempt from formality and dulness. The baffled Satan, beaten at his own weapons, is necessarily a much less interesting personage than the heroic adventurer of "Paradise Lost." Milton has done what can be done by softening Satan's reprobate mood with exquisite strokes of pathos:—

"Though I have lost
Much lustre of my native brightness, lost
To be beloved of God, I have not lost
To love, at least contemplate and admire
What I see excellent in good or fair,
Or virtuous; I should so have lost all sense."

These words, though spoken with a deceitful intention, express a truth. Milton's Satan is a long way from Goethe's Mephistopheles. Profound, too, is the pathos of—

"I would be at the worst, worst is my best,
My harbour, and my ultimate repose."

The general sobriety of the style of "Paradise Regained" is a fertile theme for the critics. It is, indeed, carried to the verge of baldness; frigidity, used by Pattison, is too strong a word. This does not seem to be any token of a decay of poetical power. As writers advance in life their characteristics usually grow upon them, and develop into mannerisms. In "Paradise Regained," and yet more markedly in "Samson Agonistes," Milton seems to have prided himself on showing how independent he could be of the ordinary poetical stock-in-trade. Except in his splendid episodical descriptions he seeks to impress by the massy substance of his verse. It is a great proof of the essentially poetical quality of his mind that though he thus often becomes jejune, he is never prosaic. He is ever unmistakably the poet, even when his beauties are rather those of the orator or the moralist. The following sound remark, for instance, would not have been poetry in Pope; it is poetry in Milton:—

"Who reads
Incessantly, and to his reading brings not
A spirit and judgment equal or superior
(And what he brings what need he elsewhere seek?)
Uncertain and unsettled still remains?
Deep versed in books and shallow in himself."

Perhaps, too, the sparse flowers of pure poetry are more exquisite from their contrast with the general austerity:—

"The field, all iron, cast a gleaming brown."

"Morning fair
Came forth with pilgrim steps in amice gray."

Poetic magic these, and Milton is still Milton.

"I have lately read his Samson, which has more of the antique spirit than any production of any other modern poet. He is very great." Thus Goethe to Eckermann, in his old age. The period of life is noticeable, for "Samson Agonistes" is an old man's poem as respects author and reader alike. There is much to repel, little to attract a young reader; no wonder that Macaulay, fresh from college, put it so far below "Comus," to which the more mature taste is disposed to equal it. It is related to the earlier work as sculpture is to painting, but sculpture of the severest school, all sinewy strength; studious, above all, of impressive truth. "Beyond these an ancient fisherman and a rock are fashioned, a rugged rock, whereon with might and main the old man drags a great net from his cast, as one that labours stoutly. Thou wouldest say that he is fishing with all the might of his limbs, so big the sinews swell all about his neck, grey-haired though he is, but his strength is as the strength of youth."[9] Behold here the Milton of "Samson Agonistes," a work whose beauty is of metal rather than of marble, hard, bright, and receptive of an ineffaceable die. The great fault is the frequent harshness of the style, principally in the choruses, where some strophes are almost uncouth. In the blank verse speeches perfect grace is often united to perfect dignity: as in the farewell of Dalila:—

"Fame if not double-faced is double-mouthed,
And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds;
On both his wings, one black, the other white,
Bears greatest names in his wild aery flights.
My name perhaps among the circumcised,
In Dan, in Judah, and the bordering tribes,
To all posterity may stand defamed,
With malediction mentioned, and the blot
Of falsehood most unconjugal traduced.
But in my country where I most desire,
In Ecron, Gaza, Asdod, and in Gath,
I shall be named among the famousest
Of women, sung at solemn festivals,
Living and dead recorded, who to save
Her country from a fierce destroyer, chose
Above the faith of wedlock-bands; my tomb
With odours visited and annual flowers."

The scheme of "Samson Agonistes" is that of the Greek drama, the only one appropriate to an action of such extreme simplicity, admitting so few personages, and these only as foils to the hero. It is, but for its Miltonisms of style and autobiographic and political allusion, just such a drama as Sophocles or Euripides would have written on the subject, and has all that depth of patriotic and religious sentiment which made the Greek drama so inexpressibly significant to Greeks. Consummate art is shown in the invention of the Philistine giant, Harapha, who not only enriches the meagre action, and brings out strong features in the character of Samson, but also prepares the reader for the catastrophe. We must say reader, for though the drama might conceivably be acted with effect on a Court or University stage, the real living theatre has been no place for it since the days of Greece. Milton confesses as much when in his preface he assails "the poet's error of intermixing comic stuff with tragic sadness and gravity; or introducing trivial and vulgar persons, which by all judicious hath been counted absurd; and brought in without discretion, corruptly to gratify the people." In his view tragedy should be eclectic; in Shakespeare's it should be all embracing. Shelley, perhaps, judged more rightly than either when he said: "The modern practice of blending comedy with tragedy is undoubtedly an extension of the dramatic circle; but the comedy should be as in 'King Lear,' universal, ideal, and sublime." On the whole, "Samson Agonistes" is a noble example of a style which we may hope will in no generation be entirely lacking to our literature, but which must always be exotic, from its want of harmony with the more essential characteristics of our tumultous, undisciplined, irrepressible national life.

In one point of view, however, "Samson Agonistes" deserves to be esteemed a national poem, pregnant with a deeper allusiveness than has always been recognized. Samson's impersonation of the author himself can escape no one. Old, blind, captive, helpless, mocked, decried, miserable in the failure of all his ideals, upheld only by faith and his own unconquerable spirit, Milton is the counterpart of his hero. Particular references to the circumstances of his life are not wanting: his bitter self-condemnation for having chosen his first wife in the camp of the enemy, and his surprise that near the close of an austere life he should be afflicted by the malady appointed to chastise intemperance. But, as in the Hebrew prophets Israel sometimes denotes a person, sometimes a nation, Samson seems no less the representative of the English people in the age of Charles the Second. His heaviest burden is his remorse, a remorse which could not weigh on Milton:—

"I do acknowledge and confess
That I this honour, I this pomp have brought
To Dagon, and advanced his praises high
Among the heathen round; to God have brought
Dishonour, obloquy, and oped the mouths
Of idolists and atheists; have brought scandal
To Israel, diffidence of God, and doubt
In feeble hearts, propense enough before
To waver, to fall off, and join with idols;
Which is my chief affliction, shame, and sorrow,
The anguish of my soul, that suffers not
My eye to harbour sleep, or thoughts to rest."

Milton might reproach himself for having taken a Philistine wife, but not with having suffered her to shear him. But the same could not be said of the English nation, which had in his view most foully apostatized from its pure creed, and most perfidiously betrayed the high commission it had received from Heaven. "This extolled and magnified nation, regardless both of honour won, or deliverances vouchsafed, to fall back, or rather to creep back, so poorly as it seems the multitude would, to their once abjured and detested thraldom of kingship! To be ourselves the slanderers of our own just and religious deeds! To verify all the bitter predictions of our triumphing enemies, who will now think they wisely discerned and justly censured us and all our actions as rash, rebellious, hypocritical, and impious!" These things, which Milton refused to contemplate as possible when he wrote his "Ready Way to establish a Free Commonwealth," had actually come to pass. The English nation is to him the enslaved and erring Samson—a Samson, however, yet to burst his bonds, and bring down ruin upon Philistia. "Samson Agonistes" is thus a prophetic drama, the English counterpart of the world-drama of "Prometheus Bound."

Goethe says that our final impression of any one is derived from the last circumstances in which we have beheld him. Let us, therefore, endeavour to behold Milton as he appeared about the time of the publication of his last poems, to which period of his life the descriptions we possess seem to apply. Richardson heard of his sitting habitually "in a grey coarse cloth coat at the door of his house near Bunhill Fields, in warm sunny weather to enjoy the fresh air"—a suggestive picture. What thoughts must have been travelling through his mind, undisturbed by external things! How many of the passers knew that they flitted past the greatest glory of the age of Newton, Locke, and Wren? For one who would reverence the author of "Paradise Lost," there were probably twenty who would have been ready with a curse for the apologist of the killing of the King. In-doors he was seen by Dr. Wright, in Richardson's time an aged clergyman in Dorsetshire, who found him up one pair of stairs, in a room hung with rusty green "sitting in an elbow chair, black clothes, and neat enough, pale but not cadaverous; his hands and fingers gouty and with chalk-stones." Gout was the enemy of Milton's latter days; we have seen that he had begun to suffer from it before he wrote "Samson Agonistes." Without it, he said, he could find blindness tolerable. Yet even in the fit he would be cheerful, and would sing. It is grievous to write that, about 1670, the departure of his daughters promoted the comfort of his household. They were sent out to learn embroidery as a means of future support—a proper step in itself, and one which would appear to have entailed considerable expense upon Milton. But they might perfectly well have remained inmates of the family, and the inference is that domestic discord had at length grown unbearable to all. Friends, or at least visitors, were, on the other hand, more numerous than of late years. The most interesting were the "subtle, cunning, and reserved" Earl of Anglesey, who must have "coveted Milton's society and converse" very much if, as Phillips reports, he often came all the way to Bunhill Fields to enjoy it; and Dryden, whose generous admiration does not seem to have been affected by Milton's over-hasty sentence upon him as "a good rhymester, but no poet." One of Dryden's visits is famous in literary history, when he came with the modest request that Milton would let him turn his epic into an opera. "Aye," responded Milton, equal to the occasion, "tag my verses if you will"—to tag being to put a shining metal point—compared in Milton's fancy to a rhyme—at the end of a lace or cord. Dryden took him at his word, and in due time "Paradise Lost" had become an opera under the title of "The State of Innocence and Fall of Man," which may also be interpreted as referring to the condition of the poem before Dryden laid hands upon it and afterwards. It is a puzzling performance altogether; one sees not any more than Sir Walter Scott could see how a drama requiring paradisiacal costume could have been acted even in the age of Nell Gwyn; and yet it is even more unlikely that Dryden should have written a play not intended for the stage. The same contradiction prevails in the piece itself; it would not be unfair to call it the most absurd burlesque ever written without burlesque intention; and yet it displays such intellectual resources, such vigour, bustle, adroitness, and bright impudence, that admiration almost counterweighs derision. Dryden could not have made such an exhibition of Milton and himself twenty years afterwards, when he said that, much as he had always admired Milton, he felt that he had not admired him half enough. The reverence which he felt even in 1674 for "one of the greatest, most noble, and most sublime poems which either this age or nation has produced," contrasts finely with the ordinary Restoration estimate of Milton conveyed in the complimentary verses by Lee, prefixed to "The State of Innocence":—

"To the dead bard your fame a little owes,
For Milton did the wealthy mine disclose,
And rudely cast what you could well dispose.
He roughly drew, on an old-fashioned ground,
A chaos, for no perfect world was found,
Till through the heap your mighty genius shined;
He was the golden ore, which you refined."

These later years also produced several little publications of Milton's own, mostly of manuscripts long lying by him, now slightly revised and fitted for the press. Such were his miniature Latin grammar, published in 1669; and his "Artis Logicae Plenior Institutio; or The Method of Ramus," 1672. The first is insignificant; and the second even Professor Masson pronounces, "as a digest of logic, disorderly and unedifying." Both apparently belong to his school-keeping days: the little tract, "Of True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration," (1673) is, on the other hand, contemporary with a period of great public excitement, when Parliament (March, 1673) compelled the king to revoke his edict of toleration autocratically promulgated in the preceding year, and to assent to a severe Test Act against Roman Catholics. The good sense and good nature which inclined Charles to toleration were unfortunately alloyed with less creditable motives. Protestants justly suspected him of insidiously aiming at the re-establishment of Roman Catholicism, and even the persecuted Nonconformists patriotically joined with High Churchmen to adjourn their own deliverance until the country should be safe from the common enemy. The wisdom and necessity of this course were abundantly evinced under the next reign, and while we must regret that Milton contributed his superfluous aid to restrictions only defensible on the ground of expediency, we must admit that he could not well avoid making Roman Catholics an exception to the broad tolerance he claims for all denominations of Protestants. And, after all, has not the Roman Catholic Church's notion of tolerance always been that which Macaulay imputes to Southey, that everybody should tolerate her, and that she should tolerate nobody?

A more important work, though scarcely worthy of Milton's industry, was his "History of Britain" (1670). This was a comparatively early labour, four of the six books having been written before he entered upon the Latin Secretaryship, and two under the Commonwealth. From its own point of view, this is a meritorious performance, making no pretensions to the character of a philosophical history, but a clear, easy narrative, sometimes interrupted by sententious disquisition, of transactions down to the Conquest. Like Grote, though not precisely for the same reason, Milton hands down picturesque legendary matter as he finds it, and it is to those who would see English history in its romantic aspect that, in these days of exact research, his work is chiefly to be recommended. It is also memorable for what he never saw himself, the engraved portrait, after Faithorne's crayon sketch.

"No one," says Professor Masson, "can desire a more impressive and authentic portrait of Milton in his later life. The face is such as has been given to no other human being; it was and is uniquely Milton's. Underneath the broad forehead and arched temples there are the great rings of eye-socket, with the blind, unblemished eyes in them, drawn straight upon you by your voice, and speculating who and what you are; there is a severe composure in the beautiful oval of the whole countenance, disturbed only by the singular pouting of the rich mouth; and the entire expression is that of English intrepidity mixed with unutterable sorrow."

Milton's care to set his house in order extended to his poetical writings. In 1673 the poems published in 1645, both English and Latin, appeared in a second edition, disclosing novas frondes in one or two of Milton's earliest unprinted poems, and such of the sonnets as political considerations did not exclude; and non sua poma in the Tractate of Education, curiously grafted on at the end. An even more important publication was the second edition of "Paradise Lost" (1674) with the original ten books for the first time divided into twelve as we now have them. Nor did this exhaust the list of Milton's literary undertakings. He was desirous of giving to the world his correspondence when Latin Secretary, and the "Treatise on Christian Doctrine" which had employed so much of his thoughts at various periods of his life. The Government, though allowing the publication of his familiar Latin correspondence (1674), would not tolerate the letters he had written as secretary to the Commonwealth, and the "Treatise on Christian Doctrine" was still less likely to propitiate the licenser. Holland was in that day the one secure asylum of free thought, and thither, in 1675, the year following Milton's death, the manuscripts were taken or sent by Daniel Skinner, a nephew of Cyriack's, to Daniel Elzevir, who agreed to publish them. Before publication could take place, however, a clandestine but correct edition of the State letters appeared in London, probably by the agency of Edward Phillips. Skinner, in his vexation, appealed to the authorities to suppress this edition: they took the hint, and suppressed his instead. Elzevir delivered up the manuscripts, which the Secretary of State pigeon-holed until their existence was forgotten. At last, in 1823, Mr. Robert Lemon, rummaging in the State Paper Office, came upon the identical parcel addressed by Elzevir to Daniel Skinner's father which contained his son's transcript of the State Letters and the "Treatise on Christian Doctrine." Times had changed, and the heretical work was edited and translated by George the Fourth's favourite chaplain, and published at his Majesty's expense.

The "Treatise on Christian Doctrine" is by far the most remarkable of all Milton's later prose publications, and would have exerted a great influence on opinion if it had appeared when the author designed. Milton's name would have been a tower of strength to the liberal eighteenth-century clergy inside and outside the Establishment. It should indeed have been sufficiently manifest that "Paradise Lost" could not have been written by a Trinitarian or a Calvinist; but theological partisanship is even slower than secular partisanship to see what it does not choose to see; and Milton's Arianism was not generally admitted until it was here avouched under his own hand. The general principle of the book is undoubting reliance on the authority of Scripture, with which such an acquaintance is manifested as could only have been gained by years of intense study. It is true that the doctrine of the inward light as the interpreter of Scripture is asserted with equal conviction; but practically this illumination seems seldom to have guided Milton to any sense but the most obvious. Hence, with the intrepid consistency that belongs to him, he is not only an Arian, but a tolerator of polygamy, finding that practice nowhere condemned in Scripture, but even recommended by respectable examples; an Anthropomorphist, who takes the ascription of human passion to the Deity in the sense certainly intended by those who made it; a believer in the materiality and natural mortality of the soul, and in the suspension of consciousness between death and the resurrection. Where less fettered by the literal Word he thinks boldly; unable to conceive creation out of nothing, he regards all existence as an emanation from the Deity, thus entitling himself to the designation of Pantheist. He reiterates his doctrine of divorce; and is as strong an Anti-Sabbatarian as Luther himself. On the Atonement and Original Sin, however, he is entirely Evangelical; and he commends public worship so long as it is not made a substitute for spiritual religion. Liturgies are evil, and tithes abominable. His exposition of social duty tempers Puritan strictness with Cavalier high-breeding, and the urbanity of a man of the world. Of his motives for publication and method of composition he says:—

"It is with a friendly and benignant feeling towards mankind that I give as wide a circulation as possible to what I esteem my best and richest possession.... And whereas the greater part of those who have written most largely on these subjects have been wont to fill whole pages with explanations of their own opinions, thrusting into the margin the texts in support of their doctrines, I have chosen, on the contrary, to fill my pages even to redundance with quotations from Scripture, so that as little space as possible might be left for my own words, even when they arise from the context of revelation itself."

There is consequently little scope for eloquence in a treatise consisting to so large an extent of quotations; but it is pervaded by a moral sublimity, more easily felt than expressed. Particular opinions will be diversely judged; but if anything could increase our reverence for Milton it would be that his last years should have been devoted to a labour so manifestly inspired by disinterested benevolence and hazardous love of truth.

His life's work was now finished, and finished with entire success as far as depended upon his own will and power. He had left nothing unwritten, nothing undone, nor was he ignorant what manner of monument he had raised for himself, It was only the condition of the State that afflicted him, and this, looking forward, he saw in more gloomy colours than it appears to us who look back. Had he attained his father's age his apprehensions would have been dispelled by the Revolution: but he had evidently for some time past been older in constitution than in years. In July, 1674, he was anticipating death; but about the middle of October, "he was very merry and seemed to be in good health of body." Early in November "the gout struck in," and he died on November 8th, late at night, "with so little pain that the time of his expiring was not perceived by those in the room." On November 12th, "all his learned and great friends in London, not without a concourse of the vulgar, accompanied his body to the church of St. Giles, near Cripplegate, where he was buried in the chancel." In 1864, the church was restored in honour of the great enemy of religious establishments. "The animosities die, but the humanities live for ever."

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Milton's resources had been greatly impaired in his latter years by losses, and the expense of providing for his daughters. He nevertheless left, exclusive of household goods, about £900, which, by a nuncupative will made in July, 1674, he had wholly bequeathed to his wife. His daughters, he told his brother Christopher (now a Roman Catholic, and on the road to become one of James the Second's judges, but always on friendly terms with John), had been undutiful, and he thought that he had done enough for them. They naturally thought otherwise, and threatened litigation. The interrogatories administered on this occasion afford the best clue to the condition of Milton's affairs and household. At length the dispute was compromised, the nuncupative will, a kind of document always regarded with suspicion, was given up, and the widow received two-thirds of the estate instead of the whole, probably the fairest settlement that could have been arrived at. After residing some years in London she retired to Nantwich in her native county, where divers glimpses reveal her as leading the decent existence of a poor but comfortable gentlewoman as late as August or September, 1727. The inventory of her effects, amounting to £38 8s. 4d., is preserved, and includes: "Mr. Milton's pictures and coat of arms, valued at ten guineas;" and "two Books of Paradise," valued at ten shillings. Of the daughters, Anne married "a master-builder," and died in childbirth some time before 1678; Mary was dead when Phillips wrote in 1694; and Deborah survived until August 24, 1727, dying within a few days of her stepmother. She had married Abraham Clarke, a weaver and mercer in Dublin, who took refuge in England during the Irish troubles under James the Second, and carried on his business in Spitalfields. She had several children by him, one of whom lived to receive, in 1750, the proceeds of a theatrical benefit promoted by Bishop Newton and Samuel Johnson. Deborah herself was brought into notice by Addison, and was visited by Professor Ward of Gresham College, who found her "bearing the inconveniences of a low fortune with decency and prudence." Her last days were made comfortable by the generosity of Princess Caroline and others: it is more pleasant still to know that her affection for her father had revived. When shown Faithorne's crayon portrait (not the one engraved in Milton's lifetime, but one exceedingly like it) she exclaimed, "in a transport, ''Tis my dear father, I see him, 'tis him!' and then she put her hands to several parts of her face, ''Tis the very man, here! here!'"

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Milton's character is one of the things which "securus judicat orbis terrarum." On one point only there seems to us, as we have frequently implied, to be room for modification. In the popular conception of Milton the poet and the man are imperfectly combined. We allow his greatness as a poet, but deny him the poetical temperament which alone could have enabled him to attain it. He is looked upon as a great, good, reverend, austere, not very amiable, and not very sensitive man. The author and the book are thus set at variance, and the attempt to conceive the character as a whole results in confusion and inconsistency. To us, on the contrary, Milton, with all his strength of will and regularity of life, seems as perfect a representative as any of his compeers of the sensitiveness and impulsive passion of the poetical temperament. We appeal to his remarkable dependence upon external prompting for his compositions; to the rapidity of his work under excitement, and his long intervals of unproductiveness; to the heat and fury of his polemics; to the simplicity with which, fortunately for us, he inscribes small particulars of his own life side by side with weightiest utterances on Church and State; to the amazing precipitancy of his marriage and its rupture; to his sudden pliability upon appeal to his generosity; to his romantic self-sacrifice when his country demanded his eyes from him; above all, to his splendid ideals of regenerated human life, such as poets alone either conceive or realize. To overlook all this is to affirm that Milton wrote great poetry without being truly a poet. One more remark may be added, though not required by thinking readers. We must beware of confounding the essential with the accidental Milton—the pure vital spirit with the casual vesture of the creeds and circumstances of the era in which it became clothed with mortality:—

"They are still immortal
Who, through birth's orient portal
And death's dark chasm hurrying to and fro,
Clothe their unceasing flight
In the brief dust and light
Gathered around their chariots as they go.
New shapes they still may weave,
New gods, new laws, receive."

If we knew for certain which of the many causes that have enlisted noble minds in our age would array Milton's spirit "in brief dust and light," supposing it returned to earth in this nineteenth century, we should know which was the noblest of them all, but we should be as far as ever from knowing a final and stereotyped Milton.

THE END.

---

FOOTNOTES:

[1] A famous Presbyterian tract of the day, so called from the combined initials of the authors, one of whom was Milton's old instructor, Thomas Young. The "Remonstrant" to whom Milton replied was Bishop Hall.

[2] This principle admitted of general application. For example, astrological books were to be licensed by John Booker, who could by no means see his way to pass the prognostications of his rival Lilly without "many impertinent obliterations," which made Lilly exceeding wroth.

[3] Two persons of this uncommon name are mentioned in the State Papers of Milton's time—one a merchant who imported a cargo of timber; the other a leatherseller. The name also occurs once in Pepys.

[4] Rossetti's sonnet, "On the Refusal of Aid between Nations," is an almost equally remarkable instance.

[5] The same is recorded of Friedrich Hebbel, the most original of modern German dramatists.

[6] In his "Urim of Conscience," 1695. This curious book contains one of the first English accounts of Buddha, whom the author calls Chacabout (Sakhya Buddha, apparently), and of the "Christians of St. John" at Bassora.

[7] Ariosto and Marcellus Palingenius. Both these wrote before Ronsard, to whom the thought is traced by Pattison, and Valvasone, to whom Hayley deems Milton indebted for it.

[8] We cannot agree with Mr. Edmundson that Milton was in any respect indebted to Vondel's "Adam's Banishment," published in 1664.

[9] Theocritus, Idyll I.; Lang's translation.

---

INDEX.

A.

• Adam, not the hero of "Paradise Lost," [155]
• Adonais compared with Lycidas, [51]
• Aldersgate Street, Milton's home in, [67], [83]
• "Allegro, L.," [49]-[50]
• Andreini, his "Adamo" supposed to have suggested "Paradise Lost," [169]
• Anglesey, Earl of, visits Milton, [186]
• "Animadversions upon the Remonstrant," [72]
• "Apology for Smectymnuus," [72]
• "Arcades," [44]
• "Areopagitica, the," [78];
  • argument of, [79]-[82]
• Arian opinions of Milton, [159], [191]
• Ariosto, Milton borrows from, [164]
• Artillery Walk, Milton's last house, [144]
• "At a Solemn Music," [33]
• Aubrey's biographical notices of Milton, [14], [15], [19], [24], [129], [144], [145]

B.

• Ball's Life of Preston, [23]
• Barbican, Milton's house in the, [96]
• Baroni, Leonora, admired by Milton, [62]
• Beddoes, T.L., on Milton and Vondel, [170]
• Benrath on Ochino's "Divine Tragedy," [171]
• Blake on Milton, [179]
• Bradshaw, Milton's praise of, [120]
• Bread Street, Milton born in, [16]
• Bridgewater, Lord, "Comus" written in his honour, [45]
• Bright, John, his admiration for Milton, [164].
• British Museum, copy of Milton's poems in, [97];
  • proclamation against Milton's books preserved in the, [139]
• Buckhurst, Lord, his admiration of "Paradise Lost," [177]

C.

• Caedmon, question of Milton's indebtedness to, [169]
• Calderon's "Magico Prodigioso" compared with "Comus," [54];
  • with "Paradise Lost," [163]
• Cambridge in Milton's time, [22]
• Cardinal Barberini receives Milton, [62]
• Caroline, Princess, her kindness to Milton's daughter, [195]
• Chalfont St. Giles, Milton's residence at, [173]
• Chappell, W., Milton's college tutor, [24]
• Charles I., illegal government of, [30];
  • expedition against the Scots, [67];
  • execution of, [100];
  • alleged authorship of "Eikon Basilike," [105]-[107];
  • a bad king, but not a bad man, [110]
• Charles II., restoration of, [138];
  • favour to Roman Catholics, [188]
• Christ's College, Milton at, [22]
• "Christian Doctrine," Milton's treatise on, [99], [190]-[193]
• "Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes," [132]
• Clarke, Deborah, Milton's youngest daughter;
  • her reminiscences of her father, [195]
• Clarke, Mr. Hyde, his discoveries respecting Milton's ancestry, [14], [15]
• Clarke, Sir T., Milton's MSS. preserved by, [129]
• • on Milton's taste for music, [63];
  • on "Paradise Regained," [178]
• Comenius, educational method of, [76]
• Commonwealth, Milton's views of a free, [136]
• "Comus," production of, [38], [44], [46];
  • criticism on, [53]-[55]
• "Considerations on the likeliest means to remove Hirelings out of the Church," [133]
• Copernican theory only partly adopted in "Paradise Lost," [158]
• Cosmogony of Milton, [157]
• Cromwell, Milton's character of, [121];
  • Milton's advice to, [122]

D.

• Dante and Milton compared, [160]
• Daughters, character of Milton's, [142]
• Davis, Miss, Milton's suit to, [94]
• Deity, imperfect conception of, in "Paradise Lost," [154]
• Denham, Sir J., his admiration of "Paradise Lost," [177]
• Diodati, Milton's friendship with, [21];
  • verses to, [25];
  • letters to, [39], [41], [55];
  • death of, [65];
  • Milton's elegy on, [43], [67]
• "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce," [79], [87]-[91]
• Dryden, on "Paradise Lost," [177];
  • visits Milton, [187];
  • dramatizes "Paradise Lost," [187]
• Du Moulin, Peter, author of "Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad Cœlum," [118]

E.

• Edmundson, Mr. G., on Milton and Vondel, [170]
• Education, Milton's tract on, [75]-[77]
• "Eikon Basilike," authorship of, [105]-[107]
• "Eikonoklastes," Milton's reply to "Eikon Basilike," [108]
• Ellwood, Thomas, the Quaker, reads to Milton, [145];
  • suggests "Paradise Regained," [175]
• Elzevir, Daniel, receives and gives up the MS. of "State Letters" and the "Treatise on Christian Doctrine," [191]

F.

• Fairfax, Milton's character of, [120]
• Faithorne's portrait of Milton, [189]

G.

• Galileo, Milton's visit to, [61]
• Gauden, Bishop, author of "Eikon Basilike," [106]
  • Gentleman's Magazine, account of Horton in, [36]
• Goethe on "Samson Agonistes," [181]
• Gill, Mr., Milton's master at St. Paul's school, [20]
• Gosse, Mr., on Milton and Vondel, [170]
• Greek, influence of, on Milton, [33], [39]
• Grotius, Hugo, Milton introduced to, [59];
  • Milton's study of, [169]

H.

• Hartlib, S., Milton's tract on Education inspired by, [75]
• "History of Britain" by Milton, [99], [189]
• Holstenius, Lucas, librarian of the Vatican, [63]
• Homer and Shakespeare compared, [2];
  • and compared with Milton, [160], [165], [167]
• Horton, Milton retires to, [33];
  • poems written at, [44]
• Hunter, Rev. Joseph, on Milton's ancestors, [14]
• "Hymn on the Nativity," [32]

I.

• Italian sonnets by Milton, [64]
• Italy, Milton's journey to, [56]-[65]

J.

• Jansen, Cornelius, paints Milton's portrait, [19]
• Jeffrey, Sarah, Milton's mother, [16]
• Jewin Street, Milton's house in, [144]
• Johnson, Dr., on "Lycidas," [51];
  • benefits Milton's granddaughter, [195]

K.

• Keats, Milton contrasted with, [41]
• King, Edward, "Lycidas," an elegy on his death, [48]

L.

• Landor, his Latin verse compared with Milton's, [43]
• Latin grammar by Milton, [188]
• Latin Secretaryship to the Commonwealth, Milton's appointment to, [102]
• Laud, Archbishop, Church government of, [30];
  • Milton's veiled attack on, [49]
• Lawes, Henry, writes music to "Comus" and "Arcades," [44];
  • edits "Comus," [47]
• Lee, Nathaniel, his verses on Milton, [188]
• Lemon, Mr. Robert, discovers MS. of "State Letters" and the "Treatise on Christian Doctrine," [191]
• Letters, Milton's official, [123]
• Logic, Milton's tract on, [188]
• Long Parliament, meeting of the, [68];
  • licensing of books by, [78]
• Lucifer, Vondel's, [170]
• Ludlow Castle, "Comus" first performed at, [46]
• "Lycidas," origin of, [40], [48];
  • analysis of, criticism on, [50], [52]

M.

• Manso, Marquis, poem on, [64]
• Marshall, Milton's portrait engraved by, [97]
• Marriage, Milton's views on, [94]
• Martineau, Harriet, reads "Paradise Lost" at seven years of age, [176]
• Mason, C., Milton's MSS. preserved by, [129]
• Masson, Prof. David, his monumental biography of Milton, [14];
  • on Milton's ancestors, ib.;
  • on Milton's college career, [23], [25];
  • on the scenery of Horton, [35];
  • on date of Divorce pamphlet, [87];
  • on date of "Paradise Lost," [147];
  • on money received for "Paradise Lost," [150];
  • on Milton's cosmogony, [156];
  • his description of Chalfont, [173];
  • on Milton's portrait, [189]
• Milton, Christopher, John Milton's younger brother, birth of, [16];
  • a Royalist, [91];
  • a Roman Catholic, and one of James the Second's judges, [194]
• Milton, John, the elder, birth, [15];
  • a scrivener by profession, ib.;
  • musical compositions of, [18];
  • retirement to Horton, [33];
  • his noble confidence in his son, [37], [45];
  • comes to live with his son, [91];
  • dies, [98]
• Milton, John, birth, [11];
  • genealogy of, [14];
  • birthplace, [16];
  • his father, [17];
  • his education, [18]-[27];
  • knowledge of Italian, [21];
  • at Cambridge, [22]-[28];
  • rusticated, [25];
  • his degree, 1629; [25];
  • will not enter the church, [29];
  • early poems, [32];
  • writes "Comus," [38];
  • required incitement to write, [40], [48];
  • correctness of his early poems, [42];
  • his life at Horton, [44]-[55];
  • his "Comus" and "Arcades," [44]-[48];
  • his "Lycidas," [48];
  • his mother's death, [55];
  • goes to Italy, [56];
  • his Italian friends, [59];
  • visits Galileo, [61];
  • Italian sonnets, [64];
  • educates his nephews, [65];
  • elegy to Diodati, [67];
  • eighteen years' poetic silence, [68];
  • takes part with the Commonwealth, [68];
  • pamphlets on Church government, [72];
  • tract on Education, [75];
  • "Areopagitica," [79];
  • Italian sonnet, [85];
  • his first marriage, [86];
  • deserted by his wife, his treatise on Divorce, [87];
  • his pupils, [91];
  • return of his wife, [96];
  • his daughter born, [98];
  • becomes Secretary for Foreign Tongues, [102];
  • his State papers, [104];
  • licenses pamphlets, [105];
  • answers "Eikon Basilike," [108];
  • answers Salmasius, [111];
  • loses his sight, [114];
  • death of his wife, [116];
  • reply to Morus, [119];
  • his official duties [122];
  • his retirement and second marriage, [125];
  • projected ninety-nine themes preparatory to "Paradise Lost," [129];
  • wrote chiefly from autumn to spring, [132];
  • his views of a republic, [136];
  • escapes proscription at Restoration, [139];
  • unhappy relations with his daughters, [141];
  • third marriage, [143];
  • writing "Paradise Lost," [147]-[150];
  • analysis of his work, [152]-[172];
  • compared with modern poets, [166];
  • his indebtedness to earlier poets, [169];
  • retires to Chalfont to escape the plague, [173];
  • he suffers from the Great Fire, [175];
  • his "Paradise Regained," [177];
  • his "Samson Agonistes," [180]-[85];
  • his later life, [186];
  • his later tracts, [188], [190];
  • his "History of Britain," [189];
  • his Arian opinions, [192];
  • his death, [193];
  • his will, [194];
  • his widow and daughters, [195];
  • estimate of his character, [196]
• Milton, Richard, Milton's grandfather, [14], [15]
• Minshull, Elizabeth, Milton's third wife, [143];
  • Milton's will in favour of, [194];
  • death, ib.
• Monk, General, character of, [135]
• Morland, Sir Samuel, on "Paradise Lost," [163]
• Morus, A., his controversy with Milton, [118]-[119]
• Myers, Mr. E., on Milton's views of marriage, [91]

N.

• Newton, Bishop, benefits Milton's granddaughter, [195]

O.

• Ochino, B., Milton's indebtedness to, [171]
• "On a fair Infant," [33]

P.

• Paget, Dr., Milton's physician, [143], [145]
• Palingenius, Marcellus, Milton borrows from, [164]
• Pamphlets, Milton's, [72], [75], [78], [79], [87], [99], [100], [108], [113], [132], [133], [136]-[8]
• "Paradise Lost," [128];
  • four schemes for, [129];
  • first conceived as drama, [130];
  • manner of composition, [147];
  • dates of, [147]-[150];
  • critique of, [152]-[172];
  • successive publications of, [176]
• "Paradise Regained," [177];
  • criticism on, [178]-[180]
• "Passion of Christ," [32]
• Pattison, Mark, on "Lycidas," [51];
  • on Milton's political career, [68];
  • on fanaticism of Commonwealth, [133];
  • on "Paradise Lost," [159];
  • on Milton's diction, [165]
• "Penseroso, Il," [40], [49]
• Pepys, S., on Restoration, [135], [138]
• Petty France, Westminster, Milton's home in, [117]
• Philaras, Milton's Greek friend, [114]
• Phillips, E., Milton's brother-in-law, [22], [65]
• Phillips, Edward, Milton's nephew, on Milton's ancestry, [14];
  • educated by his uncle, [65];
  • his account of Milton's separation from his first wife, [87];
  • of their reconciliation, [96];
  • becomes a Royalist, [129];
  • his attention to his uncle, [145];
  • on "Paradise Lost," [176];
  • on "Paradise Regained," [177]
• "Pilot of the Galilean Lake," [49]
• "Plymouth Brethren," resemblance of Milton's views to, [133]
• Powell, Mary, Milton marries, [86];
  • she leaves him, [87];
  • returns to him, [95];
  • her family live with Milton, [98];
  • her death, [116];
  • probable bad influence on her daughters, [163]
• "Prelatical Episcopacy" pamphlet, [72]
• "Pro Populo" pamphlet, [113]
• Ptolemaic system followed by Milton in "Paradise Lost," [157]
• Puckering, Sir H., gave Milton's MSS. to the University of Cambridge, [129]

R.

• Reading, surrender of to Parliamentary army, [91]
• "Ready way to establish a Commonwealth," [136]
• "Reason of Church Government" pamphlet, [72]
• "Reformation touching Church Discipline" pamphlet, [72]
• Restoration, consequences to Milton of the, [138]-[141]
• Richardson, J., on Milton's later life, [186]
• Rome, Milton in, [62]
• Rump, burning of the, [136]

S.

• St. Bride's Churchyard, Milton lodges in, [65]
• St. Giles's Cripplegate, Milton's grave in, [194]
• St. Paul's school, Milton at, [19]
• Salmasius, Claudius, his character, [109];
  • author of "Defensio Regia," [111];
  • Milton's controversy with, [112], [114]
• Samson, Vondel's, [170]
• "Samson Agonistes," [141], [178];
  • criticism on, [180]-[185]
• Satan, the hero of "Paradise Lost," [155]
• Shakespeare, [2];
  • Milton's panegyric on, [33], [38];
  • his view of tragedy compared with Milton's, [183]
• Shelley, on poetical inspiration, [41];
  • his estimate of Milton, [156];
  • on tragedy and comedy, [183];
  • quoted, [17], [197]
• Skinner, Cyriack, his loan to Milton, [138]
• Skinner, David, endeavours to publish "State Letters" and
  • "Treatise on Christian Doctrine," [191]
• Sonnet, "When the assault was intended to the City," [84];
  • from the Italian, [85];
  • on Vaudois Protestants, [124];
  • to his second wife, [125];
  • to Henry Lawrence, [126];
  • inscribed on a window-pane, [175]
• "State Letters," [191]
• Stationers' Company and Milton, [92]
• Symmons, S., publisher of "Paradise Lost," [149], [175]
• Symonds, Mr. J.A., on metre of "Paradise Lost," [166]

T.

• Tennyson, on Milton's Eden, [162]
• "Tenure of Kings and Magistrates," [100]
• "Tina," by Antonio Malatesti, [68]
• Tomkyns, Thomas, licenses "Paradise Lost," [151];
  • and the poems, [178]
• Tovey, Nathaniel, Milton's college tutor, [25]
• Treatise on Christian Doctrine, [190]

U.

• Ulster Protestants, Milton's subscription for, [83]

V.

• Vernon Lee, [57]
• Vondel, Milton's indebtedness to, [170]

W.

• Wakefield, E.G., on the champions of great causes, [135]
• Wood, Anthony, on Restoration, [133]
• Woodcock, Katherine, Milton's second wife, her marriage and death, [125]
• Wootton, Sir H., on "Comus," [47]
• Wordsworth, quoted, [27], [65];
  • Milton contrasted with, [41];
  • on "Paradise Regained," [178]
• Wright, Dr., reminiscence of his visit to Milton, [186]

Y.

• Young, Thomas, Milton's private tutor, [19]

---

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

BY

JOHN P. ANDERSON

(British Museum).

---

• [WORKS].
• [POETICAL WORKS].
• [PROSE WORKS].
• [SINGLE WORKS].
• [SELECTIONS].
• [APPENDIX]—
  • Biography, Criticism, etc.
  • Magazine Articles, etc.
• [CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS].

---

I. WORKS.

The Works of John Milton in verse and prose, printed from the original editions, with a life of the author by J. Mitford. 8 vols. London, 1851, 8vo.

II. POETICAL WORKS.

Poems of Mr. John Milton, both English and Latin, compos'd at several times. Printed by his true copies. London [January 2], 1645, 8vo.

First collective edition, and the first work bearing Milton's name.

—— Poems, etc., upon several occasions, both English and Latin, etc., composed at several times. With a small Tractate of Education to Mr. Hartlib. 2 parts. London, 1673, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. Containing Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, and his poems on several occasions. Together with explanatory notes on each book of the Paradise Lost [by P.H., i.e., Patrick Hume]. 5 parts. London, 1695, folio.

—— The Poetical Remains of Mr Milton, etc. By C. Gildon. London, 1698, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. 2 vols. London, 1707, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of Mr. John Milton. (Notes upon the twelve books of Paradise Lost, by Mr. Addison. A small Tractate of Education to Mr. Hartlib.) 2 vols. London, 1720, 4to.

—— Another edition. 2 vols. London, 1721, 12mo.

—— Another edition. 2 vols. London, 1727, 8vo.

—— Another edition. 2 vols. London, 1730, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. 2 vols. London, 1731, 8vo.

—— Another edition. 4 vols. London, 1746, 12mo.

—— Another edition, with notes of various authors, by Thomas Newton, bishop of Bristol. 3 vols. London, 1749-52, 4to.

—— The Poetical Works of Milton, etc. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1762, 8vo.

—— Another edition, by Newton. 4 vols. London, 1763, 8vo.

—— Another edition. 4 vols. London, 1766, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of Milton. With prefatory characters of the several pieces; the life of Milton, a glossary, etc. Edinburgh, 1767, 8vo.

—— Another edition. 4 vols, London, 1770, 8vo.

—— Another edition. 4 vols. London, 1773, 8vo.

—— Poems on several occasions. (British Poets, vol. iv.) Edinburgh, 1773, 8vo.

—— Another edition. 3 vols. London, 1775, 4to.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. From the text of Dr. Newton. (Bell's Poets of Great Britain, vols. 35-38.) Edinburgh, 1776, 12mo.

—— The Poems of Milton. (Johnson's Works of the English Poets, vols. 3-5.) London, 1779, 8vo.

—— Poems upon several occasions, English, Italian, and Latin, with translations: viz., Lycidas, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Arcades, Comus, Odes, Sonnets, Miscellanies, English Psalms, Elegiarum Liber, Epigrammatum Liber, Sylvarum Liber. With notes critical and explanatory, and other illustrations, by T. Warton. London, 1785, 8vo.

—— Second edition, with many alterations, and large additions. London, 1791, 8vo.

—— Poems. Another edition. (Johnson's Works of the English Poets, vols. 10-12.) London, 1790, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. To which is prefixed the life of the author. (Anderson's Poets of Great Britain, vol. v.) Edinburgh, 1792, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. With a life of the author, by W. Hayley [and engravings after Westall]. 3 vols. London, 1794-97, folio.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton, from the text of Dr. Newton. With the life of the author, and a critique on Paradise Lost, by J. Addison. Cooke's edition. Embellished with engravings. 2 vols. London, 1795-96, 12mo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. With the principal notes of various commentators. To which are added illustrations, with some account of the life of Milton. By H.J. Todd. (Mr. Addison's criticism on the Paradise Lost. Dr. Johnson's Remarks on Milton's Versification. Dr. C. Burney's observations on the Greek verses of Milton.) 6 vols. London, 1801, 8vo.

—— Second edition, with considerable additions, and with a verbal index to the whole of Milton's poetry, etc. 7 vols. London, 1809, 8vo.

—— Third edition, with other illustrations, etc. 6 vols. London, 1826, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. With a preface, biographical and critical, by J. Aikin. (Life of Milton by Dr. Johnson.) 3 vols. London, 1805, 8vo.

Vols. xii.-xv. of an edition of "The Works of the English Poets. With preface by Dr. Johnson."

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. With a preface, biographical and critical, by S. Johnson. Re-edited, with new biographical and critical matter, by J. Aikin, M.D. 3 vols. London, 1806, 12mo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. 2 vols. London, 1806, 16mo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. 4 vols. (Park's Works of the British Poets, vols. i.-iii.) London, 1808, 16mo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton, with the life of the author. By S. Johnson. 3 vols. London, 1809, 16mo.

—— Cowper's Milton. [Edited, with a life of Milton, by W. Hayley. Together with "Adam: a sacred drama, translated from the Italian of G.B. Andreini," by W. Cowper and W. Hayley.] 4 vols. Chichester, 1810, 8vo.

The British Museum copy contains MS. notes by J. Mitford.

—— The Poems of John Milton. (Chalmers' Works of the English Poets, vol. vii.) London, 1810, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. With the life of the author, by S. Johnson. (Select British Poets.) London, 1810, 8vo.

—— Poems on several occasions. Lycidas, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso. London, 1817, 12mo.

—— Another edition, with Fenton's life and Dr. Johnson's criticism. 2 vols. London, 1817, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton; to which is prefixed the life of the author. London, 1818, 12mo.

This forms part of "Walker's British Classics."

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton, with a life of the author, by E. Sanford. (Works of the British Poets, vols. vii., viii.) 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1819, 12mo.

—— The Poems of John Milton. (British Poets, vols. xvi.-xviii.) Chiswick, 1822, 12mo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton, with notes of various authors, principally from the editions of T. Newton, C. Dunster, and T. Warton; to which is prefixed Newton's life of Milton. By E. Hawkins. 4 vols. Oxford, 1824, 8vo.

—— Paradise Lost. A new edition, with notes, critical and explanatory, by J.D. Williams. (Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, and Poems.) 2 vols. London, 1824, 12mo.

The British Museum copy contains copious MS. notes by the editor.

—— Poetical Works, with Cowper's Translations of the Latin and Italian poems, and life of Milton by his nephew, E. Philips, etc. 3 vols. London, 1826, 8vo.

—— Poems on several occasions. [With Westall's plates.] London, 1827, 16mo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. [Edited by J. Mitford, with life of Milton by the editor.] 3 vols. London, 1832, 8vo.

Part of the "Aldine Edition of the British Poets."

—— Another edition. 3 vols. London, 1866, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. Printed from the text of Todd and others. A new edition. With the poet's life by E. Philips. Leipzig, 1834, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. Edited by Sir Egerton Brydges, Bart. [With a life of Milton, by Sir E.B.] 6 vols. London, 1835, 8vo.

—— The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton: with explanatory notes and a life of the author, by the Rev. H. Stebbing. To which is prefixed Dr. Channing's essay on the poetical genius of Milton. London, 1839, 12mo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton, J. Thomson, and E. Young. Edited by H.F. Cary. With a biographical notice of each author. 3 pts. London, 1841, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton, with a memoir and critical remarks on his genius and writings, by J. Montgomery, and one hundred and twenty engravings from drawings by W. Harvey. 2 vols. London, 1843, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton: with life and notes. Edinburgh [1848], 24mo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. (Tauchnitz Collection of British Authors, vol. 194.) Leipzig, 1850, 8vo.

—— Poetical Works. (Cabinet Edition of the British Poets, vol. i.) London, 1851, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton, with notes and a life by the Rev. H. Stebbing, etc. London, 1851, 12mo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. (Universal Library. Poetry, vol. i.) London, 1853, 8vo.

—— Milton's Poetical Works. With life, critical dissertation, and notes by G. Gilfillan. 2 vols. Edinburgh, 1853, 8vo.

One of a series entitled, "Library Edition of the British Poets."

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton, with life. London, 1853, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton: with a life of the author, preliminary dissertations on each poem, notes critical and explanatory, and a verbal index. Edited by C.D. Cleveland. Philadelphia, 1853, 12mo.

—— The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton, with life. Edinburgh [1855], 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. With a life by J. Mitford. 3 vols. Boston [U.S.], 1856, 8vo.

—— The Poems of John Milton, with notes by T. Keightley. 2 vols. London, 1859, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton, with a memoir and critical remarks on his genius and writings, by J. Montgomery, and one hundred and twenty engravings. New edition, etc. 2 vols. (Bohn's Illustrated Library.) London, 1861, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. With illustrations by C.H. Corbould and J. Gilbert. London, 1864, 8vo.

—— English Poems by John Milton. Edited, with life, introduction, and selected notes, by R.C. Browne. (Clarendon Press Series.) 2 vols. Oxford, 1870, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. Illustrated by F. Gilbert. [With life of Milton.] London, 1870, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. Edited, with a critical memoir, by W.M. Rossetti. Illustrated by T. Seccombe. London [1871], 8vo.

Reprinted in 1880 and 1881.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. With life of the author, and an appendix containing Addison's Critique upon the Paradise Lost, and Dr. Channing's Essay on the poetical genius of Milton. With illustrations. London [1872], 8vo.

—— The Complete Poetical Works of Milton and Young. London [1872], 8vo.

Part of "Blackwood's Universal Library of Standard Authors."

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. Reprinted from the Chandos Poets. With memoir, explanatory notes, etc. (Chandos Classics.) London [1872], 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton, printed from the original editions, with a life of the author by A. Chalmers. London [1873], 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. With life, critical dissertation, and explanatory notes [by G. Gilfillan], The text edited by C.C. Clarke. 2 vols. London [1874], 8vo.

Part of "Cassell's Library Edition of British Poets."

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton: edited, with introductions, notes, and an essay on Milton's English, by D. Masson. [With portraits.] 3 vols. London, 1874, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. With introductions and notes by D. Masson. 2 vols. London, 1874, 8vo.

Forming part of the "Golden Treasury Series."

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. Edited by Sir E. Brydges, Bart. Illustrated. A new edition. London [1876], 8vo.

—— The Globe edition. The Poetical Works of John Milton. With introductions by D. Masson. London, 1877, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. London [1878], 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. Edited, with Notes, explanatory and philological, by J. Bradshaw. 2 vols. London, 1878, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of Milton and Marvell. With a memoir of each [that of Milton by D. Masson. With notes to the poems of Milton by J. Mitford]. 4 vols. in 2. Boston, 1878, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. 2 vols. London, 1880, 16mo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. A new edition revised from the text of T. Newton [by T.A.W. Buckley]. London [1880], 8vo.

Part of the "Excelsior Series."

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. With life, etc. Edinburgh [1881], 8vo.

Part of "The Landscape Series of Poets."

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton, printed from the original editions. With a life of the author by A. Chalmers. With twelve illustrations by R. Westall. London, 1881, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton; edited, with memoir, introductions, notes, and an essay on Milton's English and Versification, by D. Masson. 3 vols. London, 1882, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. With biographical notice. New York [1884], 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton, edited by J. Bradshaw. Second edition. 2 vols. London, 1885, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. 2 vols. London [1886], 24mo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton, with biographical notice by J. Bradshaw. London, 1887, 12mo.

One of the "Canterbury Poets" Series.

—— Poetical Works. 2 vols. London, 1887, 8vo.

—— The Poetical Works of John Milton. Edited by J. Bradshaw. Paradise Regained. Minor Poems. London, 1888, 8vo.

One of the "Canterbury Poets" Series.

---

Paradise Lost, etc. The life of John Milton. [By E. Fenton.] Paradise Regained.—Poems upon several occasions.—Sonnets.—Of Education. 2 vols. London, 1751, 12mo.

The copy in the British Museum Library contains MS. Notes by C. Lamb.

Milton's Italian Poems, translated and addressed to a gentleman of Italy. By Dr. Langhorne. London, 1776, 4to.

Milton's Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. With explanatory notes by J. Edmondston. London, 1854, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1855, 16mo.

Paradise Lost, etc. (Paradise Regained: and other Poems.—The Life of John Milton [by E. Fenton.]) 2 vols. London, 1855, 32mo.

Paradise Regained. To which is added Samson Agonistes: and poems upon several occasions. A new edition. By T. Newton. London, 1777, 4to.

Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, and the Minor English Poems. London, 1886, 16mo.

Part of the "Religious Tract Society Library."

Latin and Italian poems of Milton translated into English verse, and a fragment of a commentary on Paradise Lost, by the late W. Cowper, with a preface and notes by the Editor (W. Hayley), and notes of various authors. Chichester, 1808, 4to.

The Latin and Italian Poems of Milton. Translated into English verse by J.G. Strutt. London, 1814, 8vo.

Milton's Samson Agonistes and Lycidas. With illustrative notes by J. Hunter. London, 1870, 8vo.

Milton's Earlier Poems, including the translations by William Cowper of those written in Latin and Italian. (Cassell's National Library, vol. xxxiv.) London, 1886, 8vo.

Miscellaneous Poems, Sonnets, and Psalms, etc. London [1886], 8vo.

Part of "Ward, Lock, & Co.'s Popular Library of Literary Treasures."

The Minor Poems of John Milton, Edited, with notes, by W.J. Rolfe. New York, 1887, 8vo.

The Sonnets of John Milton. Edited by Mark Pattison. London, 1883, 8vo.

Part of the "Parchment Library."

L'Allegro, Il Penseroso [revised by C. Jennens], ed il Moderato [by C. Jennens]. Set to musick by Mr. Handel. London, 1740, 4to.

The words only.

—— Another edition. London, 1740, 4to.

—— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso as set to musick. [London, 1750], 8vo.

—— L'Allegro ed Il Penseroso. [Arranged for music.] [London, 1779], 8vo.

L'Allegro ed Il Penseroso. And a song for St. Cecilia's day, by Dryden. Set to musick by G.F. Handel. London, 1754, 4to.

The words without the music.

L'Allegro ed Il Penseroso. Another edition. London [1754], 4to.

L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. Glasgow, 1751, 4to.

L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. With thirty illustrations designed expressly for the Art Union of London [by G. Scharf, H. O'Neil, and others]. [London], 1848, 4to.

Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, illustrated with [Thirty] Etchings on Steel by B. Foster. London, 1855, 8vo.

There is a copy in the British Museum Library which contains the autographs and photographs of George Cruikshank and his wife.

L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, illustrated by engravings on steel after designs by Birket Foster. London, 1860, 8vo.

L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and other poems. Illustrated. Boston, 1877, 16mo.

Milton's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. With notes by J. Aikin. Poona [1881], 8vo.

L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and the Hymn on the Nativity. Illustrated. London, 1885, 8vo.

Milton's Comus, L'Allegro, and Il Penseroso. With numerous illustrative notes adapted for use in training colleges. By John Hunter. London, 1864, 12mo.

—— Revised edition. London [1874], 8vo.

Comus, Lycidas, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and selected Sonnets. With notes by H.R. Huckin. London, 1871, 16mo.

Milton's Arcades and Sonnets. With notes by J. Hunter. London, 1880, 12mo.

The Lycidas and Epitaphium Damonis. Edited, with notes and introduction (including a reprint of the rare Latin version of the Lycidas, by W. Hogg, 1694), by C.S. Jarram. London, 1874, 8vo.

—— Second edition, revised. London, 1881, 8vo.

III. PROSE WORKS.

The Works of Mr. John Milton. [In English Prose.] [London], 1697, fol.

Not mentioned by Lowndes or Watt, but a copy is in the British Museum.

A Complete Collection of the Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton, both English and Latin. With some papers never before publish'd. To which is prefixed the life of the author, etc. [By J. Toland]. 3 vols. Amsterdam [London], 1698, fol.

A Complete Collection of Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton, correctly printed from the original editions, with an account of the life and writings of the author (by T. Birch), containing several original papers of his never before published. 2 vols. London, 1738, fol.

The Works of John Milton, Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous. Now more correctly printed from the originals than in any former edition, and many passages restored which have been hitherto omitted. To which is prefixed an account of his life and writings (by T. Birch). (Edited by T. Birch and R. Barron?). London, 1753, 8vo.

The Prose Works of John Milton; with a life of the author, interspersed with translations and critical remarks, by C. Symmons. 7 vols. London, 1806, 8vo.

The Prose Works of John Milton. With an introductory review by R. Fletcher. London, 1833, 8vo.

Select Prose Works of Milton. Account of his studies. Apology for his early life and writings. Tractate on Education. Areopagitica. Tenure of Kings. Eikonoclastes. Divisions of the Commonwealth. Delineation of a Commonwealth. Mode of establishing a Commonwealth. Familiar Letters. With a preliminary discourse and notes by J.A. St. John. (Masterpieces of English Prose Literature.) 2 vols. London, 1836, 8vo.

Extracts from the Prose Works of John Milton, containing the whole of his writings on the church question. Now first published separately. Edinburgh, 1836, 12mo.

The Prose Works of John Milton. With a biographical introduction by R.W. Griswold. 2 vols. New York, 1847, 8vo.

The Prose Works of John Milton, with a preface, preliminary remarks, and notes by J.A. St. John. 5 vols. (Bohn's Standard Library.) London, 1848-53, 8vo.

Areopagitica, Letter on Education, Sonnets and Psalms. (Cassell's National Library, vol. cxxi.) London, 1888, 8vo.

IV. SINGLE WORKS.

Accedence commenc't Grammar, supply'd with sufficient rules, for the use of such as are desirous to attain the Latin tongue with little teaching and their own industry. London, 1669, 12mo.

An account of an original autograph sonnet by John Milton, contained in a copy of Mel Heliconium written by Alexander Rosse, 1642, etc. London, 1859, 8vo.

L'Allegro, illustrated by the Etching Club. London, 1849, fol.

—— L'Allegro. [With illustrations engraved by W.J. Linton.] London, 1859, 8vo.

—— L'Allegro. [With illustrations.] London [1875], 8vo.

Forming part of "The Choice Series."

—— Milton's L'Allegro. Edited, with interpretation, notes, and derivations, by F. Main. London, 1877, 8vo.

Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's defence [i.e., the defence of J. Hall, Bishop of Norwich?] against Smectymnuus. London, 1641, 4to.

Apographum literarum serenissimi protectoris, etc. [Leyden?] 1656, 4to.

An apology against a Pamphlet [by J. Hall?] called A Modest Confutation of the Animadversions upon the Remonstrant against Smectymnuus. London, 1641, 4to.

Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing, to the Parliament of England. London, 1644, 4to.

—— Areopagitica Another edition. With a preface by another hand. London, 1738, 8vo.

—— Another edition, with prefatory remarks, copious notes, and excursive illustrations, by T. Holt White, etc. London, 1819, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1772, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1780, 12mo.

—— Another edition, edited by James Losh. London, 1791, 8vo.

—— Areopagitica. (Occasional Essays, etc.) London, 1809, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London [1834], 8vo.

—— Areopagitica, etc. London, 1840, 8vo.

Tracts for the People, No. 10.

—— English Reprints. John Milton. Areopagitica. Carefully edited by Edward Arber. London, 1868, 18mo.

—— English Reprints. John Milton. Areopagitica. Carefully edited by Edward Arber. London, 1869, 8vo.

—— A Modern Version of Milton's Areopagitica: with notes, appendix, and tables. By S. Lobb. Calcutta, 1872, 12mo.

—— Milton, Areopagitica. Edited, with introduction and notes, by J.W. Hales. Oxford, 1874, 8vo.

—— Milton's Areopagitica. (Morley's Universal Library, vol. 43.) London, 1886, 8vo.

Autobiography of John Milton: or Milton's Life in his own words. Edited by J.J.G. Graham. London, 1872, 8vo.

A brief history of Moscovia; and other less known countries lying eastward of Russia as far as Cathay. Gather'd from the writings of several eye-witnesses. London, 1682, 8vo.

The Cabinet-Council; containing the Chief Arts of Empire, and Mysteries of State discabineted. By Sir Walter Raleigh, published by John Milton. London, 1658, 8vo.

—— Another edition. The Arts of Empire and Mysteries of State discabineted. By Sir Walter Raleigh, published by John Milton. London, 1692, 8vo.

Colasterion, a reply to a nameles [sic] answer against "The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce." By the former author, J[ohn] M[ilton]. [London] 1645, 4to.

A Common-Place Book of John Milton, and a Latin essay and Latin verses presumed to be by Milton. Edited from the original MSS. in the possession of Sir F.W. Graham, Bart., by A.J. Horwood. London, 1876, 4to.

Printed for the Camden Society.

—— Revised edition. London, 1877, 4to.

A Maske [Comus] presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634: on Michaelmasse night, before the right honorable John, Earle of Bridgewater, Viscount Brackly, Lord President of Wales. [Edited by H. Lawes.] London, 1637, 4to.

The first edition of Comus.

—— Comus: a mask, etc. Glasgow, 1747, 12mo.

—— Comus, a mask presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634, before the Earl of Bridgewater, with notes critical and explanations by various commentators, and with preliminary illustrations; to which is added a copy of the mask from a manuscript belonging to his Grace the Duke of Bridgewater; by H.J. Todd. Canterbury, 1798, 8vo.

—— Comus, a mask; presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634. To which are added, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso; and Mr. Warton's account of the origin of Comus. London, 1799, 8vo.

—— Comus: a mask. With annotations. London, 1808, 8vo.

—— Comus: a masque. (Cumberland's British Theatre, vol. 32.) London [1829], 12mo.

—— Comus. A mask with thirty illustrations by Pickersgill, B. Foster, H. Weir, etc. London, 1858, 4to.

—— Milton's Comus. Published under the direction of the Committee appointed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. London [1860], 12mo.

—— Comus: a mask. With explanatory notes. Published under the direction of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. London [1861], 12mo.

—— Milton's Comus. With notes [by W. Wallace]. London, 1871, 16mo.

—— The Mask of Comus. Edited, with copious notes, by H.B. Sprague. New York, 1876, 8vo.

—— Milton's "Comus" annotated, with a glossary and notes. With three introductory essays upon the masque proper, and upon the origin and history of the poem. By B.M. Ranking and D.F. Ranking. London, 1878, 8vo.

—— Milton's Comus, with introduction and notes. London, 1884, 8vo.

Forming part of "Chambers's Reprints of English Classics."

—— Milton's Comus. Edited, with introduction and notes, by A.M. Williams. London, 1888, 8vo.

—— —— Songs, Duets, Choruses, etc., in Milton's Comus: a masque in two acts, with additions from the author's poem "L'Allegro," and from Dryden's opera of "King Arthur." London [1842], 8vo.

Considerations touching the likeliest means to remove Hirelings out of the Church. Wherein is also discourc'd of Tithes, Church-Fees, Church-Revenues, and whether any maintenance of ministers can be settl'd by law. The author J. M[ilton]. London, 1659, 12mo.

—— Another edition. London, 1717, 12mo.

Another edition. London, 1723, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London [1834], 8vo.

A Declaration, or Letters Patents of the Election of this present King of Poland, John the Third. Translated [by John Milton]. London, 1674, 4to.

The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce restor'd to the good of both sexes from the Bondage of Canon Law and other mistakes to Christian freedom, guided by the rule of charity, etc. London, 1643, 4to.

—— The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. Now the second time revis'd and much augmented. London, 1644, 4to.

—— Another edition. London, 1645, 4to.

Eikonoklastes, in answer to a book intitl'd Eikon Basilike, the Portrature of his Sacred Majesty in his solitudes and sufferings. [By J. Gauden, Bishop of Exeter?] The author J[ohn] M[ilton]. London, 1649, 4to.

—— Eikonoklastes. Published now the second time, and much enlarg'd. London, 1650, 4to.

—— Eikonoklastes in answer to a book entitled Eikon Basilike, the Portraiture of his sacred majesty King Charles the first in his solitudes and sufferings. Amsterdam, 1690, 8vo.

—— Eikonoklastes: in answer to a book intitled Eikon Basilikon, the portraiture of his sacred majesty in his solitudes and sufferings. Now first published from the author's second edition, printed in 1650; with many enlargements, by R. Baron. With a preface shewing the transcendent excellency of Milton's prose works. To which is added an original Letter [from J. Wall] to Milton, never before published. London, 1756, 4to.

—— A new edition, corrected by the late Reverend R. Baron. London, 1770, 8vo.

The History of Britain, that part especially now call'd England, from the first traditional beginning, continu'd to the Norman Conquest. Collected out of the antientest and best authors by John Milton. London, 1670, 4to.

The History of Britain. Another edition. London, 1677, 8vo.

—— Second edition. London, 1678, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1695, 8vo.

Il Penseroso. With designs by J.E.G.; etched by J.E.G. and H.P.G. on India paper. London, 1844, folio.

—— Milton. Il Penseroso. (Clarendon Press Series.) Oxford, 1874, 8vo.

Joannis Miltoni Angli, Artis Logicæ Plenior Institutio, ad Petri Rami Methodum concinnata. Adjecta est Praxis Analytica and P. Rami vita. Londini, 1672, 12mo.

Joannis Miltoni Angli de Doctrina Christiana libri duo posthumi, quos ex schedis manuscriptis deprompsit, et typis mandari primus curavit C.R. Sumner. Cantabrigiæ, 1825, 4to.

—— Another edition. Brunsvigae, 1827, 8vo.

—— A Treatise of Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone. Translated from the original by C.R. Sumner. Cambridge, 1825, 4to.

—— John Milton's last thoughts on the Trinity. Extracted from his Treatise on Christian Doctrine. London, 1828, 12mo.

—— New edition. London, 1859, 8vo.

Joannis Miltonii Angli Epistolarum familiarium liber unus: quibus accesserunt ejusdem jam olim in collegio adolescentis prolusiones quædam oratoriæ. Londini, 1674, 12mo.

—— Milton's familiar letters. Translated from the Latin, with notes, by J. Hall. Philadelphia, 1829, 8vo.

Joannis Miltoni Angli pro populo Anglicano defensio, contra Claudii Anonymi, aliàs Salmasii, defensionem regiam. Cum indice. Londini, 1651, 12mo.

—— Another edition. Londini, 1651, 4to.

—— Another edition. Londini, 1651, 12mo.

—— Editio emendatior. Londini, 1651, folio.

—— Another edition. Londini, 1652, 12mo.

—— Editio correctior et auctior, ab autore denuo recognita. Londini, 1658, 8vo.

—— A Defense of the People of England in answer to Salmasius's defence of the king. [Translated from the Latin by Mr. Washington, of the Temple.] [London?] 1692, 8vo.

Joannis Miltoni pro populo Anglicano defensio secunda. Contra infamem libellum anonymum [by P. Du Moulin] cui titulus, Regii sanguinis clamor ad cœlum adversus parricidas Anglicanos. Londini, 1654, 8vo.

—— Another edition. [With preface by G. Crantzius.] 2 parts. Hagæ Comitum, 1654, 12mo.

—— Milton's Second Defence of the People of England [translated by Archdeacon Wrangham]. London, 1816, 8vo.

Included in Scraps by the Rev. Francis Wrangham.

Joanni Miltoni pro se defensio contra Alexandrum Morum Ecclesiastes [or rather P. Du Moulin] Libelli famosi, cui titulus, Regii sanguinis clamor ad cœlum adversus Parricidas Anglicanos, authorem recte dictum. Londini, 1655, 8vo.

The judgement of Martin Bucer concerning divorce, now Englisht [by John Milton]. Wherein a late book [by John Milton] restoring the doctrine and discipline of divorce is heer confirm'd, etc. London, 1644, 4to.

A Letter written to a Gentleman in the Country, touching the dissolution of the late Parliament, and the reasons thereof. [By John Milton, signed N. Ll.] London [May 26], 1653, 4to.

Literæ ab Olivario protectore ad sacram regiam majestem Sueciæ. [Leyden?] 1656, 4to.

Literæ Pseudo-Senatus Anglicani, Cromwellii, reliquorumque Perduellium nomine ac jussu conscriptæ a Joanne Miltono. [London] 1676, 12mo.

—— Another edition. Literæ nomine Senatus Anglicani Cromwellii Richardique ad diversos in Europa principes et Respublicas exaratæ a Joanne Miltono, quas nunc primum in Germania recudi fecit J.G. Pritius. Lipsiæ Francofurti, 1690, 12mo.

—— Milton's Republican-Letters, or a collection of such as were written by Comand of the late Commonwealth of England, etc. [Amsterdam?] 1682, 4to.

—— Letters of State written by Mr. John Milton to most of the Sovereign princes and Republicks of Europe, from the year 1649 till 1659. To which is added an Account of his Life [by E. Phillips], together with several of his poems, etc. London, 1694, 12mo.

The "several poems" consist of four sonnets only.

—— Oliver Cromwell's Letters to Foreign Princes and States for strengthening and preserving the Protestant Religion, etc. [Translated from the Latin of John Milton.] London, 1700, 4to.

Lycidas. [First edition.] (Justa Edouardo King naufrago, ab Amicis mœrentibus, etc.) 2 pts. Cantabrigiæ, 1638, 4to.

Part II., "Obsequies to the Memorie of Mr. Edward King," has a distinct title-page and pagination, and contains the first edition of Lycidas.

—— Milton's Lycidas, with notes, critical, explanatory, and grammatical, by a Graduate. Melbourne, 1869, 8vo.

—— Lycidas. Reprinted from the first edition of 1638, and collated with the autograph copy in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. With a version in Latin hexameters. By F.A. Paley. London, 1874, 8vo.

—— Milton. Lycidas. With introduction and notes. By T.D. Hall. Manchester [1876], 8vo.

—— Second edition. London [1880], 8vo.

—— Milton's Lycidas. Edited, with interpretation and notes, by F. Main, etc. London, 1876, 8vo.

—— Second edition. London, 1876, 8vo.

Mr. John Milton's character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines, in 1641. Omitted in his other works, and never printed. [Edited by J. Tyrrell? or by Arthur, Earl of Anglesey?] London, 1681, 4to.

Milton's Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity. Illustrated by eminent artists. London, 1868, 8vo.

Mr. John Milton's Satyre against hypocrites. Written whilst he was Latin secretary to Oliver Cromwell. [By John Phillips?] London, 1710, 8vo.

Milton's unpublished Poem, corrected by J.E. Wall from a defective copy found by Mr. Morley in the British Museum. Epitaph on a Rose Tree confined in a Garden Tub. [London, 1873?] s. sh. 8vo.

The original is in the King's Library, British Museum, and is written on the last leaf of a copy of "Poems of Mr. John Milton," 1646.

Observations upon the Articles of Peace with the Irish Rebels, on the Letter of Ormond to Col. Jones, and the Representation of the Presbytery at Belfast. (Articles of Peace made and concluded with the Irish Rebels, by James Earle of Ormond, etc.) London, 1649, 4to.

Of Education. To Master S. Hartlib. [London, 1644] 4to.

—— Milton's Tractate on Education. A facsimile reprint from the edition of 1673. Edited by Oscar Browning. (Pitt Press Series.) Cambridge, 1883, 8vo.

Original Letters and Papers of State, addressed to Oliver Cromwell, concerning the affairs of Great Britain from 1649 to 1658, found among the political collections of John Milton, published from the originals. By John Nickolls. London, 1743, folio.

Of Prelatical Episcopacy, and whether it may be deduc'd from the Apostolical times by vertue of those Testimonies which are alledg'd to that purpose in some late Treatises of James, Archbishop of Armagh. London, 1641, 4to.

Of Reformation touching Church-Discipline in England: and the causes that hitherto have hindred it. London, 1641, 4to.

Of True Religion, Hæresie, Schism, Toleration, and what best means may be used against the growth of Popery. The author J[ohn] M[ilton]. London, 1673, 4to.

—— New edition, with preface by Bp. Burgess. London, 1826, 8vo.

Paradise Lost. A poem written in ten books by John Milton. Licensed and entred according to order. London, 1667, 4to.

First edition. Without argument or preface. There are nine distinct variations of the title and preliminary pages.

—— Paradise Lost. A poem in ten books. The author J. Milton. (The argument. The verse.) London, 1668, 4to.

The same edition as the preceding, with a new title-page, and with the addition of the argument.

—— Paradise Lost. A poem in ten books. The author John Milton. London, 1669, 4to.

The same edition as the two preceding, with a new title-page and some slight alterations in the text. There is another copy in the British Museum which differs slightly. It has also the title-page dated 1668, and Marvell's commendatory verses in MS.

—— Paradise Lost. A poem, in twelve books. The author John Milton. Second edition, revised and augmented by the same author. London, 1674, 8vo.

To this edition are prefixed the commendatory verses of Barrow and Marvell. In another copy in the British Museum conjectural emendations from the quarto edition, 1749, and the octavo edition, 1674, corrected by the quarto edition, 1668, printed on two leaves, have been inserted.

—— The third edition. Revised and augmented by the same author. London, 1678, 8vo.

—— The fourth edition. Adorn'd with sculptures. London, 1688, folio.

The first illustrated edition.

—— Another edition [with cuts]. London, 1692, folio.

—— Another edition. With copious and learned notes by P[atrick] H[ume]. London, 1695, folio.

—— Seventh edition. Adorn'd with sculptures. London, 1705, 8vo.

—— Eighth edition. Adorn'd with sculptures. 2 vols. London, 1707, 8vo.

—— Ninth edition. Adorn'd with sculptures. London, 1711, 12mo.

The British Museum copy is said to be the only one on thick paper.

—— Tenth edition. With sculptures. London, 1719, 12mo.

—— Another edition. Dublin, 1724, 8vo.

—— Twelfth edition. To which is prefixed an account of his life [by E. Fenton]. London, 1725, 12mo.

—— Thirteenth edition. To which is prefixed an account of his life [by E. Fenton]. London, 1727, 8vo.

—— Fourteenth edition. To which is prefixed an account of his life [by E. Fenton]. London, 1730, 8vo.

—— New edition [with notes and proposed emendations] by R. Bentley. London, 1732, 4to.

One of the copies in the British Museum contains MS. notes by B. Stillingfleet, and another MS. notes by W. Cole. A third copy has inserted plates, a pencil sketch of Milton's house at Chalfont St. Giles, and a cutting from the Literary Gazette, May 29th, 1830, relating to Bentley.

—— Another edition. London, 1737, 8vo.

—— Another edition [with life by E. Fenton]. London, 1738, 8vo.

—— Another edition. (The life of John Milton by E. Fenton.) 2 vols. London, 1746, 1747, 12mo.

—— Another edition. Dublin, 1747, 8vo.

—— Another edition. Compared and revised by John Hawkey. Dublin, 1748, 8vo.

—— New edition. With notes of various authors, by T. Newton. (The life of Milton [by the editor]. A critique on Paradise Lost. By Mr. Addison.) 2 vols. London, 1749, 4to.

—— Another edition. According to the author's last edition, in the year 1672. Glasgow, 1750, 8vo.

—— Second edition. With notes of various authors, by T. Newton. 2 vols. London, 1750, 8vo.

—— Third edition. With notes of various authors, by T. Newton. 2 vols. London, 1754, 4to.

Paradise Lost. Another edition. With notes, etymological, critical, classical, and explanatory; collected from Dr. Bentley, Dr. Pearce, Richardson and Son, Addison, Paterson, Newton, and other authors. By J. Marchant. London, 1751, 12mo.

—— Another edition. 2 vols. London, 1752, 51, 12mo.

Vol. ii. is a duplicate of the corresponding vol. of the previous edition.

—— Another edition. [To which is prefixed the life of Milton, by E. Fenton.] London, 1753, 12mo.

—— Another edition. [With the life of Milton, by E. Fenton, and a glossary.] 2 vols. Paris, 1754, 16mo.

—— Another edition [in prose]. With historical, critical, and explanatory notes. From Raymond de St. Maur. London, 1755, 8vo.

—— Another edition. From the text of T. Newton. Birmingham, 1758, 4to.

—— Another edition. From the text of T. Newton. Birmingham, 1759, 4to.

—— Another edition. (The life of Milton [by T. Newton]). London, 1760, 12mo.

—— Another edition. [With the life of John Milton, by E. Fenton. Illustrated.] London, 1761, 8vo.

—— Sixth edition. With notes of various authors, by T. Newton. 2 vols. London, 1763, 8vo.

—— Seventh edition. With notes of various authors, by T. Newton. 2 vols. London, 1770, 8vo.

—— New edition. To which is added the life of the author, by E. Fenton. Edinburgh, 1765, 12mo.

—— New edition. To which is added historical, philosophical, and explanatory notes, translated from the French of Raymond de St. Maur. [Edited by John Wood, and preceded by a life of Milton by E. Fenton.] Edinburgh, 1765, 12mo.

—— Another edition [in prose]. With historical, philosophical, critical, and explanatory notes, from Raymond de St. Maur. Embellished with fourteen copper-plates. London, 1767, 8vo.

—— Second edition, adorned with copper-plates. London [1770], 8vo.

—— Paradise Lost, a poem. The author, John Milton. Glasgow, 1770, folio.

The copy in the British Museum was presented to George III. by the binder, J. Scott.

—— Paradise Lost. (The life of Milton, by Dr. Newton.) London, 1770, 12mo.

—— Paradise Lost, a poem in twelve books. 2 vols. Glasgow, 1771, 12mo.

—— Paradise Lost. (British Poets, vols. i.-ii.) Edinburgh, 1773, 8vo.

—— New edition. 2 vols. London, 1775, 12mo.

—— Another edition, from the text of T. Newton. London, 1777, 12mo.

—— Eighth edition, with notes of various authors, by T. Newton. 2 vols. London, 1778, 8vo.

—— Paradise Lost. (The Life of Milton, by Dr. Newton.) London, 1778, 12mo.

—— Paradise Lost. With a biographical and critical account of the author and his writings [by E. Fenton]. Kilmarnock, 1785, 12mo.

—— Another edition, illustrated with texts of Scripture by J. Gillies. [With life by E. Fenton.] London, 1788, 12mo.

—— Ninth edition, with notes of various authors, by T. Newton [and a portrait of Milton], 2 vols. London, 1790, 8vo.

—— Another edition. Printed from the first and second editions collated. The original system of orthography restored, the punctuation corrected and extended. With various readings; and notes, chiefly rythmical. By Capel Lofft. [Book i.] Bury St. Edmunds, 1792, 4to.

—— Paradise Lost. Books i.-iv. [London, 1792-95], 4to.

The British Museum copy contains the first four books only. With illustrations after Stothard, engraved by Bartolozzi. Without title-page.

—— Milton's Paradise Lost, illustrated with texts of Scripture by J. Gillies. Second edition. [With life by E. Fenton.] London, 1793, 12mo.

—— Paradise Lost; a poem, in twelve books. [With engravings.] London, 1794, 4to.

—— Milton's Paradise Lost. (The Life of John Milton [by E. Fenton]. Criticism on Paradise Lost by S. Johnson.) London, 1795, 8vo.

—— Paradise Lost. Printed from the text of Tonson's edition of 1711. With notes and the life of the author by T. Newton and others. [Edited by C.M.] 3 vols. London, 1795, 12mo.

—— Paradise Lost, with notes selected from Newton and others. With a critical dissertation on the poetical works of Milton by S. Johnson. 2 vols. London, 1796, 8vo.

—— Milton's Paradise Lost, with a life of the author [by J. Evans]. To which is prefixed the celebrated critique by S. Johnson. London, 1799, 8vo.

—— Milton's Paradise Lost. A new edition. Adorned with plates [engraved chiefly by F. Bartolozzi, from designs by W. Hamilton and H. Fuseli.] 2 vols. London, 1802, 8vo.

—— Paradise Lost, with a life of the author [by E. Fenton], and a critique on the poem [by S. Johnson]. A new edition. London, 1802, 8vo.

—— Paradise Lost. A new edition. London, 1803, 12mo.

—— Milton's Paradise Lost, illustrated with texts of Scripture, by J. Gillies. Third edition, with additions. [Life of Milton, by E. Fenton.] London, 1804, 12mo.

—— Paradise Lost. A poem. Printed from the text of Tonson's correct edition of 1711. London, 1804, 12mo.

—— Paradise Lost. Printed from the text of Tonson's edition of 1711. A new edition, with plates, etc. London, 1808, 8vo.

—— Paradise Lost, a poem, etc. (The life of Milton [by E. Fenton].) London, 1805, 12mo.

—— Paradise Lost, a poem. (The life of Milton [by E. Fenton].) London, 1812, 16mo.

—— Another edition. To which is prefixed the life of the author [by E. Fenton]. London, 1813, 12mo.

—— Paradise Lost, a poem in twelve books. [With the life of John Milton by E. Fenton, and "A critique upon the Paradise Lost" by J. Addison.] Romsey, 1816, 8vo.

—— Paradise Lost. To which are prefixed the life of the author [by E. Fenton]; and a criticism on the poem by S. Johnson. London, 1817, 8vo.

—— Paradise Lost. London, 1817, 12mo.

—— Paradise Lost. [With engravings from the designs of R. Westall.] 2 vols. London, 1817, 12mo.

—— Paradise Lost. To which is prefixed a life of the author [by E. Fenton]. London, 1818, 12mo.

—— Paradise Lost. To which is prefixed the life of the author [by E. Fenton]. London, 1820, 12mo.

—— Paradise Lost. [With a life of the author, by E. Fenton.] Boston, 1820, 12mo.

—— Paradise Lost. To which are prefixed the life of the author by E. Fenton, and a criticism of the poem by Dr. Johnson. London, 1821, 8vo.

—— Paradise Lost, etc. 2 vols. London, 1825, 12mo.

—— The Paradise Lost of Milton, with illustrations designed and engraved by J. Martin. 2 vols. London, 1827, folio.

—— Paradise Lost, etc. [With the life of J. Milton, by E. Fenton.] London [1830], 16mo.

—— Paradise Lost. With a memoir of the author [by E. Fenton]. New edition. London, 1833, 8vo.

—— Paradise Lost: with copious notes, also a memoir of his life by J. Prendeville. London, 1840, 8vo.

—— [Paradise Lost. Edited by A.J. Ellis? Phonetically printed.] [London], 1846, 16mo.

—— The Paradise Lost, with notes explanatory and critical. Edited by J.R. Boyd. New York, 1851, 12mo.

—— Milton's Paradise Lost, with notes, critical and explanatory, original and selected, by J.R. Major. London, 1853, 8vo.

—— Milton's Paradise Lost. Published under the direction of the Committee of General Literature and Education [appointed by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge]. London [1859], 8vo.

—— Milton's Paradise Lost. In twelve books. London, 1861, 16mo.

One of "Bell & Daldy's Pocket Volumes."

—— Paradise Lost. To which is prefixed a life of the author, and Dr. Channing's Essay on the poetical genius of Milton. London, 1862, 12mo.

—— Milton's Paradise Lost. Illustrated by Gustave Doré. Edited, with notes and a life of Milton, by R. Vaughan. London [1866], folio.

A re-issue appeared in 1871-72.

—— Paradise Lost, in ten books. The text exactly reproduced from the first edition of 1667. With an appendix containing the additions made in later issues and a monograph on the original publication of the poem. [By R.H.S., i.e., R.H. Shepherd?] London, 1873, 4to.

—— Paradise Lost, as originally published, being a fac-simile of the first edition. With an introduction by D. Masson. London, 1877 [1876], 4to.

—— Paradise Lost. Illustrated by thirty-eight designs in outline by F. Thrupp. [Containing only fragments of the text.] London, 1879, obl. folio.

—— Milton's Paradise Lost. Illustrated by Gustave Doré. Edited, with notes and a life of Milton, by R. Vaughan. London, 1882, 4to.

Re-issued in 1888.

—— Paradise Lost. The text emended, with notes and preface by M. Hull. London, 1884, 8vo.

—— Paradise Lost. London, 1887, 16 mo.

Part of "Routledge's Pocket Library."

—— Paradise Lost. (Cassell's National Library, vols. 162, 163.) London, 1889, 8vo.

—— —— The Story of our first Parents; selected from Milton's Paradise Lost: for the use of young persons. By Mrs. Siddons. London, 1822, 8vo.

Paradise Regain'd. A Poem in four books. To which is added Samson Agonistes. The author, J. Milton. 2 pts. London, 1671, 8vo.

—— Paradise Regain'd. To which is added Samson Agonistes. London, 1680, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1688, folio.

—— Paradise Regained. Samson Agonistes, and the smaller poems. Sixth edition. London, 1695, folio.

—— Paradise Regain'd. To which is added Samson Agonistes, and poems upon several occasions, compos'd at several times. Fourth edition. London, 1705, 8vo.

—— Paradise Regain'd. To which is added Samson Agonistes, etc. The fifth edition. London, 1707, 8vo.

—— Paradise Regain'd. To which is added Samson Agonistes, etc. Fifth edition. Adorned with cuts. London, 1713, 12mo.

—— Sixth edition, corrected. London, 1725, 8vo.

—— Seventh edition, corrected. 3 pts. London, 1727, 8vo.

—— Seventh edition, corrected. London, 1730, 12mo.

—— Eighth edition. London, 1743, 8vo.

—— Paradise Regain'd, etc. London, 1747, 12mo.

—— Paradise Regain'd, etc. Glasgow, 1747, 12mo.

—— Paradise Regain'd, etc. A new edition. With notes of various authors, by T. Newton. London, 1752, 4to.

—— Paradise Regain'd, etc. Glasgow, 1752, 12mo.

—— Paradise Regain'd, etc. The second edition, with notes of various authors, by T. Newton. 2 vols. London, 1753, 8vo.

—— Paradise Regain'd, etc. London, 1753, 12mo.

—— Paradise Regain'd, etc. London, 1756, 12mo.

—— Paradise Regained, etc. Birmingham, 1758, 4to.

—— Paradise Regain'd, etc. London, 1760, 12mo.

—— Paradise Regain'd (British Poets, vol. iii.). Edinburgh, 1773, 8vo.

—— Paradise Regain'd, etc. 2 vols. Glasgow, 1772, 12mo.

—— A new edition. 2 vols. London, 1773, 8vo.

—— A new edition. By T. Newton. London, 1777, 4to.

—— A new edition, with notes of various authors, by T. Newton. 2 vols. London, 1785, 8vo.

—— Paradise Regain'd, etc. London, 1779, 12mo.

—— Paradise Regain'd, etc. Alnwick, 1793, 12mo.

—— A new edition, with notes of various authors, by C. Dunster. London. 1795. 4to.

—— Another edition. London [1800], 4to.

—— Milton's Paradise Regained; with select notes subjoined: to which is added a complete collection of his Miscellaneous Poems, both English and Latin. London, 1796, 8vo.

—— Paradise Regained. With select notes subjoined, etc. London, 1817, 8vo.

—— Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, Comus, and Arcades. London, 1817, 12mo.

—— Paradise Regained, and other poems. London, 1823, 16mo.

—— Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes, Comus, and Arcades. [With Westall's plates.] London, 1827, 16mo.

—— Paradise Regained; and other poems. London, 1832, 16mo.

—— Milton's Paradise Regained, and other poems. London, 1861, 16mo.

One of "Bell & Daldy's Pocket Volumes."

The readie and easie way to establish a free Commonwealth, and the excellence thereof, compar'd with the inconveniences and dangers of re-admitting Kingship in this nation. The author J[ohn] M[ilton]. London, 1660, 4to.

The Reason of Church-Government urg'd against Prelaty. In two books. London, 1641, 4to.

Samson Agonistes. London, 1688, folio.

First appeared with the Paradise Regained in 1671.

—— Samson Agonistes. London, 1695, folio.

Reprinted from the preceding edition.

—— Samson Agonistes. (Bell's British Theatre, vol. 34.) London, 1797, 8vo.

—— Samson Agonistes. London [1869], 8vo.

—— Milton. Samson Agonistes. Edited by John Churton Collins. (Clarendon Press Series.) Oxford, 1883, 8vo.

Scriptum Dom. Protectoris contra Hispanos. [By John Milton.] Londini, 1655, 4to.

—— A Manifesto of the Lord Protector against the Depredations of the Spaniards. Written in Latin by John Milton. London, 1738, 8vo.

—— A true Copy of Oliver Cromwell's Manifesto against Spain, dated October 26, 1655 [written by John Milton]. London, 1741, 4to.

The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates; proving that it is lawfull, and hath been held so through all ages, for any, who have the power, to call to account a tyrant or wicked king, and after due conviction to depose and put him to death, etc. The author J[ohn] M[ilton]. London, 1649, 4to.

—— Another edition, with additions. London, 1650, 4to.

Tetrachordon: expositions upon the foure chief places in Scripture which treat of mariage, or nullities in manage, wherein the doctrine and discipline of divorce, as was lately publish'd, is confirm'd. By the former author J. M[ilton]. London, 1645 [1644 O.S.], 4to.

The author's name appears in full at the end of the address "To the Parliament."

A Treatise on Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes; shewing that it is not lawfull for any power on earth to compell in matter of religion. The author J[ohn] M[ilton]. London, 1659, 12mo.

—— A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes. First printed anno 1659. London, reprinted 1790, 8vo.

—— A Treatise on Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes, etc. London, 1839, 8vo.

Tracts for the People, No. I.

—— On the Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes; and on the likeliest means to remove Hirelings out of the Church. London, 1851, 8vo.

Part XI. of "Buried Treasures."

V. SELECTIONS.

The Beauties of Milton, Thomson, and Young. Dublin, 1783, 12mo.

The Beauties of Milton; consisting of selections from his poetry and prose, by A. Howard. London [1834], 12mo.

The Poetry of Milton's Prose; selected from his various writings; with notes, and an introductory essay [by C.]. London, 1827, 12mo.

Readings from Milton. With an introduction by Bishop H.W. Warren. Boston, 1886, 8vo.

Part of the "Chatauqua Library—Garnet Series."

Selected Prose Writings of John Milton, with an introductory essay by E. Myers. London, 1883, 8vo.

Fifty copies only printed.

Selections from the Prose Writings of John Milton. Edited, with memoir, notes, and analyses, by S. Manning. London, 1862, 8vo.

Selections from the Prose Works of John Milton. With critical remarks and elucidations. Edited by J.J.G. Graham. London, 1870, 8vo.

Shakespeare and Milton Reader; being scenes and other extracts from the writings of Shakespeare and Milton, etc. London [1883], 8vo.

VI. APPENDIX.

BIOGRAPHY, CRITICISM, ETC.

Acton, Rev. Henry.—Religious opinions and examples of Milton, Locke, and Newton. A lecture, with notes. London, 1833, 8vo.

Addison, Rt. Hon. Joseph.—Notes upon the twelve books of Paradise Lost. Collected from the Spectator. London, 1719, 12mo.

Appeared originally in the Spectator, Dec. 31, 1711—May 3, 1712.

Ademollo, A.—La Leonora di Milton e di Clemente IX. Milano [1886], 8vo.

Andrews, Samuel.—Our Great Writers; or, Popular chapters on some leading authors. London, 1884, 8vo.

Milton, pp. 84-112.

Arnold, Matthew.—Mixed Essays. London, 1879, 8vo.

A French Critic on Milton, pp. 237-273.

—— Essays in Criticism. Second Series. London, 1888, 8vo.

Milton, pp. 56-68.

Bagehot, Walter.—Literary Studies. 2 vols. London, 1879, 8vo.

John Milton, vol. i., pp. 173-220.

—— Third edition. 2 vols. London, 1884, 8vo.

Balfour, Clara Lucas.—Sketches of English Literature, etc. London, 1852, 8vo.

Milton and his Literary Contemporaries, pp. 151-173.

Barron, William.—Lectures on Belles Lettres and Logic. 2 vols. London, 1806, 8vo.

Milton, vol. ii., pp. 281-300.

Baumgarten, Dr.—John Milton und das Verlorene Paradies. Coburg [1875], 4to.

Bayne, Peter.—The Chief Actors in the Puritan Revolution. London, 1878, 8vo.

Milton, pp. 297-346.

Bentley, Richard.—Dr. Bentley's emendations on the twelve books of Milton's Paradise Lost. London, 1732, 12mo.

Bickersteth, E.H.—Milton's Paradise Lost. (The St. James's Lectures, Second Series.) London, 1876, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1877, 8vo.

Birrell, Augustine.—Obiter Dicta. Second series. London, 1887, 8vo.

Milton, pp. 1-50.

Blackburne, Francis.—Remarks on Johnson's Life of Milton. To which are added Milton's Tractate of Education and Areopagitica. London, 1780, 16mo.

Blair, Hugh.—Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, etc. 2 vols. London, 1783, 4to.

Paradise Lost, vol. ii., pp. 471-476.

Bodmer, J. Jacob.—J.J. Bodmer's critische Abhandlung, von dem Wunderbaren in der Poesie in einer Vertheidigung des Gedichtes J. Milton's von dem verlohrnen Paradiese, etc. Zürich, 1740, 8vo.

Bradburn, Eliza W.—The Story of Paradise Lost, for children. Portland, 1830, 16mo.

Brooke, Stopford A.—Milton. [An account of his life and works.] London, 1879, 8vo.

Part of the series entitled Classical Writers, ed. J.R. Green.

Bruce, Archibald.—A critical account of the life, character, and discourses of Mr. Alexander Morus, in which the attack made upon him in the writings of Milton is particularly considered. Edinburgh, 1813, 8vo.

Brydges, Sir Samuel Egerton.—The Life of John Milton. London [1835], 8vo.

Bulwer Lytton, E.—The Siamese Twins, etc. London, 1831, 8vo.

Milton, a poem, pp. 315-362.

Burney, Charles.—Remarks on the Greek Verses of Milton. [London, 1790], 8vo.

Buckland, Anna.—The Story of English Literature. London, 1882, 8vo.

Milton, pp. 230-296.

Callander, John.—Letter and Report respecting the Unpublished Commentary on Milton's Paradise Lost, by the late John Callander, of Craigforth, Esq., in the possession of the Society. (Archæologia Scotica, vol. iii., 1831, pp. 83-91.) Edinburgh, 1831, 4to.

Camerini, Eugenio.—Profili Letterari. Firenze, 1870, 8vo.

Milton e l'Italia, pp. 264-274.

Cann, Miss Christian.—A scriptural and allegorical glossary to Milton's Paradise Lost. London [1828], 8vo.

Carpenter, William.—The Life and Times of John Milton. London [1836], 8vo.

Channing, William Ellery.—Remarks on the Character and Writings of John Milton; occasioned by the publication of his lately discovered "Treatise on Christian Doctrine." From the Christian Examiner, vol. iii., No. 1. Boston, 1826, 8vo.

Charles I.—By the King. A Proclamation for calling in and suppressing of two books written by John Milton: the one Intituled Johannis Miltoni Angli pro Populo Anglicano defensio, etc., and the other, The Pourtraicture of his Sacred Majesty, etc. London, 1660, s. sh. fol.

—— The Life and Reigne of King Charls; or, the Pseudo-Martyr discovered, etc. London, 1651, 8vo.

In the Bodleian Catalogue this work is erroneously stated to be by John Milton.

Chassang, A., and Marcou, F.L.—Les Chefs-d'Oeuvre Épiques de tous les peuples. Paris, 1879, 8vo.

Milton, pp. 279-297.

Clarke, Samuel.—Some reflections on that part of a book called Amyntor, or the defence of Milton's life, which relates to the writings of the primitive fathers, etc. (Letter to Mr. Dodwell, etc., pp. 451-475.) London, 1781, 8vo.

Cleveland, C.D.—A Complete Concordance to the Poetical Works of John Milton. London, 1867, 8vo.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor.—Seven lectures on Shakespeare and Milton, etc. London, 1856, 8vo.

Darby, Samuel.—A letter to T. Warton, on his late edition of Milton's Juvenile Poems [entitled "Poems upon several occasions, English, Italian, and Latin.">[ London, 1785, 8vo.

Dawson, George.—Biographical Lectures. London, 1886, 8vo.

John Milton, pp. 82-88.

De Morgan, J.—John Milton considered as a Politician. (Men of the Commonwealth, No. 1.) [London, 1875], 16mo.

Dennis, John.—Heroes of Literature. English Poets. London, 1883, 8vo.

John Milton, pp. 114-147.

De Quincey, T.—Works. 16 vols. London, 1853-60, 8vo.

Milton, vol. vi., pp. 311-325; Life of Milton, vol. x., pp. 79-98.

Des Essarts, E.—De Veterum poetarum tum Græciæ tum Romæ apud Miltonem imitatione thesim proponebat E. Des Essarts. Parisiis, 1871, 8vo.

Diderot, Denis.—An Essay on Blindness, etc. Interspersed with several anecdotes of Sanderson, Milton, and others. Translated from the French. London [1750], 12mo.

Dobson, W.T.—The Classic Poets, their lives and their times, etc. London, 1879, 8vo.

Milton's Paradise Lost, pp. 394-446; Paradise Regained, pp. 446-452.

Donoughue, Edward Jones.—Milton: a lecture. London, 1843, 8vo.

Douglas, John.—Milton vindicated from the charge of plagiarism brought against him by Mr. Lauder, etc. London, 1751, 8vo.

—— Milton no plagiary; or, a detection of the forgeries contained in Lauder's essay, etc. Second edition. London, 1756, 8vo.

Dowden, Edward.—Transcripts and Studies. London, 1888, 8vo.

The Idealism of Milton, pp. 454-473.

Dowling, William.—Poets and Statesmen; their homes and haunts in the neighbourhood of Eton and Windsor. London, 1857, 8vo.

Milton, pp. 1-39.

Dryden, John.—The State of Innocence, and Fall of Man; an opera, etc. London, 1677, 4to.

Du Moulin, P.—Regii sanguinis clamor ad cœlum adversus parricidas Anglicanos. [A reply to Milton's "Defensio pro populo Anglicano.">[ Hagæ Comitum, 1652, 4to.

—— Editio secunda. Hagæ Comitum, 1661, 12mo.

Dunster, C.—Considerations on Milton's early reading, and the prima stamina of his Paradise Lost, etc. London, 1800, 8vo.

Edmonds, Cyrus R.—John Milton; a biography. Especially designed to exhibit the ecclesiastical principles of that illustrious man. London, 1851, 8vo.

Edmundson, George.—Milton and Vondel. A curiosity of literature. London, 1885, 8vo.

Ellwood, Thomas.—Reflections of [Thomas Ellwood] with John Milton (Arber's English Garner, vol. iii., pp. 473-486). London, 1880, 8vo.

English Poets.—Cursory remarks on some of the ancient English poets, particularly Milton. [By P. Neve.] London, 1789, 8vo.

Epigoniad.—A critical essay on the Epigoniad, wherein the author's abuse of Milton is examined. Edinburgh, 1757, 8vo.

Eyre, Charles.—The Fall of Adam, from Milton's Paradise Lost. London [1852], 8vo.

Filmer, Sir Robert.—Observations concerning the originall of Government upon Mr. Hobs Leviathan, Mr. Milton against Salmasius, H. Grotius De Jure Belli. London, 1652, 4to.

—— The Free-holders grand inquest, etc. (Reflections concerning the Original of Government upon Mr. Milton against Salmasius.) London, 1679, 8vo.

Flatters, J.J.—The Paradise Lost of Milton, translated into fifty-four designs, by J.J. Flatters, sculptor. London, 1843, folio.

Without letterpress.

Fry, Alfred A.—A lecture on the writings, prose and poetic, and the character, public and personal, of John Milton. London, 1838, 8vo.

Geffroy, Mathieu A.—Étude sur les pamphlets politiques et religieux de Milton. Paris, 1848, 8vo.

Gilfillan, George.—A Second Gallery of Literary Portraits. London, 1850, 8vo.

John Milton, pp. 1-39.

—— Modern Christian Heroes, etc. London, 1869, 8vo.

John Milton, pp. 81-118.

Giraud, Jane E.—Flowers of Milton. London, 1850, 4to.

Godwin, William.—Lives of E. and J. Philips, nephews and pupils of Milton, to which are added: I. Collections for the life of Milton, by J. Aubrey, printed from the manuscript copy in the Ashmolean Museum. II. The Life of Milton, by E. Philips, printed 1694. London, 1815, 4to.

Goodwin, Thomas.—The Student's Practical Grammar of the English Language; together with a commentary on the first book of Milton's Paradise Lost. London, 1855, 12mo.

Greenwood, F.W.P.—The Miscellaneous Writings of F.W.P. Greenwood. Boston, 1846, 8vo.

Milton's Prose Works, pp. 208-226.

Grotius, H. de.—The Adamus Exul of Grotius; or, the prototype of Paradise Lost. Translated from the Latin, by Francis Barham. London, 1839, 8vo.

Guerle, Edmond de.—Milton, sa vie et ses œuvres. Paris, 1868, 8vo.

Güntzer, C.—Dissertationis ad quaedam loca Miltoni pars posterior. Argentorati, 1657, 4to.

Hamilton, W. Douglas.—Original Papers, illustrative of the life and writings of John Milton, including sixteen letters of State written by him, now first published from MSS. in the State Paper Office, etc. London, 1859, 4to.

Printed for the Camden Society.

Hamilton, Walter.—Parodies of the Works of English and American Authors, collected and annotated by W. Hamilton. London, 1885, 4to.

John Milton, vol. ii., pp. 217-236.

Hare, Julius Charles.—Essays and Tales. 2 vols. London, 1848, 8vo.

Milton, vol. i., pp. 73-86.

Harrington, James.—The Censure of the Rota upon Mr. Milton's book, entitled The Ready and Easie Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth. [Signed J. H(arrington); a satire.] London, 1660, 4to.

Reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany.

Hayley, William.—The Life of Milton; to which are added conjectures on the origin of Paradise Lost. (The second edition enlarged.) London, 1796, 4to.

This life appeared originally in 1794 in vol. i. of Milton's Poetical Works.

Hillebrand, C.—De sacro apud Christianos carmine epico dissertationem seu Dantis, Miltonis, Klopstockii poetarum collationem proponebat C. Hillebrand, Parisiis, 1861, 8vo.

Hodgson, Shadworth H.—Outcast Essays, etc. London, 1881, 8vo.

The supernatural in English poetry; Shakespere; Milton; Wordsworth Tennyson, pp. 99-180.

Holloway, Laura C.—The Mothers of Great Men and Women, etc. New York, 1884, 8vo.

Milton's Wives, pp. 457-478.

Hood, Edwin Paxton.—John Milton: the Patriot and Poet. London, 1852, 18mo.

Hopkins, J.—Milton's Paradise Lost, imitated in rhyme; in the fourth, sixth, and ninth books, etc. London, 1699, 8vo.

Howitt, William.—Homes and Haunts of the most eminent British Poets. Third edition. London, 1857, 8vo.

John Milton, pp. 46-68.

Huet, C.B.—Litterarische Fantasien en Kritieken. Haarlem [1883], 8vo.

Milton, 12th Deel, pp. 150-220.

Hunt, Theodore W.—Representative English Prose and Prose Writers. New York, 1887, 8vo.

The prose style of John Milton, pp. 246-264.

Hutton, Laurence.—Literary Landmarks of London. London, 1885, 8vo.

John Milton, pp. 210-216, etc.

Ivimey, Joseph.—John Milton; his life and times; religious and political opinions; with an appendix, containing animadversions upon Dr. Johnson's Life of Milton, etc. London, 1833, 8vo.

Jackson, W.—Lycidas: a musical entertainment. The words altered from Milton. London, 1767, 8vo.

Jane, Joseph.—The Image Unbroaken a perspective of the Impudence, Falshood, Vanitie, and Prophannes, in a Libell entitled Eikonoklastes. [London], 1651, 4to.

Johnson, Samuel.—Prefaces to Milton and Butler. (Prefaces to the Works of the English Poets, vol. ii.) London, 1779, 8vo.

—— Court and Country: a paraphrase upon Milton. [In a dialogue.] By the author of Hurlothrumbo [i.e., Samuel Johnson]. London [1780], 8vo.

Jortin, John.—Remarks on Spenser's Poems. London, 1734, 8vo.

Remarks on Milton, pp. 171-186.

Keightley, Thomas.—An account of the Life, Opinions, and Writings of John Milton. With an introduction to Paradise Lost. London, 1855, 8vo.

Keogh, Rt. Hon. William.—Milton's Prose. (Afternoon Lectures on Literature and Art, delivered in the Theatre of the Museum of Industry, Dublin, 1865, 3rd Series.) London, 1866, 8vo.

Lamartine, M.L.A. de.—Héloïse et Abélard [Biographies]. Paris, 1864, 12mo.

Includes a biography of Milton, pp. 113-215.

Lauder, William.—An essay on Milton's use and imitation of the moderns in his Paradise Lost. [With a preface by Dr. Johnson.] London, 1750, 8vo.

—— A letter to the reverend Mr. Douglas, occasioned by his vindication of Milton, etc. [Written by Dr. Johnson.] London, 1751, 4to.

—— An apology for Mr. Lauder [written by himself] in a letter most humbly addressed to his grace the Archbishop of Canterbury. London, 1751, 8vo.

—— Delectus auctorum sacrorum, Miltono facem prælucentium. 2 tom. London, 1752, 8vo.

—— King Charles I. vindicated from the charge of plagiarism brought against him by Milton, etc. To the whole is subjoined the Judgment of several learned and impartial authors concerning Milton's political writings. London, 1754, 8vo.

L'Estrange, R.—No Blind Guides, in answer to a seditious pamphlet of Milton's, intituled Brief notes upon a late sermon titl'd The fear of God and the King, preach'd and since publish'd. By M. Griffith, etc. London, 1660, 4to.

Letters.—Letters concerning poetical translations and Virgil's and Milton's Arts of Verse, etc. London, 1739, 8vo.

Liebert, Gustav.—Milton. Studien zur Geschichte des englischen Geistes. Hamburg, 1860, 8vo.

Lotheissen, Ferdinand.—Studien über John Milton's poetische Werke. Budingen, 1860, 4to.

Lowell, James Russell.—Among my Books. Second series. London, 1876, 8vo.

Milton, pp. 252-302.

M.J.A.—An introduction to the Study of Shakespeare and Milton. [By J.A.M. With selections from their works.] London [1884], 8vo.

Macaulay, Thomas Babington.—Critical and historical essays contributed to the Edinburgh Review. 2 vols. London, 1854, 8vo.

Milton, vol. i., pp. 1-28.

—— The Miscellaneous Writings of Lord Macaulay. London, 1860, 8vo.

Conversation between Mr. Abraham Cowley and Mr. John Milton touching the great Civil War, vol. i., pp. 101-124.

—— An Essay on the Life and Works of John Milton, together with the imaginary conversation between him and H. Cowley. London, 1868, 8vo.

—— Milton's Essay on Milton. From the Edinburgh Review. With introductory notice and notes. London, 1872, 16mo.

—— John Milton. [A biographical sketch.] Boston, 1877, 16mo.

—— Macaulay's Milton, edited to illustrate the laws of Rhetoric and Composition, by Alexander Mackie. London, 1884, 8vo.

Maceuen, Malcolm.—Celebrities of the Past and Present. Philadelphia, 1874, 8vo.

Milton and Poetry, pp. 195-202.

Mackenzie, Sir George.—Jus Regium: or, the just and solid foundations of monarchy in general maintain'd against Buchanan, Dolman, Milton, etc. Edinburgh, 1684, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1684, 8vo.

McNicoll, Thomas.—Essays on English Literature. London, 1861, 8vo.

Milton and Pollok, pp. 65-111.

Marquis, G.A.—Select Poetical Pieces, with a logical arrangement, or practical commentary on Milton's Paradise Lost. Second edition enlarged. Paris, 1842, 12mo.

Marsh, John F.—Papers connected with the affairs of Milton and his family. Edited by J.F. Marsh. Manchester, 1851, 4to.

In vol. i. of the Chetham Miscellanies, published by the Chetham Society.

—— Notice of the inventory of the effects of Mrs. Milton, widow of the poet. Liverpool, 1855, 8vo.

Extracted from the proceedings of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire.

—— On the engraved portrait and pretended portraits of Milton. Extracted from the Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire. Liverpool, 1860, 8vo.

Martyn, W. Carlos.—Life and Times of John Milton. [Published by the "American Tract Society." With portrait.] New York [1866], 12mo.

Mason, W.—Musæus; a monody to the memory of Mr. Pope in imitation of Milton's Lycidas. London, 1747, 4to.

Massey, William.—Remarks upon Milton's Paradise Lost, etc. London, 1761, 12mo.

Masson, David.—Essays biographical and critical: chiefly on English poets. Cambridge, 1856, 8vo.

Milton's Youth, pp. 37-52; The Three Devils: Luther's, Milton's, and Goethe's, pp. 53-87.

—— The Three Devils: Luther's, Milton's, and Goethe's. London, 1874, 8vo.

—— The Life of John Milton; narrated in connexion with the political, ecclesiastical, and literary history of his time. 6 vols. Cambridge, 1859-80, 8vo.

—— New and revised edition. London, 1881, etc., 8vo.

—— John Milton. (Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. xvi., pp. 324-340.) London, 1883, 4to.

Meadowcourt, Richard.—A critique on Milton's Paradise Regained. London, 1732, 4to.

—— A Critical Dissertation, with notes, on Milton's Paradise Regain'd. The second edition corrected. London, 1748, 8vo.

Milton, John.—An answer to a book [by John Milton], intituled, The Divorce and Discipline of Divorce, etc. London, 1644, 4to.

—— Carolus I. Britanniarum Rex, a Securi et Calamo Miltonii vindicatus. Dublini, 1652, 12mo.

—— Areopagitica Secunda: or, speech of the shade of John Milton on Mr. Sergeant Talfourd's Copyright Extension Bill. London, 1838, 8vo.

—— Comus, a mask: (now adapted to the stage) as alter'd [by J. Dalton] from Milton's Mask. London, 1738, 8vo.

—— Second edition. London, 1738, 8vo.

—— Third edition. London, 1738, 8vo.

—— Another edition. Dublin, 1738, 8vo.

—— Sixth edition. London, 1741, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1750, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1759, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1760, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1762, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1777, 8vo.

—— Comus, a masque [altered by J. Dalton from John Milton], London, 1791, 8vo.

In vol. i. of "Bell's Theatre."

—— Comus [altered from Milton by J. Dalton]. London, 1811, 8vo.

In the "Modern British Drama," vol. ii.

—— Comus: a mask, altered from Milton. [By J. Dalton.] London, 1815, 16mo.

In vol. x. of Dibdin's "London Theatre."

—— Comus. [Adapted to the stage by J. Dalton.] London, 1826, 8vo.

In the "British Drama," vol. ii.

—— Comus: a masque [in two acts]. Altered from Milton [by G. Colman]. As performed at the Theatre-Royal in Covent Garden. The musick composed by Dr. Arne. London, 1772, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1774, 8vo.

—— Comus: a masque. Altered by Mr. Colman. (Bell's British Theatre, vol. ix.) London, 1777, 12mo.

—— Comus: a masque. Altered from Milton [by G. Colman]. Edinburgh, 1786, 12mo.

Vol. iv. of the "British Stage."

—— Comus. Altered for the stage by Colman. (Modern British Drama, vol. v.) London, 1811, 8vo.

—— Comus: a masque. Altered from Milton, by G. Colman. (Inchbald's Collection of Farces, vol. vii.) London, 1815, 12mo.

—— Milton's Comus: a masque, in two acts [altered from Milton], as revised at Covent Garden, April 28, 1815. London, 1815, 8vo.

There is a copy in the British Museum with the autograph of Sir Henry Bishop.

—— Comus: a masque. Altered from Milton [by G. Colman]. London [1824], 8vo.

Vol. ii. of "The London Stage."

—— Comus. Altered from Milton. [By G. Colman, the elder.] London, 1872, 8vo.

In the "British Drama," vol. xii.

—— Comus: a masque. Altered from Milton. (Supplement to Bell's British Theatre, vol. iv.) London, 1784, 12mo.

—— Miltonis epistola ad Pollionem. Edidit et notis illustravit F.S. Cantabrigiensis. Londini, 1738, folio.

—— Editio altera. Londini, 1738, folio.

—— Milton's Epistle to Pollio. Translated from the Latin, and illustrated with notes. London, 1740, folio.

—— Milton restor'd and Bentley depos'd, containing, I. Some observations on Dr. Bentley's preface. II. His various readings and notes on Paradise Lost and Milton's text, set in opposite columns, with remarks therein. III. Paradise Lost, attempted in rime. Book I., Numb. I. From Dean Swift. London, 1732, 8vo.

—— Paradise Lost: a poem attempted in Rhime. [Altered from Milton.] London, 1740, 8vo.

—— Paradise Lost. An oratorio [in three acts and in verse] altered and adapted to the stage from Milton [by B. Stillingfleet]. London, 1760, 4to.

—— Paradise Lost. An oratorio in four parts. The words selected from the works of Milton by J.L. Ellerton. London [1862], 12mo.

—— Paradise Lost. Oratorio in three parts, from the poem of Milton. English version by J. Pittman. London [1880], 8vo.

—— The State of Innocence and Fall of Man described in Milton's Paradise Lost. Render'd into prose with notes from the French of Raymond [or rather Nicolas Francois Dupré] de St. Maur. By a gentleman of Oxford [George Smith Green?]. London, 1745, 8vo.

—— Another edition. Aberdeen, 1770, 12mo.

—— A verbal Index to Milton's Paradise Lost; adapted to every edition but the first, etc. London, 1741, 12mo.

—— An essay upon Milton's imitations of the Ancients in his Paradise Lost. With some observations on the Paradise Regain'd. London, 1741, 8vo.

—— A new occasional Oratorio [on the suppression of the Rebellion], the words taken from Milton, Spenser, etc., and set to musick by Mr. Handel. London, 1746, 4to.

The words only.

—— The Progress of Envy, a poem occasioned by Lauder's attack on the character of Milton. London, 1751, 4to.

—— A familiar explanation of the poetical works of Milton. To which is prefixed Mr. Addison's criticism on Paradise Lost. With a preface by Rev. Mr. Dodd. London, 1672, 12mo.

—— The Recovery of Man: or, Milton's Paradise Regained. In Prose. After the manner of the Archbishop of Cambray. To which is prefixed the life of the author. [London], 1771, 12mo.

—— Samson. An Oratorio [in three acts]. As it is performed at the Theatres-royal. Altered from the Samson Agonistes of Milton [by N. Hamilton]. Set to musick by Mr. Handel. London [1742], 8vo.

The words only.

—— Another edition. London [1742], 4to.

—— Another edition. London [1742], 4to.

—— Another edition. London, 1743, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1751, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1759, 4to.

—— Samson: an oratorio [altered and adapted to the stage from the Samson Agonistes by N. Hamilton]. [Oxford], 1749, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1762, 4to.

—— Samson. Set to musick by Mr. Handel. London, 1762, 4to.

—— Samson. An oratorio [altered from the Samson Agonistes, by N. Hamilton]. Salisbury, 1765, 8vo.

—— Handel's oratorio, Samson. The words chiefly from Milton. [Compiled by T. Morell.] London [1840], 4to.

—— The Life of John Milton. Published under the direction of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. London [1861], 8vo.

—— A Milton Memorial. A sketch of the life of John Milton, compiled with reference to the proposed restoration of the Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate (where he was buried). By Antiquitatis historicæ studiosus. London, 1862, 8vo.

Mirabeau, Count de.—Théorie de la Royauté d'après la Doctrine de Milton. [Translated from the Defence of the People of England. With a preliminary dissertation, "Sur Milton et ses ouvrages"; by H.G. Riquetti, Comte de Mirabeau?] [Paris], 1789, 8vo.

Moers, F. Josephus.—De fontibus Paradisi Amissi Miltoniani. Dissertatio philologica, etc. Bonnae [1865], 8vo.

Morris, Joseph W.—John Milton: a vindication, specially from the charge of Arianism. London [1862], 8vo.

Mortimer, Charles Edward.—An historical memoir of the Political Life of John Milton. London, 1805, 4to.

Morus, Alexander.—A. Mori Fides Publica, contra calumnias Joannis Miltoni. Hagæ-Comitum, 1654, 12mo.

Mouron, H.—Jean Milton. Conférence. Deuxième édition. Strasbourg, 1875, 8vo.

Munkácsy, M.—Opinions of the Continental Press on M. Munkácsy and his latest picture, "Milton dictating Paradise Lost to his daughters." Paris, 1879, 8vo.

Neve, Philip.—A narrative of the disinterment of Milton's coffin in the Parish Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, 4th August 1790; and of the treatment of the corpse during that and the following day. London, 1790, 8vo.

Nicoll, Henry J.—Landmarks of English Literature. London, 1883, 8vo.

John Milton, pp. 112-125.

Paterson, James.—A complete commentary on Milton's Paradise Lost, etc. London, 1744, 8vo.

Pattison, Mark.—Milton. [An account of his life and works.] London, 1879, 8vo.

One of the "English Men of Letters" series.

Pauli, Reinhold.—Aufsätze zur Englischen Geschichte. Leipzig, 1869, 8vo.

John Milton, pp. 348-391.

Pearce, Z., Bishop of Rochester.—A review of the text of Milton's Paradise Lost; in which the chief of Dr. Bentley's Emendations are consider'd; and several other emendations and observations are offer'd to the public. London, 1732, 8vo.

—— Another edition. London, 1733, 8vo.

Peck, Francis.—New Memoirs of the Life and Poetical Works of Mr. John Milton, etc. London, 1740, 4to.

—— Memoirs of the life and actions of Oliver Cromwell: as delivered in three panegyrics of him. The first, as said, by Don Juan Rodriguez de Saa Meneses; the second, as affirmed by a certain Jesuit; yet both, it is thought, composed by Mr. John Milton, as was the third, etc. London, 1740, 4to.

Penn, John.—Critical, poetical, and dramatic works. 2 vols. London, 1798, 8vo.

Samson Agonistes, vol. ii., pp. 213-263.

Philips, John.—Poems attempted in the style of Milton, etc. London, 1762, 12mo.

Philo-Milton, pseud.—Milton's Sublimity asserted: in a poem occasion'd by a late piece entituled Cyder, a poem [by J. Philips]. In blank verse. London, 1709, 4to.

—— A vindication of the Paradise Lost from the charge of exculpating Lord Byron's "Cain, a Mystery." London, 1822, 8vo.

Plaint.—The Plaint of Freedom. (To the Memory of Milton. In verse.) Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1852, 4to.

Prendergast, G.L.—A complete concordance to the poetical works of Milton. Madras, 1856-57, 4to.

Prodromus.—Verax Prodromus in Delirum. [An invective against John Milton.] [Amsterdam? 1656?] 4to.

R * *—Lettres critiques à Mr. le comte * * * sur le Paradis perdu, et reconquis, de Milton, par R * * [outh]. Paris, 1731, 8vo.

Reed, Henry.—Lectures on the British Poets. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1858, 8vo.

Milton, pp. 199-232.

Rice, Allen Thorndike.—Essays from the North American Review. New York, 1879, 8vo.

John Milton, by Ralph Waldo Emerson, pp. 99-122.

Richardson, Jonathan.—Explanatory notes and remarks on Milton's Paradise Lost. By J. Richardson, father and son. London, 1734, 8vo.

Richardson, Jonathan.—Zoilomastix; or, a vindication of Milton from all the invidious charges of W. Lauder. With several new remarks on Paradise Lost. London, 1747, 8vo.

Ring, Max.—John Milton und seine Zeit. Historischer Roman. Frankfurt a. Main, 1857, 8vo.

—— John Milton and his times, a historical novel. Translated by J. Jefferson. Manchester, 1889, 8vo.

Rolli, P.—Sabrina; an opera [in three acts and in verse. Founded on the "Comus" of Milton]. Ital. and Eng. London, 1737, 8vo.

Rossetti, William Michael.—Lives of Famous Poets. London, 1878, 8vo.

John Milton, pp. 65-79.

Rowland, J.—Pro Rege et Populo Anglicano apologia, contra Joannis Polypragmatici (alias Miltoni Angli) defensionem destructivam Regis et Populi Anglicani. Antwerpiæ, 1651, 12mo.

—— Another edition. Antwerpiæ, 1652, 12mo.

S.G.—The dignity of Kingship asserted: in answer to Mr. Milton's Ready and Easie way to establish a free Commonwealth. By G.S. (George Searle?), a lover of loyalty. London, 1660, 8vo.

Saintsbury, George.—A History of Elizabethan Literature. London, 1887, 8vo.

Milton, pp. 315-329.

Salmasius, Claudius de.—Claudii Salmasii ad Johannem Miltonum Responsio. Opus posthumum. Londini, 1660, 12mo.

Say, Samuel.—Poems on several occasions: and two critical Essays—viz., the first on the harmony, variety, and power of numbers, whether in prose or verse; the second, on the numbers of Paradise Lost. [With a portrait of Milton, etched by J. Richardson.] London, 1745, 4to.

Scherer, Edmond.—Études sur la Littérature Contemporaine. Paris, 1882, 8vo.

Milton et le Paradis Perdu, tom. vi., pp. 161-194.

Scolari, Filippo.—Saggio di Critica sul Paradiso Perduto, Poema di Giovanni Milton, e sulle annotazioni a quello di Giuseppe Addison. Aggiuntovi l'Adamo sacra rappresentazione di G.B. Andreini, etc. Venezia, 1818, 8vo.

Scott, John.—Critical Essays on some of the poems of several English poets, etc. London, 1785, 8vo.

On Milton's Lycidas, pp. 37-64.

Seeley, J.R.—Lectures and Essays. London, 1870, 8vo.

Milton's Political Opinions, pp. 89-119; Milton's Poetry, pp. 120-154.

Shenston, J.B.—The Authority of Jehovah asserted, ... with some remarks on the article on Milton's Essay on the Sabbath and the Lord's Day, which appeared in the Evangelical Review, 1826. London, 1826, 8vo.

Smectymnuus, pseud. [i.e., Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy etc.]—A modest confutation of a slanderous and scurrilous libell, entituled, Animadversions [by John Milton] upon the remonstrants' defense against Smectymnuus. [London] 1642, 4to.

Sotheby, Samuel Leigh.—Ramblings in the elucidation of the Autograph of Milton. [With plates.] London, 1861, 4to.

Steel, David.—Elements of Punctuation, and critical observations on some passages in Milton. London, 1786, 8vo.

Stern, Alfred.—Milton und seine Zeit. 2 Thle. Leipzig, 1877-79, 8vo.

—— Milton und Cromwell. Berlin, 1875, 8vo.

Serie x., Hft. 236 of Virchow and Holtzendorff's "Sammlung gemeinverständlicher wissenschaftlicher Vorträge, etc."

Symmons, Charles.—The Life of John Milton, etc. London, 1806, 8vo.

—— Second edition. London, 1810, 8vo.

—— Third edition. London, 1882, 8vo.

Taine, H.A.—Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise. 4 tom. Paris, 1863-4, 8vo.

Milton, tom, ii., pp. 327-435.

—— History of English Literature. Translated by H. Van Laun. 4 vols. Edinburgh, 1873-4, 8vo.

Milton, vol. ii., pp. 239-318.

Tasso, Torquato.—Il Tasso, a dialogue. The speakers, John Milton, Torquato Tasso. London, 1762, 8vo.

Todd, Henry John.—Some account of the life and writings of John Milton. Second edition, with additions, and with a verbal index to the whole of Milton's poetry. London, 1809, 8vo.

This forms vol. i. of the 1809 edition of Todd's Milton; a certain number of copies being printed off with a distinct title-page.

—— Some account of the life and writings of John Milton, derived principally from documents in His Majesty's State-paper Office, now first published. London, 1826, 8vo.

Toland, John.—The Life of John Milton, containing, besides the history of his works, several extraordinary characters of men and books, sects, parties, and opinions. [Signed J.T., i.e. J. Toland.] London, 1699, 8vo.

—— Amyntor; or, a Defence of Milton's Life, etc. London, 1699, 8vo.

—— The Life of John Milton; with Amyntor; or a Defence of Milton's Life, etc. London, 1761, 8vo.

Tomlinson, John.—Three Household Poets—viz., Milton, Cowper, Burns, etc. London, 1869, 8vo.

Tulloch, John.—English Puritanism and its leaders, Cromwell, Milton, Baxter, Bunyan. Edinburgh, 1861, 8vo.

Vericour, Raymond de.—Milton et la poésie épique, etc. Paris, 1838, 8vo.

Ward, Thomas H.—The English Poets; selections, with critical introductions, etc. 4 vols. London, 1880, 8vo.

John Milton, by Mark Pattison, vol. ii., pp. 293-379.

Warton, Thomas.—A Letter to T. Warton on his editon of Milton's juvenile poems. [By S. Darby?] London, 1785, 8vo.

White, Thomas Holt.—A Review of Johnson's criticism on the style of Milton's English Prose, etc. London, 1818, 8vo.

Wilson, J.—Vindiciæ Carolinæ; or a defence of Eikon Basilike, etc. London, 1692, 8vo.

Yonge, Charles Duke.—Three Centuries of English Literature. London, 1872, 8vo.

Milton, pp. 185-210.

Zicari da Paola, F.—Sulla scoverta dell' originale Italiano da cui Milton trasse il suo poema del Paradiso Perduto. Napoli, 1844, 12mo.

Ziegler, C.—C. Ziegleri circa regicidium Anglorum exercitationes. Accedit Jacobi Schalleri Dissertatio ad loca quædam Miltoni. Lugd. Batavorum, 1653, 12mo.

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MAGAZINE ARTICLES, ETC.

Milton, John.—Edinburgh Review, by T.B. Macaulay, vol. 42, 1825, pp. 304-346.

• —Christian Examiner, by W.E. Channing, vol. 3, 1826, pp. 29-77; same article, Pamphleteer, vol. 29, pp. 507-547.
• —United States Literary Gazette, vol. 4, 1826, pp. 278-293.
• —Quarterly Review, by J.J. Blunt, vol. 36, 1827, pp. 29-61.
• —American Quarterly Review, vol. 5, 1829, pp. 301-310.
• —American Quarterly Observer, vol. 1, 1833, pp. 115-125.
• —Congregational Magazine, vol. 9, 1833, pp. 193-211.
• —North American Review, by R.W. Emerson, vol. 47, 1838, pp. 56-73.
• —Blackwood's Magazine, vol. 46, 1839, pp. 775-780.
• —Penny Magazine, vol. 10, 1841, pp. 97-101.
• —National Review, vol. 9, 1859, pp. 150-186.
• —Chambers's Journal, vol. 11, 1859, pp. 117-119.
• —Radical, by B.W. Wall, vol. 3, 1868, pp. 718-723.
• —Contemporary Review, by P. Bayne, vol. 22, 1873, pp. 427-460; same article, Eclectic Magazine, vol. 18 N.S., pp. 565-585; Littell's Living Age, vol. 3, 5th ser., pp. 643-662.
• —New Monthly Magazine, vol. 4 N.S., 1873, pp. 27-35.
• —Congregationalist, by T.H. Gill, vol. 3, 1874, pp. 705-714.
• —Macmillan's Magazine, by Mark Pattison, vol. 31, 1875, pp. 380-387; same article, Littell's Living Age, vol. 10, 5th ser., pp. 323-329.
• —Western, by H.H. Morgan, vol. 5, 1879, pp. 107-138.
• —Modern Review, by H. New, vol. 2, 1881, pp. 103-128; same article, Littell's Living Age, vol. 148, pp. 515-525.

—— and the Commonwealth. British Quarterly Review, vol. 10, 1849, pp. 224-254; same article, Eclectic Magazine, vol. 18, pp. 346-362.

—— and Dante. St. James's Magazine, vol. 15, 1866, pp. 243-250.

—— and Galileo. Fraser's Magazine, by Sir Richard Owen, vol. 79, 1869, pp. 678-684.

—— and his daughters. People's Journal, by Mrs. Leman Gillies, vol. 5, 1848, pp. 227, 228.

—— and Homer contrasted. Analectic Magazine, vol. 14, 1819, pp. 224-229.

—— and Macaulay. De Bow's Review, by G. Fitzhugh, vol. 28, 1860, pp. 667-679.

—— and Masenius. Month, vol. 8, 1868, pp. 542-550.

—— and the Daughters of Eve. St. Paul's, vol. 13, 1873, pp. 405-418.

—— and Vondel. Academy, by Edmund Gosse and G. Edmundson, vol. 28, 1885, pp. 265, 266, 293, 294, 342; and by J.R. Mac Ilraith, pp. 308, 309.

• —Athenæum, Nov. 7, 1885, pp. 599, 600.
• —Nation, vol. 42, 1886, pp. 264, 265.

—— and Wordsworth. Temple Bar, vol. 60, 1880, pp. 106-115.

—— Angels of. New Englander, by John A. Himes, vol. 43, 1884, pp. 527-543.

—— Areopagitica. Retrospective Review, vol. 9, 1824, pp. 1-19.

—— as a Reformer. Methodist Quarterly Review, by F.H. Newhall, vol. 39, 1857, pp. 542-559.

—— At Cambridge. American Journal of Education, vol. 28, 1878, pp. 383-400.

—— Bibliographical account of his works. Retrospective Review, vol. 14, 1826, pp. 282-305.

—— Blank Verse of. Fortnightly Review, by J.A. Symonds, vol. 16 N.S., 1874, pp. 767-781.

—— Blindness of. Chambers's Journal, vol. 3 N.S., 1845, pp. 392-394.

—— Byron and Southey. De Bow's Review, by G. Fitzhugh, vol. 29, 1860, pp. 430-440.

—— Channing on. Edinburgh Review, by H. Brougham, vol. 69, 1839, pp. 214-230.

• —Monthly Review, vol. 7 N.S., 1828, pp. 471-478.
• —Fraser's Magazine, vol. 17, 1838, pp. 627-635.

—— Christian Doctrine. Quarterly Review, vol. 32, 1835, pp. 442-457.

• —North American Review, by S. Willard, vol. 22, 1826, pp. 364-373.
• —United States Literary Gazette, vol. 3, 1826, pp. 321-327.
• —Monthly Review, vol. 107, 1825, pp. 273-294.
• —Congregational Magazine, vol. 8, 1825, pp. 588-592.
• —Eclectic Review, vol. 25 N.S., 1826, pp. 1-18, 114-141.

—— Comus. New Monthly Magazine, vol. 7, 1823, pp. 222-229.

—— Comus, and Fletcher's Faithful Shepherdess. Manchester Quarterly, by W.E.A. Axon, vol. 1, 1882, pp. 285-295.

—— Dante and Æschylus. Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 20 N.S., 1853, pp. 513-525, 577-587, 641-650.

—— De Vericour's Lectures on. Monthly Review, vol. 2 N.S., 1838, pp. 342-351.

—— Doctrinal Error of his later life. Bibliotheca Sacra, by T. Hunt, vol. 42, 1885, pp. 251-269.

—— Doctrine of Divorce. Monthly Review, vol. 93, 1820, pp. 144-158.

—— Early Life. Methodist Quarterly Review, by P. Church, vol. 48, 1866, pp. 580-595.

—— Effigies of. Historical Magazine, vol. 2, 1858, pp. 230-233.

—— Familiar Letters. Southern Review, vol. 6, 1830, pp. 198-206.

• —American Quarterly Review, vol. 5, 1829, pp. 301-310.

—— French Critic on. Quarterly Review, vol. 143, 1877, pp. 186-204; same article, Littell's Living Age, vol. 132, pp. 579-589.

—— Genius of. Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, by G. Gilfillan, vol. 15 N.S., 1848, pp. 511-522; same article, Eclectic Magazine, vol. 15, pp. 196-212.

—— History of England. Retrospective Review, vol. 6, 1822, pp. 87-100.

—— Hollis' Bust of. Scribner's Monthly, by C. Cook, vol. 11, 1876, pp. 472-476.

—— Home, School, and College Training of. American Journal of Education, vol. 14, 1864, pp. 159-190.

—— Idealism of. Contemporary Review, by E. Dowden, vol. 19, 1872, pp. 198-209; same article, Littell's Living Age, vol. 112, 1872, pp. 408-414.

—— in our Day. Christian Examiner, by S. Good, vol. 57, 1854, pp. 323-340.

—— Italian Element in. Penn Monthly Magazine, by O.H. Kendall, vol. 1, 1870, pp. 388-400.

—— Keble's Estimate of. Macmillan's Magazine, by J.C. Shairp, vol. 31, 1875, pp. 554-560.

—— Keightley's Life of. North American Review, by H.A. Whitney, vol. 82, 1856, pp. 388-404. Littell's Living Age (from the Saturday Review), vol. 63, 1859, pp. 226-229.

—— Lamartine on. Littell's Living Age (from the Literary Gazette), vol. 44, 1855, pp. 497-499.

—— Latin Poems of, Cowper's Translations. Eclectic Review, Sept. 1808, pp. 780-791.

—— Life of. North British Review, by D. Masson, vol. 16, 1852, pp. 295-335; same article, Eclectic Magazine, vol. 25, 1852, pp. 433-447.

• —New Quarterly Review, vol. 8, 1859, pp. 40-54.

—— Life and Poetry of. Hogg's Instructor, vol. 1 N.S., 1853, pp. 234-242; same article, Eclectic Magazine, vol. 30, pp. 364-372.

—— Lycidas. American Monthly Magazine, vol. 5 N.S., 1838, pp. 341-353.

• —Quarterly Review, vol. 158, 1884, pp. 162-183.

—— —— Language of Lycidas. Sharpe's London Magazine, vol. 25 N.S., 1864, pp. 293-296.

—— —— Notes on Lycidas. Journal of Speculative Philosophy, by A.C. Brackett, vol. 1, 1867, pp. 87-90.

—— Masson's Life of. British Quarterly Review, vol. 29, 1859, pp. 185-214; vol. 59, 1874, pp. 81-100.

• —North British Review, vol. 30, 1859, pp. 281-308; same article, Littell's Living Age, vol. 61, pp. 731-747.
• —Dublin University Magazine, vol. 53, 1859, pp. 609-623.
• —New Monthly Magazine, vol. 115, 1859, pp. 163-172.
• —Eclectic Review, vol. 1 N.S., 1859, pp. 1-21.
• —Christian Examiner, by G.E. Ellis, vol. 66, 1859, pp. 401-431.
• —Old and New, vol. 4, 1871, pp. 704-708.
• —Nation, by W.F. Allen, vol. 13, 1871, pp. 91, 92; vol. 17, 1873, pp. 165, 166; vol. 31, 1880, pp. 15, 16.
• —International Review, by H.C. Lodge, vol. 9, 1880, pp. 125-135.
• —Quarterly Review, vol. 132, 1872, pp. 393-423.
• —Presbyterian Quarterly, by E.H. Gillett, vol. 1, 1872, pp. 382-394.
• —North American Review, by J.R. Lowell, vol. 114, 1872, pp. 204-218.
• —Macmillan's Magazine, by G.B. Smith, vol. 28, 1873, pp. 536-547.
• —Christian Observer, vol. 73, 1873, pp. 815-834.
• —International Review, vol. 1, 1874, pp. 131-135.
• —North American Review, vol. 126, 1878, pp. 537-542.
• —Nation, by J.L. Dyman, vol. 26, 1878, pp. 342-344.
• —Westminster Review, vol. 57 N.S., 1880, pp. 365-385.

—— Minor Poems. Dublin University Magazine, vol. 63, 1864, pp. 619-625.

—— Mitford's Life of. New Monthly Magazine, vol. 34, 1832, pp. 581, 582.

—— Nephews of. Edinburgh Review, by Sir J. Mackintosh, vol. 25, 1815, pp. 485-501.

—— Newly-discovered Prose Writings of. Hours at Home, by E.H. Gillett, vol. 9, 1869, pp. 532-536.

—— Ode to. Harper's New Monthly Magazine, by A.A. Lipscomb, vol. 20, 1860, pp. 771-778.

—— On the Divinity of Christ. Christian Examiner, vol. 2, 1825, pp. 423-429.

—— Paradise Lost. Journal of Sacred Literature, by F.A. Cox, vol. 1, 1848, pp. 236-257.

—— —— Chateaubriand's Translation of Paradise Lost. Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. 19, 1837, pp. 35-50.

—— —— Cosmology of Paradise Lost. Lutheran Quarterly, by J.A. Himes, vol. 6, p. 187, etc.

—— —— De Lille's Translation of Paradise Lost. Edinburgh Review, vol. 8, 1806, pp. 167-190.

—— —— First Edition of Paradise Lost. Book-Lore, vol. 3, 1886, pp. 72-75. Leisure Hour, April 28, 1877, pp. 269, 270.

—— —— Moral Estimate of the Paradise Lost. Christian Observer, vol. 22, 1822, pp. 211-218, 278-284.

—— —— Mull's edition of Paradise Lost. Spectator, December 6, 1884, pp. 1635, 1636.

• —Saturday Review, vol. 58, pp. 570, 571.

—— —— Origin of the Paradise Lost. North American Review, by L.E. Dubois, vol. 91, 1860, pp. 539-555.

—— —— Plan of Paradise Lost. New Englander, by Professor Himes, vol. 42, 1883, pp. 196-211.

—— —— Prendeville's edition of Paradise Lost. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 47, 1840, pp. 691-716.

—— —— Sorelli's Italian Translation of Paradise Lost. Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. 10, 1832, pp. 508-513.

—— —— Theism of the Paradise Lost. Unitarian Review, by H. Carpenter, vol. 5, pp. 302, etc.

—— Poetry of. Edinburgh Review, vol. 42, 1825, pp. 304-324.

• —Selections from the Edinburgh Review, vol. 2, 1835, pp. 34-64.
• —Macmillan's Magazine, by J.R. Seeley, vol. 17, 1868, pp. 299-311; vol. 19, pp. 407-421.
• —Temple Bar, vol. 39, 1873, pp. 458-473.

—— Political Writings. Nation, by Goldwin Smith, vol. 30, 1880, pp. 30-32.

—— Prose Writings of. New Monthly Magazine, vol. 40, 1834, pp. 39-50.

• —Congregational Magazine, vol. 10 N.S., 1834, pp. 217-224.
• —American Monthly Magazine, vol. 1 N.S., 1836, pp. 142-146.
• —Eclectic Review, vol. 25 N.S., 1849, pp. 507-521.
• —Spectator, Oct. 3, 1885, pp. 1317, 1318.
• —Athenæum, Sept. 20, 1884, pp. 359, 360.

—— Public Conduct of. Edinburgh Review, vol. 42, 1825, pp. 324-346.

• —Selections from the Edinburgh Review, vol. 2, 1835, pp. 48-64.

—— Relics of, at Cambridge. Chambers's Journal, vol. 8, 1857, pp. 319, 320.

—— Religious Life and Opinions of. Bibliotheca Sacra, by A.D. Barber, vol. 16, 1859, pp. 557-603; vol. 17, pp. 1-42.

—— Rural Scenes of. Fraser's Magazine, vol. 23, 1841, pp. 519-528.

—— Satan of. Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 1, 1817, pp. 140-142.

—— —— and Lucifer of Byron Compared. Knickerbocker, vol. 30, 1847, pp. 150-155.

—— —— Satan of Paradise Lost. Dublin University Magazine, vol. 88, 1876, pp. 707-714.

—— Select Prose Works. Boston Quarterly Review, vol. 5, 1842, pp. 322-342.

—— Shadow of the Puritan War in. Catholic Presbyterian, by A. Macleod, vol. 9, 1883, pp. 169-176, 321-330.

—— Sonnets of, Pattison's edition. Academy, by J.A. Noble, vol. 24, 1883, pp. 57, 58.

• —Saturday Review, vol. 56, 1883, pp. 252, 253.
• —Spectator, Aug. 18, 1883, pp. 1062, 1063.
• —Athenæum, Sept. 1, 1883, pp. 263-265.

—— Spenser, and Shakspere. Victoria Magazine, vol. 25, 1875, pp. 856-868, 1059-1065; vol. 26, pp. 24-31, 108-117.

—— State Papers relating to. London Magazine, vol. 6 N.S., 1826, pp. 377-396.

—— Theology of. Boston Monthly Magazine, vol. 1, 1825, pp. 489-491.

—— Todd's Life of. Quarterly Review, vol. 36, 1827, pp. 29-61.

• —Monthly Review, vol. 3 N.S., 1826, pp. 258-273.
• —Museum of Foreign Literature, vol. 10, p. 67, etc.; vol. 11, pp. 114, etc., 385, etc.
• —Congregational Magazine, vol. 3, 1827, pp. 33-40.

—— Treatise on Christian Doctrine. Evangelical Magazine, vol. 4 N.S., 1826, pp. 371-375.

—— versus Robert Montgomery. Knickerbocker, vol. 3, 1834, pp. 120-134.

—— Works of. American Church Review, by J.H. Hanson, vol. 2, pp. 153, etc.

—— Youth of. Edinburgh Review, vol. 111, 1860, pp. 312-347; same article, Littell's Living Age, vol. 65, pp. 579-597.

• —Argosy, vol. 6, 1868, pp. 267-273.

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VII. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS.

A Maske [Comus]	1637
Lycidas (In Justa Edouardo King Naufrago)	1638
Of Reformation touching Church-Discipline in England	1641
Of Prelatical Episcopacy	1641
Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's defence against Smectymnuus	1641
The Reason of Church-Government urg'd against Prelaty	1641
Apology against a Pamphlet called A Modest Confutation of theAnimadversions, etc.	1641
Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce	1643
Of Education. To Master S. Hartlib	1644
The Judgment of Martin Bucer, now Englisht	1644
Areopagitica	1644
Tetrachordon	1644
Colasterion	1645
Poems	1645
Tenure of Kings and Magistrates	1649
Observations upon the Articles of Peace with the Irish Rebels(Articles of Peace, etc.)	1649
Eikonoklastes	1649
Pro populo Anglicano defensio contra Salmasium	1651
A Letter touching the Dissolution of the late Parliament	1653
Pro populo Anglicano defensio secunda	1654
Scriptum Dom-Protectoris contra Hispanos	1655
Pro se defensio contra A. Morum	1655
Treatise on Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes	1659
Considerations touching the likeliest means to remove Hirelingsout of the Church	1659
Ready and easy way to establish a free Commonwealth	1660
Paradise Lost	1667
Accedence commenc't Grammar	1669
History of Britain	1670
Paradise Regained	1671
Samson Agonistes (With preceding work)	1671
Artis Logicæ plenior Institutio	1672
Of true Religion, Heresie, Schism, Toleration, and what best meansmay be used against the growth of Popery	1673
Epistolarum familiarium liber	1674
Declaration or Letters Patents of the Election of this presentKing of Poland, John the Third	1674
Literæ Pseudo-Senatus Anglicani, Cromwellii, etc.	1676
Character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines in 1641	1681
Brief History of Moscovia	1682
Works [in prose]	1697
Historical, political, and miscellaneous works	1698
Original Letters and Papers of State addressed to Oliver Cromwell	1743
De Doctrina Christiana	1825
Common Place Book	1876

Printed by WALTER SCOTT, Felling, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

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KEBLE'S CHRISTIAN YEAR.
COLERIDGE.	Ed. by J. Skipsey.
LONGFELLOW.	Ed. by E. Hope.
CAMPBELL.	Ed. by J. Hogben.
SHELLEY.	Edited by J. Skipsey.
WORDSWORTH.	Edited by A.J. Symington.
BLAKE.	Ed. by Joseph Skipsey.
WHITTIER.	Ed. by Eva Hope.
POE.	Edited by Joseph Skipsey.
CHATTERTON.	Edited by John Richmond.
BURNS. Poems}	Edited by Joseph Skipsey.
BURNS. Songs}
MARLOWE.	Ed. by P.E. Pinkerton.
KEATS.	Edited by John Hogben.
HERBERT.	Edited by E. Rhys.
HUGO.	Trans. by Dean Carrington.
COWPER.	Edited by Eva Hope.
SHAKESPEARE. Songs, Poems, and Sonnets.	Edited by William Sharp.
EMERSON.	Edited by W. Lewin.
SONNETS of this CENTURY.	Edited by William Sharp.
WHITMAN.	Edited by E. Rhys.
SCOTT. Marmion, etc.
SCOTT. Lady of the Lake, etc.	Edited by William Sharp.
PRAED.	Edited by Fred. Cooper.
HOGG.	By his Daughter, Mrs Garden.
GOLDSMITH.	Ed. by W. Tirebuck.
MACKAY'S LOVE LETTERS.
SPENSER.	Edited by Hon. R. Noel
CHILDREN OF THE POETS.	Edited by Eric S. Robertson.
JONSON.	Edited by J.A. Symonds.
BYRON (2 Vols.)	Ed. by M. Blind.
THE SONNETS OF EUROPE.	Edited by S. Waddington.
RAMSAY.	Ed. by J.L. Robertson
DOBELL.	Edited by Mrs. Dobell.
DAYS OF THE YEAR.	With Introduction by Wm. Sharp.
POPE.	Edited by John Hogben.
HEINE.	Edited by Mrs. Kroeker.
BEAUMONT & FLETCHER.	Edited by J.S. Fletcher.
BOWLES, LAMB, &c.	Edited by William Tirebuck.
EARLY ENGLISH POETRY.	Edited by H. Macaulay Fitzgibbon.
SEA MUSIC.	Edited by Mrs Sharp.
HERRICK.	Edited by Ernest Rhys.
BALLADES AND RONDEAUS.	Edited by J. Gleeson White.
IRISH MINSTRELSY.	Edited by H. Halliday Sparling.
MILTON'S PARADISE LOST.	Edited by J. Bradshaw, M.A., LL.D.
JACOBITE BALLADS.	Edited by G.S. Macquoid.
AUSTRALIAN BALLADS.	Edited by D.B.W. Sladen, B.A.
MOORE.	Edited by John Dorrian.
BORDER BALLADS.	Edited by Graham R. Tomson.
SONG-TIDE.	By P.B. Marston.
ODES OF HORACE.	Translations by Sir S. de Vere, Bt.
OSSIAN.	Edited by G.E. Todd.
ELFIN MUSIC.	Ed. by A. Waite.
SOUTHEY.	Ed. by S.R. Thompson.
CHAUCER.	Edited by F.N. Paton.
POEMS OF WILD LIFE.	Edited by Chas. G.D. Roberts, M.A.
PARADISE REGAINED.	Edited by J. Bradshaw, M.A., LL.D
CRABBE.	Edited by E. Lamplough.
DORA GREENWELL.	Edited by William Dorling.
FAUST.	Edited by E. Craigmyle.
AMERICAN SONNETS.	Edited by William Sharp.
LANDOR'S POEMS.	Selected and Edited by E. Radford.
GREEK ANTHOLOGY.	Edited by Graham R. Tomson.
HUNT AND HOOD.	Edited by J. Harwood Panting.

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London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.

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Crown 8vo, about 350 pp. each, Cloth Cover, 2s. 6d. per vol.
Half-polished Morocco, gilt top, 5s.

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COUNT TOLSTOÏ'S WORKS.

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Arrangements have been made to publish, in Monthly Volumes, a series of translations of works by the eminent Russian Novelist, Count Lyof. N. Tolstoï. The English reading public will be introduced to an entirely new series of works by one who is probably the greatest living master of fiction in Europe. To those unfamiliar with the charm of Russian fiction, and especially with the works of Count Tolstoï, these volumes will come as a new revelation of power.

The following Volumes are already issued—

A RUSSIAN PROPRIETOR.

THE COSSACKS.

IVAN ILYITCH, AND OTHER STORIES.

THE INVADERS, AND OTHER STORIES.

MY RELIGION.

LIFE.

MY CONFESSION.

CHILDHOOD, BOYHOOD, YOUTH.

THE PHYSIOLOGY OF WAR.

ANNA KARÉNINA.(2 VOLS.)

WHAT TO DO?

WAR AND PEACE.(4 VOLS.)

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Ready November 25th.

THE LONG EXILE, AND OTHER STORIES FOR CHILDREN.

OTHERS TO FOLLOW.

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London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.

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Small Crown 8vo.

Printed on Antique Laid Paper. Cloth Elegant, Gilt Edges, Price 3/6.

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SUMMER LEGENDS.

BY RUDOLPH BAUMBACH.

TRANSLATED BY MRS. HELEN B. DOLE.

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This is a collection of charming fanciful stories translated from the German. In Germany they have enjoyed remarkable popularity, a large number of editions having been sold. Rudolph Baumbach deals with a wonderland which is all his own, though he suggests Hans Andersen in his simplicity of treatment, and Heine in his delicacy, grace, and humour. These are stories which will appeal vividly to the childish imagination, while the older reader will discern the satirical or humorous application that underlies them.

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London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane.

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Windsor Series of Poetical Anthologies.

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Printed on Antique Paper. Crown 8vo. Bound in Blue Cloth, each with suitable Emblematic Design on Cover, Price 3s. 6d.
Also in various Calf and Morocco Bindings.

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Women's Voices. An Anthology of the most Characteristic Poems by English, Scotch, and Irish Women. Edited by Mrs. William Sharp.

Sonnets of this Century. With an Exhaustive Essay on the Sonnet. Edited by Wm. Sharp.

The Children of the Poets. An Anthology from English and American Writers of Three Centuries. Edited by Professor Eric S. Robertson.

Sacred Song. A Volume of Religious Verse. Selected and arranged by Samuel Waddington.

A Century of Australian Song. Selected and Edited by Douglas B.W. Sladen, B.A., Oxon.

Jacobite Songs and Ballads. Selected and Edited, with Notes, by G.S. Macquoid.

Irish Minstrelsy. Edited, with Notes and Introduction, by H. Halliday Sparling.

The Sonnets of Europe. A Volume of Translations. Selected and arranged by Samuel Waddington.

Early English and Scottish Poetry. Selected and Edited by H. Macaulay Fitzgibbon.

Ballads of the North Countrie. Edited, with Introduction, by Graham R. Tomson.

Songs and Poems of the Sea. An Anthology of Poems Descriptive of the Sea. Edited by Mrs. William Sharp.

Songs and Poems of Fairyland. An Anthology of English Fairy Poetry, selected and arranged, with an Introduction, by Arthur Edward Waite.

Songs and Poems of the Great Dominion. Edited by W.D. Lighthall, of Montreal.

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London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.

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RECENT VOLUMES OF VERSE.

Edition de Luxe. Crown 4to, on Antique Paper, Price 12s. 6d.

SONNETS OF THIS CENTURY.

BY WILLIAM SHARP.

Crown 8vo, Cloth, Bevelled Boards, Price 3s. 6d. each.

IN FANCY DRESS.

"IT IS THYSELF."

BY MARK ANDRE RAFFALOVICH.

Crown 8vo, Cloth, Bevelled Boards, Price 3s. 6d.

CAROLS FROM THE COAL-FIELDS: AND OTHER SONGS AND BALLADS.

BY JOSEPH SKIPSEY.

Cloth Gilt, Price 3s.

LAST YEAR'S LEAVES.

By JOHN JERVIS BERESFORD, M.A.

Crown 8vo, Cloth Gilt, Price 3s. 6d.

BALLADS AND OTHER POEMS.

BY GEORGE ROBERTS HEDLEY.

Fourth Edition, Crown 8vo, Cloth Gilt, Price 3s. 6d.

TALES AND BALLADS OF WEARSIDE.

BY JOHN GREEN.

Second Edition. Price 3s.

ROMANTIC BALLADS AND POEMS OF PHANTASY.

BY WILLIAM SHARP.

Parchment Limp, 3s.

DEATH'S DISGUISES AND OTHER SONNETS.

BY FRANK T. MARZIALS.

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London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.

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NEW BOOKLETS.

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Crown 8vo, in White Embossed Boards, Gilt Lettering, One Shilling each.

BY COUNT LEO TOLSTOÏ.

WHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD IS ALSO.

THE TWO PILGRIMS.

WHAT MEN LIVE BY.

Published originally in Russia, as tracts for the people, these little stories, which Mr. Walter Scott will issue separately early in February, in "booklet" form, possess all the grace, naïveté, and power which characterise the work of Count Tolstoï, and while inculcating in the most penetrating way the Christian ideas of love, humility, and charity, are perfect in their art form as stories pure and simple.

ADAPTED FOR PRESENTATION AT EASTER.

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London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane.