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

by John Milton

[547]. meditate: practice; see 'Lycidas,' [66].

[548]. had: subj., should have; close: i.e. of his 'rural minstrelsy.'

[552]. unusual stop of sudden silence: see [145].

[553]. drowsy-flighted: this is the reading of the Cambridge Ms., which Masson adopts. Lawes's ed., 1637, and Milton's editions, 1645, 1673, read 'drowsy frighted.' Masson quite conclusively supports the reading of the Ms., which he explains, 'always drowsily flying.' Keightley retains 'drowsy frighted,' but says in his note, 'we are strongly inclined to think it [the Ms. reading] the right reading, and the present one a mistake of Lawes himself or his printer.'

[558]. took: rapt.

[560]. still: ever.

[585]. period: sentence.

[586]. for me: as for me.

[603]. grisly: horrible. 'So spake the grisly terror (Death).'—P. L., ii. 704.

[604]. Acheron: a river of the lower world; here used for the lower world itself.