The World, February 18, 1880.
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“Prae Existence, a Poem in imitation of Milton.” London: Printed for John Clark, at the Bible and Crown in the Old Change, near St. Paul’s, 1714. This work was published anonymously, but it had a long Publisher’s Preface, signed J.B., under which initials it may be traced in the catalogue of the British Museum Library (Press Mark 11,631, b.b.b. 39). The Preface states that the structure of the Poem is founded on the opinion “That all human souls had an existence antecedent to the Mosaic Creation,” and is intended as an account of the events that occurred in the interval between the battle of Michael and Lucifer, and the creation of the World.
In Book I. Paradise Lost, Milton thus alludes to Lucifer’s discomfiture:—
“Nine times the space that measures Day and Night
To mortal men, he with his horrid crew,
Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf,”
and the Author of “Prae Existence” commences his poem with the Archangels sounding a retreat from the pursuit of the Rebel Angels condemned to Hell, and the closing of Hell Gates.
With such a text it may be easily imagined that the Poem is not of a very light or cheerful description. It opens thus ominously:—
Now had th’ Archangel Trumpet, raised sublime