in quire (choir), sovran, ammiral, lour, and particularly in the initial syllables of certain compounds, the orthography of the old editions has been retained. In various instances the punctuation has been modified, a liberty as to the text of the Paradise Lost which is quite justifiable.

This edition has been prepared under the advice and with the assistance of Professor Torrey of Harvard University.

CAMBRIDGE, July, 1866.

LIFE OF MILTON.

LTON, the author of Paradise Lost, was lon on the ninth day of December, 1608. ohn Milton, was a man of some learning and had been educated at Oxford. Ile e a Protestant, and was in consequence by his father. He then established himon, where he pursued the profession of a

himself says, "I was born at London, of mily; my father was distinguished by the integrity of his life, my mother by the hich she was held and the alms which 1. My father destined me while yet a tudy of polite literature, which I embraced idity that from the twelfth year of my ever retired to rest from my studies till ich was the first source of injury to my natural weakness of which were added daches; all of which not retarding my ter knowledge, he took care to have d daily both at school and by other mase." His first tutor was a learned and man, named Young, whom his pupil th respect and affection. Milton was

e a scrivener was not merely a copyist, but was emup wills, bonds, and other legal contracts.

sent to St. Paul's School in London, and at the age of sixteen to Christ's College, Cambridge. Before entering the University, he had acquired some knowledge of Hebrew, and translated the 114th and 116th Psalms into English verse.

Milton remained at Cambridge seven years. The Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity was written in the winter of 1629, soon after he had completed his twenty-first year. He had originally intended to enter the Church, but it was now torn by dissensions between the High Church party and the Puritans. The interest and sympathy of Milton were with the latter, while the former, now in power, required a submission which he could not yield. He therefore relinquished this design, and after leaving Cambridge passed five years at Horton, in Buckinghamshire, to which place his father had removed from London. Here he spent his time in close and severe study, making occasional visits to London for the purpose of buying books or gaining instruction in mathematics or music, in the latter of which he was well skilled and took great delight. We are told that he had a delicate, tunable voice," and he performed on both the organ and the bass-viol. In one of his letters from Horton he says, "It is my way to suffer no impediment, no love of ease, no avocation whatever, to chill the ardor, to break the continuity, or divert the completion of my literary pursuits." At Horton were probably written several of Milton's shorter poems, Arcades, Comus, Lycidas, L'Allegro, and Il Penseroso. The charming descriptions of rural sights and sounds in these poems show the influence of his country life upon the mind of the poet. The Masque of Comus was presented at Ludlow Castle, the official residence of the Earl of Bridgewater, then Lord President of Wales and the

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The actors were the sons of the daughter, Lady Alice Egerton. The poem is said to have been founded on nce of the Lady Alice having been not st in passing through Haywood forest. of Lycidas was composed on occasion of Mr. Edward King, who had been d and fellow-student at Cambridge, and in 1637 on his passage to Ireland. Of o poems, L'Allegro (the Cheerful, or Man) and Il Penseroso (the Pensive ), the exact date cannot be ascertained. n Dr. Johnson, Milton's most unfriendly belled to acknowledge that "they are two of imagination."

r of the poet died in 1637, and the next eft England to travel upon the Conticayed only a few days in Paris, where luced to the celebrated Grotius. From roceeded to Italy, and passed some time Rome, and Naples. He was on terms of several Florentines well known as men of says himself, "Here it was that I found he famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner sition for thinking in astronomy othere Franciscan and Dominican licensers it Naples, Milton was treated with ss by Manso, Marquis of Villa, now an > had been the friend and patron of the The influence of this visit to Italy and with its distinguished literary men and be traced in Milton's subsequent writings, in Paradise Lost, though it was nearly later that this, his greatest work, was

d intended to proceed from Naples to

Sicily and Greece, but hearing of the alarming state of public affairs in England he relinquished his plan. "I deemed it,” he says, "to be disgraceful for me to be idling away my time abroad for my own gratification, while my countrymen were contending for their liberty." He did not, however, immediately return to England, but again visited Rome and Florence, and afterwards went to Venice, whence he proceeded to Geneva. He returned by way of Paris to England, after an absence of fifteen months. In giving an account of his travels, Milton writes, "I take God to witness that I lived, in all those places where so much license is given, free from and untouched by any kind of vice and infamy, continually bearing in mind that even if I could escape the eyes of men, I could not escape those of God."

Milton was a republican in politics and an independent in religion. In the contest at that time raging in England between the King (Charles I.) and the Parliament, he sided with the latter. He believed neither in the divine right of kings nor in the authority of the Established Church, and considered it as lawful and right to oppose to the last extreme the despotic use of the king's prerogative and the efforts made by the primate, Archbishop Laud, to maintain High Church doctrines and observances. He did not, however, take any active part in the contest. He says,

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Things being in such a disturbed and fluctuating state, I looked about to see if I could get any place that would hold myself and my books, and so I took a house of sufficient size in the city (London); and there with no small delight I resumed my intermitted studies, cheerfully leaving the event of public affairs, first to God, and then to those to whom the people had committed that task." Here he received as pupils his two nephews, the sons of his sister Mrs. Phil