to make and keep himself worthy of it? The Milton of religious and political controversy, and perhaps of domestic life also, is not seldom disfigured by want of amenity, by acerbity. The Milton of poetry, on the other hand, is one of those great men who are modest' to quote a fine remark of Leopardi, that gifted and stricken young Italian, who in his sense for poetic style is worthy to be named with Dante and Milton -'who are modest, because they continually compare themselves, not with other men, but with that idea of the perfect which they have before their mind.' The Milton of poetry is the man, in his own magnificent phrase, of 'devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit that can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases.' And finally, the Milton of poetry is, in his own words again, the man of industrious and select reading.' Continually he lived in companionship with high and rare excellence, with the great Hebrew poets and prophets, with the great poets of Greece and Rome. The Hebrew compositions were not in verse, and can be not inadequately represented by the grand, measured prose of our English Bible. The verse of the poets of Greece and Rome no translation can adequately reproduce. Prose cannot have the power of verse; versetranslation may give whatever of charm is in the soul and talent of the translator himself, but never the specific charm of the verse and poet translated. In our race are thousands of readers, presently there will be millions, who know not a word of Greek and Latin, and will never learn those languages. If this host of readers are ever to gain any sense of the power and charm of the great poets of antiquity, their way to gain it is not through translations of the ancients, but through the original poetry of Milton,

who has the like power and charm, because he has the like

great style.

TENNYSON'S ALCAICS TO MILTON.

O mighty-mouth'd inventor of harmonies,
O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity,
God-gifted organ-voice of England,

Milton, a name to resound for ages;
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,
Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries,
Tower, as the deep-domed empyrëan

Rings to the roar of an angel onset -
Me rather all that bowery loneliness,
The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring,
And bloom profuse and cedar arches

Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean,
Where some refulgent sunset of India
Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle,
And crimson-hued the stately palm-woods
Whisper in odorous heights of even.

II. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE.

So much has been written about Milton that only the best can be mentioned here. The Poetical Works of John Milton (Macmillan), in three volumes, edited by Professor David Masson, is the standard edition of Milton's poetry. The Globe edition (Macmillan), also edited by Professor Masson, contains the poetical works in one volume, and should be in the hands of every student. Of recent annotated editions, those of Verity and Browne may be

specially mentioned.

The other important editions, from Newton's down, are referred to or quoted in the notes to the present volume. At least as much of Milton's prose should be read as is contained in Morley's English Prose Writings of John Milton (Routledge), if the student has not the time or the inclination to read through the five volumes in the Bohn library.

Professor Masson's Life of John Milton (Macmillan), in six volumes, is the authoritative biography, although Brooke's Milton (Appleton), Pattison's Milton (Harper), or Garnett's John Milton (Walter Scott), the latter of which has a good bibliography, will better answer the needs of the ordinary student. Besides the authors quoted in the Introduction to the present volume, whose criticisms should be read in their complete form, Addison, Johnson, Coleridge, Macaulay, Landor, Emerson, Lowell, and others of less note have made contributions of more or less value to Miltonic criticism. The student will find Bradshaw's Concordance to the Poetical Works (Macmillan) also of value; for the history of Milton's time, he may consult Green's Short History of the English People (Harper), and Gardiner's Puritan Revolution (Longmans).

L'ALLEGRO, IL PENSEROSO, COMUS,

AND LYCIDAS.

L'ALLEGRO.

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born In Stygian cave forlorn

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy! Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night-raven sings;

There, under ebon shades and low-browed rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

But come, thou Goddess fair and free,

In heaven yclept Euphrosyne,
And by men heart-easing Mirth;
Whom lovely Venus, at a birth,
With two sister Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore:

Or whether (as some sager sing)

The frolic wind that breathes the spring,
Zephyr, with Aurora playing,

As he met her once a-Maying,

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