most noble, most sublime poems which either this age or nation has produced.' (Works, ed. 1808, v. 106.) Dryden's six lines on Milton ('Three poets in three distant ages born') were written for the 1688 edition of 'Paradise Lost,' to be engraved beneath Milton's portrait. In the Essay on Satire,' prefixed to Dryden's translation from Juvenal, there is a long criticism of 'Paradise Lost,' and there are many allusions in his other critical prefaces. (Works, ed. 1808, xiii. pp. 19-21; xiv. p. 142.) Even at the court, amongst the noblemen who shone as poets and wits, Milton found admirers. Roscommon, in his 'Essay on Translated Verse,' ended with a condemnation of rhyme, and a specimen of blank verse, a cento from 'Paradise Lost,' as an example of the highest poetry the British muse had attained. John Sheffield, afterwards Duke of Buckingham, in his 'Essay on Poetry' (1682), classed Milton with the greatest poets. The epic poet, he said,

'Must above Cowley, nay, and Milton too prevail,

Succeed where great Torquato and our greater Spenser fail.' Johnson, in his Life of Sheffield, points out that in the last editions of this poem 'Milton was advanced to the highest place, and the passage thus adjusted':

'Must above Tasso's lofty flights prevail,

Succeed where Spenser and e'en Milton fail.'

Hostile criticisms during the same period were not lacking. Cunningham quotes several examples, and others are given by Masson (vi. 783). But the multiplication of editions is a solid proof of Milton's popularity. A German translation of 'Paradise Lost' was published in 1682; a Latin translation of the first book in 1686; and in 1688 came Tonson's sumptuous subscription folio. A sixth edition of 'Paradise Lost,' with an elaborate commentary, was published in 1695. Addison's criticisms in the 'Spectator' began in 1712, when nine editions of 'Paradise Lost' had been published.

P. 46. Phillips, Life of Milton, p. xli. The result of this system was a breach between Milton and his daughters. Elizabeth Fisher, Milton's servant, deposed during the trial of the dispute relating to the poet's will that he told her 'that

This took place apparently
About 1670 the daughters

his children did combine together and counsel his maid to cheat him in her marketings, and that his children had made away some of his books and would have sold the rest of his books to the dunghill women.' before Milton's third marriage. seem to have been boarded out and put to learn the trades mentioned by Phillips. The same witness deposed that Anne Milton was able to live by her trade of making gold and silver lace. (Masson, Life of Milton, vi. 446, 650, 738. Todd, Life of Milton, 1852, p. 183.)

1. 31. The History of Britain,' that part especially now called England, from the first traditional beginning, ‘continued to the Norman Conquest, collected out of the antientest and best authors thereof by John Milton,' 1670. A history of England was one of Milton's early schemes, and the first four books were finished before he became Latin Secretary. A portrait of Milton by Faithorne is prefixed to this work.

P. 47, 1. 10. In 1681 appeared a publication professing to be part of Milton's History of England. 'Mr. John Milton's character of the Long Parliament and assembly of Divines.' This is now generally inserted at the beginning of the third book of Milton's History, but Professor Masson doubts whether it really ought to form part of that work. He suggests it was written by Milton about 1648, but cancelled by the author himself and not by the licenser. (Life of Milton, vi. 806-812.) The story of the gift of the suppressed passages to the Earl of Anglesea is told by Phillips and Toland.

1. 25. ‘After the sickness was over, and the city well cleansed and become safely habitable again, he returned thither. And when afterwards I went to wait on him there, which I seldom failed of doing whenever my occasions drew me to London, he 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."' (Life of Ellwood, p. 200.)

1. 27. Phillips not Ellwood is the person to whom Johnson should have referred. Phillips says of 'Paradise Regained,'

'It is generally censured to be much inferior to the other, though he could not hear with patience any such thing when related to him; possibly the subject may not afford such variety of invention, but it is thought by the most judicious to be little or nothing inferior to the other for style and decorum.' (Life, prefixed to Letters of State, 1694, p. xxxix.) This does not bear out the inference that Milton himself preferred Paradise Regained to Paradise Lost.

P. 48, 1. 7. Wordsworth was perhaps thinking of this when he wrote the last line of his sonnet on Milton:

'So didst thou travel on life's common way

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest duties on herself did lay.'

Compare also Johnson's praise of Dr. Watts: 'Every man acquainted with the common principles of human action will look with veneration on the writer, who is at one time combating Locke, and at another making a catechism for children in their fourth year. A voluntary descent from the dignity of science is perhaps the hardest lesson that humility can teach.' (Lives of the Poets, ed. 1794.)

1. 18. This volume, a duodecimo, contains a portrait of Milton by Dolle reduced from the one by Faithorne prefixed to his 'History of Britain.'

Peter Ramus, born in Picardy in 1515, killed in the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day 1572, was an educational reformer. He attacked the philosophy of Aristotle, and formulated a new system of logic in opposition to his. The logic of Aristotle was maintained in the Catholic universities, while that of Ramus was adopted in the Protestant universities of Europe during the last part of the sixteenth century. The new logic found a ready reception in Cambridge, and that university became in the earlier part of the seventeenth century specially noted for the study of the Ramistic logic. (Bass Mullinger, History of the University of Cambridge, ii. 404-412.)

1. 22. 'Of True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and what best means may be used against the growth of Popery,' 1673. This tract was called forth by the controversies

excited by Charles the Second's Declaration of Indulgence (March 1672), and the passing of the 'Test Act,' 1673. Milton had expressed himself to the same effect in 'Areopagitica': 'I mean not tolerated Popery and open superstition, which as it extirpates all religious and civil supremacies so itself should be extirpat, provided first that all charitable and compassionate means be used to win and regain the weak and misled.' (Areopagitica, p. 54, ed. Hales.) In his Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes,' published in 1659, he advocated a far wider toleration, though even then he refused to allow the Catholics the public exercise of their religion.

P. 49, 1. 9. The additions in the second edition of Milton's minor poems (1673) are: (1) nine sonnets, nos. 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, and that on the New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament; (2) Translations done at various times, viz. the fifth ode of the first book of Horace, Psalms i-viii, Psalms lxxx-lxxxviii; (3) Two of the earlier poems, viz. 'On the Death of a Fair Infant,' and 'At a Vacation Exercise;' (4) Two Latin poems and a Greek epigram. (Masson vi. 688.)

1. 12. 'Joannis Miltonii Angli Epistolarum Familiarium Liber Unus: Quibus accesserunt Ejusdem, jam olim in Collegio Adolescentis, Prolusiones Quaedam Oratoriae,' 1674. An account of the college exercises is given by Masson (Life of Milton, vol. i. pp. 239–274). The letters were thirtyone in number; some were addressed to his first preceptors Gill and Young, others to his pupil Richard Jones, Viscount Ranelagh, two to his friend Charles Diodati, and many to foreign scholars. (Masson, Life of Milton, vi. 723.)

1. 19. He was very healthy, and free from all diseases, only towards his latter end he was visited with the gout, spring and fall. Seldom took any physic, only sometimes he took manna. He would be very cheerful even in his gout fits, and sing.' (Aubrey, Letters from the Bodleian, ii-449.)

1. 23. 'He had a very decent interment according to his quality, in the Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, being attended from his house to the Church by several gentlemen then in town, his principal well-wishers and admirers.' (Phillips,

p. xl.) 'All his learned and great friends in London, not without a friendly concourse of the vulgar, accompanied his body.' (Toland, p. 149.) He died on the 8th of November, 'with so little pain that the time of his expiring was not perceived by those in the room.' The funeral took place on November 12. (Masson, Life of Milton, vi. 731.)

1. 28. William Benson, Surveyor of the Buildings to King George I, erected a monument to Milton in Westminster Abbey in 1737. Pope refers to this in the Dunciad, iii. 325, 'On poets' tombs see Benson's titles writ.'

1. 31. John Phillips (1676–1708), whose life is the twelfth in order in Johnson's Lives of the Poets. He endeavoured to copy Milton's style, and wrote three poems in blank verse, viz. 'The Splendid Shilling' (1703), 'Blenheim' (1705), and 'Cyder' (1708). Of 'The Campaign,' which Macaulay quotes in his essay on Addison, Tickell wrote:

'Phillips, by Phoebus and his Aldrich taught,

Sings with that heat wherewith his Churchill fought;
Unfetter'd in great Milton's strain he writes,

Like Milton's angels, whilst his hero fights,
Pursues the bard, whilst he with honour can,

Equals the poet, and excels the man.'-Oxford, 1. 263-268., Richardson mentions the opposition to the erection of Milton's monument: 'The circumstances of his family excused a monument, nor was any such necessary. I have heard however that one was a few years ago intended to have been set up for him in Westminster Abbey; by whom I know not; but it was not permitted upon account of his political opinions.' (Explanatory notes and remarks on Paradise Lost, 1734, p. 97.) Dr. Sprat (1636-1713) became Dean of Westminster in 1683, and Bishop of Rochester in 1684. His life is the nineteenth in Johnson's Lives. Francis Atterbury (1662-1732) succeeded Sprat as Dean of Westminster and Bishop of Rochester. His epitaph on Phillips is printed in Johnson's Life of Phillips.

P. 50. 'He had light brown hair. His complexion exceeding fair. (He was so fair that they called him the Lady of Christ's College.) Oval face, his eye a dark grey.' (Aubrey,