OF JOHN MILTON, WITH NOTES, BY THOMAS KEIGHTLEY, AUTHOR OF MYTHOLOGY OF GREECE AND ITALY,' 'FAIRY MYTHOLOGY,' 'HISTORY OF "I view that oak, the fancied glades among, By which as MILTON lay, his evening ear, From many a cloud that dropped ethereal dew, Nigh-sphered in heaven, its native strains could hear; On which that ancient trump he reached was hung."-Collins. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 1859. PREFACE. EXCEPTING the Divina Commedia, there is no modern poem which stands so much in need of a commentary as Paradise Lost. So early was this want felt, that in about a quarter of a century after its appearance, an edition was printed with notes by Patrick Hume, a native of North Britain. Nothing more was done till 1732, when the celebrated Dr. Bentley published an edition of the poem, with a comment, proceeding on the absurd hypothesis that Milton's amanuensis had taken advantage of his blindness to interpolate the poem largely, and these interpolations the critic affected to have discovered, and printed them in a different character. In a "Review of the Text of Paradise Lost," Dr. (afterwards Bishop) Pearce amply refuted these absurd fancies of the great classical critic. Shortly after, the Richardsons, father and son, published "Explanatory Notes on the Paradise Lost;" Warburton also gave the world some of his views respecting it, as likewise did some anonymous critics. In 1749 Dr. (afterwards Bishop) Newton published, in two volumes quarto, "Paradise Lost, with Notes of Various Authors," and in 1752 the remaining Poems of Milton, in one volume, of the same form. This was the earliest instance of what is called a Variorum edition, in the English language. Besides the works of his predecessors, including Addison, Newton had manuscript remarks on Paradise Lost of Dr. |