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OF

JOHN MILTON

WITH INTRODUCTIONS

BY

DAVID MASSON, M.A., LL.D.

PROFESSOR OF RHETOKIC AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF

EDINBURGH

London

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

1897

The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved

14483.31.20

HARYAND

COLLEGE LIBRARY 45*310

FIRST EDITION PRINTED MAY 1877. REPRINTED JUNE 1877, 1878, 1880, 1882, 1885, 1887, 1891, 1893, 1896, 1897.

PREFACE.

THE TEXT of the Poems in this edition will, it is hoped, be found very accurate, having been carefully prepared by the Editor for the larger Library Edition, called "The Cambridge Edition," in three volumes 8vo. The INTRODUCTIONS are, with some revision, the same as those given in "The Golden Treasury Edition" in two volumes 18mo., and are an adaptation of the more extensive editorial matter of "The Cambridge Edition." Their purpose is to elucidate the circumstances, motives, and intention, of each of the Poems individually; they contain, therefore, a great deal of such information as is usually referred to Notes; and, if read in their chronological order, they will be found to supply also, after their fashion, a continuous and rather minute Literary Biography of the Poet. I regret that the wording of the Introduction to Sonnet XXIII. no longer corresponds with fact. When that paragraph was written, the house No. 19 York Street, Westminster, so interesting as having been Milton's residence from 1652 to 1660, was still in existence, as there described; but, when I was last on the spot, only the ruined shell was left, and that too, I hear, is now demolished.

EDINBURGH :

March 1877

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