Milton Author:John Milton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: chief poet who wrote in the spirit of the Bestoration, called to talk with the author of Paradise Lost, and to suggest improvements in the form of the poem, whic... more »h he thought should be in rhyme. The recognition which the poet thus got in his lifetime is small only in comparison with the immense fame he has won since his death. Milton has now become an object of the profoundest curiosity. His life has been investigated by Professor Masson, with a minute scrutiny into detail such as has been devoted to no other writer but Shakespeare. His works are perpetually reprinted in all imaginable forms, whether of cheapness or of sumptuous elegance. They are read as text-books in schools by hosts of youth. Our beliefs regarding the great themes of the sacred scriptures are so colored by the Miltonic epics that we hardly know to-day just what part of our conceptions we owe to the Bible and what to the poet. Next to the Shakespearean dramas, the poems of Milton are the largest single influence that knits the English-speaking race into one vast brotherhood. All students of Milton have to acknowledge their indebtedness to Professor David Masson of Edinburgh, who has devoted years of labor to research in every department of Miltonic lore. Masson's great Life of Milton in Connexion with the History of his Time is far too bulky for use except for reference on special points. The index volume makes the enormous work accessible as occasion requires. To his edition of the poetical works, Masson prefixes a life, which will suffice for all the needs likely to arise in school. Yet again, Masson is the writer of the article on Milton in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, a most complete presentment of everything a student ordinarily needs to know. In the series of Classical Writers is a little book,...« less