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Page [unnumbered]. Page 1 THE PARADISE LOST BY JOHN MILTON. EDITED BY REV. NEW YORK: BAKER AND SCRIBNER. Page 2 Entered accordlisg to Act of Congress, in the year" 1a50, by BAKER AND SCRIBNER, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.
BENEDICT, S t e r e o t 'y p e 7, beattie by critical dissertation james moral works, William st. Page 3 REASONS FOR PREPARING THIS AMERICAN EDITION. PARADISE LOST is, by common consent, pronounced to be a work of transcendent genius and taste. It takes rank with the Iliad of 1Homer, and with the IEneid of Virgil, as an Epic of incomparable merit.
Dryden was by no means extravagant in the praise which he bestowed upon it in his well-known lines: " Three poets in three distant ages born, GrAece, Italy, and England did adorn: The first in loftiness of thought surpassed; The next in majesty; in both the last. The force of nature could no further go: To make a third, she joined the other two.
How few even of educated men can affirm that they have so read and understood it, as to appreciate all its parts? How does this happen Is the poem considered unworthy of their most careful perusal? Is it not inviting to the intellect, the imagination, and the sensibilities? Is it not acknowledged to be superior to any other poetic composition, the Hebrew writings only excepted, to whose lofty strains of inspired song the blind bard of London was s greatly indebted for his own subordinate inspiration?
If inquiry should extensively be made, it will be ascertained that Paradise Lost, is but little read, less understood, and still less appreciated; though it may be found on the shelves of almost every library, or upon the parlor table of almost every dwelling.
Every school boy. Page 4 4 REASONS FOR PREPARING THIS EDITION. and every school girl has read some beautiful extracts from it, and has heard it extolled as an unrivalled production; and this is about all that is usually learned in regard to it, or appreciated. The question returns, and it is one of some literary interest, how is this treatment of the Paradise Lost to be accounted for? To this inquiry the following observations will, beattie by critical dissertation james moral works, it is hoped, be considered appropriate and satisfactory.
It is pre-eminently a learned work; and has been well denominated " a book of universal knowledge. The beattie by critical dissertation james moral works of it cannot fail to be attended with a vivid impression of its great author's prodigious learning, and of the immense stores which he brought into use in its preparation.
As one of his editors, Sir Egerton Brydges, remarks, " his great poems require such a stretch of mind in the reader, as to be almost painful. The most amazing copiousness of learning is sublimated into all his conceptions and descriptions. His learning never oppressed his imagination; and his imagination never obliterated or dimmed his learning; but even these would not have done without the addition of a great heart, and a pure and lofty mind.
The poem is one which could not have been produced solely by the genius of Milton, without the addition of an equal extent and depth of learning, and an equal labor of reflection. It has always a great compression. Perhaps its perpetual allusion to all past literature and history were sometimes carried a little too far for the popular reader; and the latinised style requires to be read with the attention due to an ancient classic.
While large portions of the poem are sufficiently lucid for the comprehension of ordinary readers, there is frequently introduced an obscure paragraph, sentence, clause, or word; which serves to break up the continuity of the poem in the reader's mind, to obstruct his progress, to apprise him of his own ignorance or obtuseness, and thus to create no small degree of dissatisfaction.
The obscurity arises, in some cases, from the highly learned character of the allusions to ancieut history and mythology; in other cases, from great inversion of. Page 5 REASONS FOR PREPARING THIS EDITION. e,culiar modes of spelling; from references to exploded and unphilosophical notions in astronomy, chemistry, geology, and philosophy, with which but few persons are familiar.
Besides all this, it has been truly observed by the writer before quoted, that " Milton has a language of his own; I may say invented by himself. It is somewhat hard but it is all sincere: it is not vernacular, but has a latinised cast, which requires a little time to reconcile a reader to it. It is best fitted to beattie by critical dissertation james moral works his own magnificent ideas; its very learnedness impresses us with respect.
It moves with a gigantic step: it does not flow like Shakspeare's style, nor dance like Spenser's. Now and then there are transpositions somewhat alien to the character of the English language, which is not well calculated for transposition; but in Milton this is perhaps a merit, because his lines are pregnant with deep thought and sublime imagery which requires us to dwell upon them, and contemplate them over and over.
He ought never to be read rapidly. Much of it, as we have remarked, cannot be understood; it abounds in too many passages that convey to none but the learned any cleai idea: thus the common reader is repelled, and the sublimities and beauties of this incomparable poem are known only as echoes from the pages of criticism, of course inadequately.
Not long since even a well-educated and popular preacher was asked how he managed in reading Paradise Lost? His honest and truthful answer was, that he skipped over the hard places, and read the easier; that he did not pretend fully to understand, or to appreciall, the entire poem; beattie by critical dissertation james moral works admitted that not a few passages were not far from being a dead letter to him, requiring for their just interpretation more research and study than he was willing or able to bestow.
The fact undoubtedly is, that since a poem is beattie by critical dissertation james moral works chiefly to the imagination and the sensibilities; since it is read with a view to pleasurable excitement, and not taken up as a production to be severely.
Page 6 6 REASONS FOR PREPARING THIS EDITION. studied; since a demand for mental labor and research interferes with the entertainment anticipated, in most cases the Paradise Lost is, on this account, laid aside, though possessing the highest literary merit, for poems of an inferior cast, but of easier interpretation. It beattie by critical dissertation james moral works possible also that the pious spirit which animates the entire poem, and the theological descriptions which abound in several of the Books, may, to the mass of readers, give it a repulsive aspect, and cause them, though unwisely, to prefer other productions in which these elements are not found.
To the causes now enumerated, rather than to those assigned by Dr. Johnson may be referred the result which he thus describes:-" Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is. Its perusal is a duty rather than a pleasure.
We read Milton for instruction, retire harrassed and overburdened, and look elsewhere for recreation: we desert our master, and seek for companions. May not something be done to prepare American readers generally to appreciate it, and, in the perusal, to gratify their intellects and regale their fancy, among its grandeurs and beauties, and also among its learned allusions,' and s ientific informations 1 The attainment of this important end is the design of the present edition: it is therefore furnished with a large body of notes; -with notes sufficiently numerous and full, it is presumed, to clear up the obscurities to which we have referred; to place the unlearned reader, so far as the possession of the information requisite to understand the poem is concerned, on the same level with the learned; and to direct attention to the pas.
The editions hitherto published in this country, it is believed, are either destitute of notes, or the no'es are altogether too few and too brief to afford the aid which is generally required. About half a century after the publication of the Paradise Lost, its reputation was munch advanced by a series of papers which came. Page 7 REASONS FOR PREPARING THIS EDITION, beattie by critical dissertation james moral works.
The Editor has evinced his own high sense of their value, and has, moreover, rendered them far more available to the illustration of the poem, than they are, as found in the Spectator, beattie by critical dissertation james moral works, by selecting such criticisms as appeared to him to possess the highest merit, and distributing them in the form of notes, to the several parts of the poem which they serve to illustrate and adorn.
After this labor had been performed, however, and a principal part of the other notes had been prepared, it was ascertained with some surprise, on procuring a London copy of Bp.
Newton's edition of Milton, now quite scarce, that the same course had a century ago been pursued by him; though the same pains had not been taken by Newton to distribute in detail to every part of the poem the criticisms of Addison. Besides this, he introduced them entire, and thus occupied his pages with much matter quite inferior to that which has been provided, in this edition, from recent sources.
The notes of the present edition will be found to embrace, besides much other matter, beattie by critical dissertation james moral works, all that is excellent and worth preservation in those of jNew. ton, beattie by critical dissertation james moral works, Todd, Brydges, and Stebbing; comprehending also some of the richest treasures of learned and ingenious criticism which the Paradise Lost has called into existence, and which have hitherto been scattered through the pages of many volumes of Reviews and miscellaneous literature: and these have been so arranged as to illustrate the several parts of the poem to which they r ate.
It was not deemed important to occupy space in the discussion of certain questions, more curious than useful or generally interesting, relating to some earlier authors, to whom it has been alleged that Mil. Page 8 8 REASONS FOR PREPARING THIS EDITION. ton was greatly indebted for the plan and some prominent features of the Paradise Lost. Yet it has been a pleasant, and more profitable task, to discover by personal research, and by aid of the research of others, those parts of classical authors a familiar acquaintance with which has enabled the learned poet so wonderfully to enrich and adorn his beautiful production.
These classic gems of thought and expression have been introduced in the notes, only for the gratification of those persons who are able to appreciate the language of the Roman and Grecian poets; and who may have a taste for observing the coincidences between their language and that of the great master of English verse.
Not long before the composition of Paradise Lost, Milton thus speaks of the qualifications which he regarded as requisite and which he hoped to employ in preparing it: "A work not to be raised from the heat of youth or the vapors of wine; nor to be obtained of dame Memory and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit, who 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.
To this must be added industrious and select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs. already quoted,' is the true origin, of Paradise Lost. Shakspeare's originality might be still more impugned, if an anticipation of hints and similar stories were to be taken as proof of plagiarism.
In many of the dramatist's most beautiful plays the whole tale is borrowed; but Shakspeare and Milton turn brass into gold. This sort of passage hunting has been carried a great deal too far, and has disgusted and repelled the reader of feeling and taste. The novelty is in the raciness, the life, the force, the jut association, the probability, the truth; that which is striking because it is extravagant is a false novelty. He who borrows to make patches is a plagiarist; but what beattie by critical dissertation james moral works is beattie by critical dissertation james moral works in Milton?
All is interwoven and forms part of one web. No doubt the holy bard was always intent upon sacred poetry, and drew his principal inspirations from Scripture. Thizs is,! tinsiishes his. syle and spirit from all other. Page 9 REASONS FOR PREPARING THIS EDITION. He has long wondered, and regretted, that such an edition of Paradise Lost, as the American public needs, has not been furnished; and in the absence of a better, he offers this edition, as adapted, in his humble opinion, to render a most desirable and profitable service to the reading community, while it may contribute, as he hopes, to bring this poem from the state of unmerited neglect into which it has fallen, and cause it to be more generally read and studied, for the cultivation of a literary taste and for the expansion of the intellectual and moral powers.
Ours is an age in which the best writings of the seventeenth century have been generally republished, beattie by critical dissertation james moral works, and thus have been put upon a new career of fame and usefulness.
Shakspeare has had, for more than half a century, his learned annotators, without whose aid large portions of his plays would be nearly unintelligible.
He has been honored with public lectures also, to illustrate his genius, and to bring to view his masterly sketches of the human heart and manners. There have recently started up public readers also, by whose popular exertions he has been brought ihto more general admiration. It seems to be full time that a higher appreciation of the great epic of Milton than has hitherto prevailed among us, and that a more extended usefulness also, should be secured to it, by the publication of critical and explanatory notes, such as the circumstances of the reading class obviously require.
Ever valuable will it be, for its varied learning, for its exquisite beauties of poetic diction and measure; for its classical, scientific and scriptural allusions; for its graphic delineations of the domestic state and its duties; for its adaptation, when duly explained and understood, to enlarge the intellect, to entertain the imagination, to improve literary taste, and cultivate the social and the devout affections; for its grand account of creation, providence, and redemption, embracing A.
Page 10 10 REASONS FOR PREPARING THIS EDITION. most beautiful narrative and explanation of some of the most interest ing events connected with the history of our race. Nor should mentiof TeYomitted, of those excellent counsels, and maxims of conduct which it so frequently suggests, conveyed in language too appropriate and beautiful to be easily erased from the memory, or carelessly disregarded.
In conclusion, we may confidently adopt the words of Brydges, who has said, that to study Milton's poetry is not merely the delight of every accomplished mind, but it is a duty, beattie by critical dissertation james moral works. He who is not conversant with it, cannot conceive how far the genius of the Muse can go. The bard, whatever might have been his inborn genius, could never have attained this height of argument and execution but by a life of laborious and holy preparation; a constant conversance with the ideas suggested by the sacred writings; the habitual resolve to lift his mind and heart above earthly thoughts; the incessant exercise of all the strongest faculties of the intellect; retirement, temperance, courage, hope, faith.
He had all the aids of learning; all the fruit of all the wisdom of ages; all the effect of all that poetic genius, and all that philosophy had achieved. His poetry is pure majesty; the sober strength, the wisdom from above, that instructs and awes.
It speaks as an oracle; not with a mortal voice. And indeed, it will not be too much to say, that of all uninspired writings, Milton's are the most worthy of profound study by all minds which would know the creativeness, the splendor, the beattie by critical dissertation james moral works, the eloquence, the wisdom, to which the human intellect can attain.
The names of the authors most frequently quoted will be indicated simply by the initial letters: those authors are Addison, Newton, E. Brydges, Todd, Hume, Kitto, Richardson, Thyer, Stebbing and Pearce.
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WITH NOTES EXPLANATORY AND CRITICAL. EDITED BY REV. JAMES ROBERT BOYD, AUTHOR OF " ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC," AND " ECLECTIC MORAL PHILOSOPHY." MILTON, whose genius had angelic wings And fed on manna.-CowPeR. NEW YORK: BAKER AND SCRIBNER. Exemple dissertation critique comparative persuasive essay on public smoking best presentation editing services gb order top creative essay on hillary beattie by critical dissertation james moral works, payroll assistant resume examples microsoft word resume wizard free download, commercial carpenter resume examples, programmer analyst resume Esl dissertation conclusion ghostwriting for hire for university: cheap creative essay writers site uk rehabilitation counselor resume objective, bibliography proofreading sites beattie by critical dissertation james moral works, science vs religion essay papers, how to write a legal will in ontario cheap phd essay proofreading site ca, custom
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