PREFACE IN 1882. THE Golden Treasury Edition of Milton's Poetical Works having been for some time out of print, the present edition is substituted, as perhaps more conveniently intermediate in form between the Globe Edition and the large Cambridge Edition. Certain other changes have been permitted by this change of form. The chronological arrangement of the Poems has been adopted, as having some advantages. Volume I. contains all the Minor Poems; Volume II. contains Paradise Lost by itself; and Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes follow in Volume III. The Editorial matter is also considerably more extensive and varied than in the Golden Treasury Edition. The Memoir has been revised, and in part rewritten; the Introductions have received some correction; a substantial addition, likely to be useful to students, is inserted in Volume III., in the shape of an abridgment of an Essay on Milton's English and Versification, hitherto accessible only in the Cambridge Edition; and the Notes are more numerous and minute, and include the Latin Poems as well as the English. It is hoped that the distribution of the merely editorial matter in such a way as to leave the text itself always full-paged and undisturbed,the bibliographical and historical Introductions preceding the Poems severally, and the philological Essay and explanatory Notes coming together at the end,-will be agreeable to most readers. It is also hoped that the text and the punctuation of the Poems will be found not less accurate than in the former editions; for which they were carefully prepared by study and collation of the originals. EDINBURGH: September 1882. PREFACE IN 1893. THE Edition is now reissued, with no other change than a verbal correction or two and a slight enlargement of the size of the volumes. 1 CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO THE MINOR POEMS INTRODUCTIONS TO THE MINOR POEMS SEVERALLY:- Introductions to the English Poems On the Death of a Fair Infant dying of a Cough At a Vacation Exercise in the College Comus: A Masque presented at Ludlow Castle :- Lawes's Dedication of the Edition of 1637. Sonnet II. On his having arrived at the Sonnet III. Donna leggiadra, etc. Sonnet IV. Qual in colle aspro, etc. Sonnet v. Diodati (e te 'l dirò, etc.) Sonnet VII. Giovane, piano, etc. Sonnet VIII. When the Assault was intended Sonnet x. To the Lady Margaret Ley Sonnet XIII. To Mr. H. Lawes, on his Airs Sonnet XIV. On the Religious Memory of Sonnet XVII. To Sir Henry Vane the Sonnet XVIII. On the late Massacre in Pied- Sonnet XXI. To Cyriack Skinner Sonnet XXII. To the Same The Fifth Ode of Horace, Lib. I. Nine of the Psalms done into Metre, 1648 Eight of the Psalms done into Verse, 1653 Scraps from the Prose Writings Elegia 1. Ad Carolum Diodatum . Elegia 11. In obitum Præconis Academici Elegia III. In obitum Præsulis Wintoniensis Elegia IV. Ad Thomam Junium, Præcep- torem suum - |