nd to
note the appearance of Paradise Lost as a literary event.

Thus it was that Milton lived to have some slight foretaste of the honor
which two centuries have bestowed on his memory. Visitors came to see him
in his modest dwelling in an unfashionable quarter of London. Foreigners
occasionally came to satisfy their curiosity. Dryden, the chief poet who
wrote in the spirit of the Restoration, called to talk with the author of
Paradise Lost, and to suggest improvements in the form of the poem, which
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, or primer, on
Milton, written by Stopford A. Brooke.

In the English Men of Letters series, the Milton is the work of Mark
Pattison.

The latest good account of Milton is the book entitled simply John
Milton, by Walter Raleigh, professor at University College, Liverpool.
This is a remarkably vigorous and i