The Seasons, Ed. with Notes by A.T. Thomson (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1847 Excerpt: ...Milton received a learned education, first at St. Paul's school, and afterwards at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he was entered on the 12th February 1624, in his sixteenth year. Although he was an elegant scholar, not only in classical but rabbinical literature, and he was besides familiar with every living language in Europe, yet he declined both the Church and Nor shall my verse that elder bard forget, the Bar and remained five years inactive, in reference to a profession, in his father's house at Horton, Buckinghamshire. There he wrote, among other poems, his Comus, L'Allegro, II Penseroso, and Lycidas. On the death of his mother, in 1637, he travelled into Italy, and became acquainted with Grotius, Galileo, and Manso, the patron of Tasso; and on his return, began his political career. It is not, however, the intention of this note to enter upon that subject, but to confine our comments to his poetical character. It may, however, be briefly stated that as a controversial writer, he was a bold and persevering friend of toleration: in proof of which his challenge to the administration, written whilst his party was in power, is full of the most noble magnanimity and contempt of consequences. "Who does not know," he exclaims, "that Truth is strong, next to the Almighty; she needs no policies, no stratagems, no licensings to make her victorious." The poetry of Milton must not be tried by his great Epic alone: it is of the most varied description: we perceive the measured march, and solemnity of heroic diction, in the Paradise Lost; the playful, the gay, and the brilliant in Comus; whilst the best period of the Greek drama is reanimated in Samson Agonistes. "Comus," says a tasteful and able critic', "is magical as if it ...