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MILTON'S

POETICAL

WORKS.

TILT'S ILLUSTRATED EDITION.

THE

POETICAL WORKS

OF

JOHN MILTON.

WITH A MEMOIR,

AND CRITICAL REMARKS ON HIS GENIUS AND WRITINGS,

BY JAMES MONTGOMERY;

AND ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY ENGRAVINGS BY JOHN THOMPSON,

S. AND T. WILLIAMS, O. SMITH, J. LINTON, &c.

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WRIGHT AND CO.. PRINTERS,

FLEET STREET.

MEMOIR

OF

JOHN MILTON,

WITH STRICTURES ON HIS GENIUS AND WRITINGS.

LITTLE more than a brief memoir, and a few strictures on the principal poems of the Author of "Paradise Lost," can be attempted here.

JOHN MILTON was born December 6th, 1608, in London. His father was a scrivener in large practice, and his mother a lady from Wales. Of them he has left this testimony in reference to his own origin :"Born in London, of honourable parentage, my father a man of the highest integrity, my mother of most virtuous character, and especially distinguished throughout the neighbourhood for her charities." His father, besides possessing a fine taste in literature, excelled in music, "equalling in science, if not in genius, the best composers of the age." His talents are gracefully recorded in the Latin verses addressed to him by his greater son, who, in after life, however he may have disappointed certain paternal hopes of his advancement, through the

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