INTRODUCTION TO PARADISE LOST. "CONSIDERED with respect to design, 'Paradise Lost' may claim the first place among the productions of the human heart." -JOHNSON. "It is certain that Milton is the most wonderfully sublime of any poet in any language; Homer, Lucretius, and Tasso not excepted.". - HUME. "Was there ever any thing so delightful as the music of Paradise Lost'? It is like that of a fine organ; has the fullest and deepest tones of majesty, with all the softness and elegance of the Dorian flute." COWPER. "That extraordinary production, which the general suffrage of critics has placed in the highest class of human productions. . . . His poetry reminds us of the miracles of Alpine scenery. Nooks and dells, beautiful as fairy-land, are embosomed in its most rugged and gigantic elevations. The roses and myrtles bloom unchilled on the edge of the avalanche.". MACAULAY. "The style is always great. On the whole, it is the greatest in the whole range of English poetry; so great that, when we have come to know and honor and love it, it so subdues the judgment that the judgment can with difficulty do its work with temperance. No style, when one has lived in it, is so spacious and so BROOKE. majestic a place to walk in." V 'Angelic was the ear of Milton." DE QUINCEY. Even the French critic Villemain, belonging to a nation whose tastes and habits differ widely as possible from the English, admits that Milton's picture of our first parents in Eden surpasses in graceful and touching simplicity any thing to be found in the creation of any other poet, ancient or modern, and that the human imagination has produced nothing more grand and sublime than those same portions of "Paradise Lost." Not only the work, but, of necessity, the man is worthy of admiration. "It may be doubted whether the Creator ever created one altogether so great as Milton, — taking into one view at once his manly virtues, his superhuman genius; his zeal for truth, for true piety, true freedom; his eloquence in displaying it; his contempt of personal power, his glory and exultation in his country's." WALTER S. LANDOR. "In his character the noblest qualities of every party were combined in harmonious union.". MACAULAY. These being the opinions of the most eminent critics, we are eager to know what the production is. It is an epic poem, whose theme outreaches time, both before and after, into eternity, whose field is broader than earth, including all the solar system, the stars, heaven, unordered chaos, and infinite space; in whose battles. no mere Hector and Achilles are combatants, but Michael, Satan, myriads of angels, and the Son of God; with no beauteous Helen and fair Troy for prizes, but all the race of men, and the city that hath foundations of precious stones, golden pavement, and |