E-text prepared by Malcolm Farmer, Stephen Hutcheson, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) MILTON by SIR WALTER RALEIGH Author of 'Style,' 'Wordsworth,' &c. Tenth Impression London Edward Arnold 41 & 43 Maddox Street, Bond Street, W. 1915 TO R. A. M. STEVENSON WHOSE RADIANT AND SOARING INTELLIGENCE ENLIGHTENED AND GUIDED ME DURING THE YEARS OF OUR LOST COMPANIONSHIP THIS UNAVAILING TRIBUTE OF MEMORY AND LOVE CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PAGE "Sciences of conceit"; the difficulties and imperfections of literary criticism; illustrated in the case of Shakespeare; and of Milton; the character and temper of Milton; intensity, simplicity, egotism; his estimate of himself 1 CHAPTER I John Milton His birth, and death; his education; early life in London; ships and shipping; adventurers and players; Milton and the Elizabethan drama; the poetic masters of his youth; state of the Church of England; Baxter's testimony; growing unrest; Milton's early poems; the intrusion of politics; the farewell to mirth; the Restoration, and Milton's attitude; the lost paradise of the early poems; Milton's Puritanism; his melancholy; the political and public preoccupations of the later poems; the drama of Milton's life; his egotism explained; an illustration from _Lycidas_; the lost cause; the ultimate triumph 12 CHAPTER II The Prose Works Poets and politics; practical aim of Milton's prose writings; the reforms advocated by him, with one exception, unachieved; critical mourners over Milton's political writings; the mourners comforted; Milton's classification of his prose tracts; the occasional nature of these tracts; allusions in the early prose works to the story of Samson, and to the theme of _Paradise Lost_; Milton's personal and public motives; his persuasive vein; his political idealism; Johnson's account of his political opinions; the citizen of an antique city; Milton's attitude towards mediaeval romance, and towards the mediaeval Church; his worship of liberty; and of greatness; his belief in human capacity and virtue; Milton and Cromwell; Milton's clear logic; his tenacity; his scurrility, and its excuse; his fierce and fantastic wit; reappearance of these qualities in _Paradise Lost_; the style of his prose works analysed and illustrated; his rich vocabulary; his use of Saxon; the making of an epic poet 39 CHAPTER III Paradise Lost: The Scheme