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 illuminating piece of criticism. Perhaps the most interesting writing on a Milton subject is the book by Mrs. Anne Manning, The Maiden and Married Life of Mary Powell (afterward Mrs. Milton), and the sequel thereto, Deborah's Diary. This the student must read with the full understanding that it is a work of fiction. It is right to warn young readers against the natural tendency to give their time to critical and expository books and articles before they make acquaintance with originals. Almost every essayist of note has written on Milton. There is danger lest we accept opinions at second hand. The only opinions on Milton to which we have any right are those we form from our own reading of his works. MILTON'S MINOR POEMS. ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY. [Composed 1629.] I. This is the month, and this the happy morn, Wherein the Son of Heaven's eternal King, Of wedded maid and virgin mother born, Our great redemption from above did bring; For so the holy sages once did sing, 5 That he our deadly forfeit should release, And with his Father work us a perpetual peace. II. That glorious form, that light unsufferable, And that far-beaming blaze of majesty, Wherewith he wont at Heaven's high council-table 10 To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, He laid aside, and, here with us to be, Forsook the courts of everlasting day, And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay. III.