Of Thomas Ellwood’s experience as reader to Milton, and of Milton’s regard for the gentle Quaker, the book tells its own tale. I will only add one comment upon an often-quoted incident that it contains. When Milton gave his young friend—then twenty-six years old—the manuscript of “Paradise Lost” to read, his desire could only have been to learn what comprehension of his purpose there would be in a young man sincerely religious, as intelligent as most, and with a taste for verse, though not much of a poet. The observation Ellwood made, of which he is proud because of its consequence, might well cause Milton to be silent for a little while, and then change the conversation. It showed that the whole aim of the poem had been missed. Its crown is in the story of redemption, Paradise Found, the better Eden, the “Paradise within thee, happier far.” Milton had applied his test, and learnt—what every great poet has to learn—that he must trust more to the vague impression of truth, beauty, and high thought, that can be made upon thousands of right-hearted men and women, than to the clear, full understanding of his work. The noblest aims of the true artist can make themselves felt by all, though understood by few. Few know the secrets of the sunshine, although all draw new life from the sun. When Milton—who, with his habitual gentleness, never allowed Ellwood to suspect that he had missed the whole purpose of “Paradise Lost”—showed him “Paradise Regained,” and made him happy by telling him that he caused it to be written; he showed him a poem that expanded the closing thought of “Paradise Lost” into an image of the Paradise within, that is to be obtained only by an imitation of Christ under all forms of our temptation. Of Ellwood’s life after the year in which he ends his own account of it, let it suffice to say, that he wrote earnest, gentle books in support of his opinions and against the persecution of them. He lived retired until the year 1688, and occupied himself with an attempt at a _Davideis_, a Life of David in verse. He had not then seen Cowley’s. Ellwood carried on his verses to the end of David’s life, and published them in 1712. When George Fox died, in 1690, Thomas Ellwood transcribed his journal for the press, and printed it next year in folio, prefixing an account of Fox. He was engaged afterwards in controversy with George Keith, a seceder from the Friends. His intellectual activity continued unabated to the end. In 1709 he suffered distraint for tithes; goods to the value of £24 10s. being taken for a due of about £14, after which the distrainers “brought him still in debt, and wanted more.”