nion and critical remark are hazarded, were to be erased from this variorum edition of Milton's poetry, the work would be improved by the circumstance. But, with Mr. Todd and his literary community, the late Laureat is one of Apollo's assessors on the forked hill: and there let him remain for me, and be the oracle of those who may choose to resort to him for inspiration, and gratefully to fumigate him with incense. Of Mr. Todd, let me repeat that my opinion is highly favorable. His notes are commonly distinguished by their good sense; and his adduction of similar passages and expressions, though not always important, is generally successful and brought from rather an extensive circle of reading. As a commentator on Milton he occupies, after Patrick Hume, Pearce, and Newton, the very first place: and I wish that he had been satisfied with these three learned and ingenious men as his associates; and had rejected the trash which has been imposed on his facility by the gentlemen who write with ease, to mitigate the pains and penalties of idleness, or to indulge, in the only way open to them, the vanity of authorship. For any errors of oversight or misapprehension in this work, which may have escaped my detection, I will entreat the pardon of my readers; and will hope that, imitating the candor of the great Roman critic and poet, while they see my faults they will suggest the venial cause of them in the common imperfection of the mind of man. Sunt delicta tamen quibus ignovisse velimus. Nam neque chorda sonum reddit quem vult manus et mens; Poscentique gravem persæpe remittit acutum: Nec semper feriet quodcunque minabitur arcus. HOR. De Art. Poet. 347. But if, refusing the indulgence which I solicit, my readers will be strict in remarking the imperfections of my page, I can only address them in the terms, in which the great and the modest Locke addressed Bishop Stillingfleet: "I see that you would have me exact, and without any faults; and I wish that I could be so, the better to deserve your approbation." THE END. INDEX TO THE LIFE OF MILTON. ABBOT, abp. 152 Addison, 388, 395, 396, 447 Echylus, 46, 57 note, 418 America, the preserver of the ........... a proof, that neither 228 note dedication of, 465 Barbican, Milton's house in, Barebones' Parliament, 323 ...... resigns, 323 Bayle, 265, 284, 287, 315 note Bentley, Dr. 400, and note Bindley, Mr. 173 note Blake, admiral, 337, 369, and Borlase, Rev. George, 21 note Bordeaux, the French ambas- Bradshaw, 208, 222, 223 note, ... his character 223, Bramhall, abp. 288, 289 note British Critic, 467 note Bucer, Martin, 172, 214 note Bucolic verse, structure of, 114 Burnet, bp. 250 note Cæsar, Julius, 137, 320 Cambridge Latin Dictionary, Dante, 190, 397 note D'Avenant, sir W. his life saved Davis, Miss, 176 note, 68 note letter to, 67 ......... ἡ πισὴ, 243 note Elliot, sir John, 149 note account of Emiror, 86 note him, 111, 131 note death, 112, 116 to, 142, 144 ........... poem on his Engagement, substituted for second elegy England, antiquity of its free- Giovanni, 110 Theodore, 111 dom, 264 its constitution, 439 Dermody, translation of the 157 Damon by, 122 note Desborough, 347, and note |