PREFACE.

THE Publick is here presented with a complete edition of the Poetical Works of Milton, accompanied with notes of various authors. To this undertaking the editor was invited, and encouraged, at the close of the year 1798. Without this previous declaration, he might be accused of intrufion into his present office. Sensible that the task would have been better executed by many recent annotators on Milton, he would not indeed have listened to the unexpected application of engaging in fo important an employment, if some literary friends had not promised their afsistance. He therefore undertook to arrange his materials; and continued his inquiries till the close of the year 1799, when the edition began to be printed. From that time, his attention to the progress and completion of the work has been conftant and unwearied.

Since the first publication of the Poetical Works entire, with illustrations, nearly half a century has elapfed. Of those criticks and annotators, whose obfervations were then selected by Dr. Newton; as well as of those, with whose subsequent remarks the following pages are enriched; fome account may be thought necessary. The first annotator on the poet was Patrick Hume, a Scotchman. He published, in 1695, a copious commentary on the Paradise Lost; "* to which fome of his successours in

the fame province," says Mr. Warton, apprehending no danger of detection from a work rarely inspected, and too pedantick and cumbersome to attract many readers, have been often amply indebted, without even the most distant hint of acknowledgement." His illustrations in these volumes will be rarely found uninteresting. To him fucceeded the elegant Addison, by whose "blandishments of gentleness and facility, Milton has been made an universal favourite, with whom readers of every class think it neceffary to be acquainted." His essays on the Paradise Lost are printed in this edition, as a Preliminary Differtation; the remarks on each particular book not being detached from the general obfervations on the Poem, because Mr. Addifon himself was defirous that the reader should not neglect to view the whole extent of his criticifm. By the fame critick Comus and L'Allegro had been before commended. In 1732, Dr. Bentley published a splendid edition of the Paradise Loft, by which he acquired no honour. His specious pretences of an interpolated text, and his arbitrary method of emendation, were received with derifion and difguft. Yet there are some notes, in the edition, which bespeak the unvitiated taste of this eminent scholar, and to which the classical reader will always thankfully subscribe. Immediately after the publication of this edition, the admirers of Milton were gratified by Dr. Pearce's masterly and candid refutation of the editor's chimerical corrections: And the Review of the Text of Paradise Loft furnished abundant annotations, at once instructive and delightful. In 1734, the two Richardfons published their Explanatory Notes on the Paradise Lost. Soon afterwards, Dr. Warburton communicated to the world fome remarks upon the same poem. An Effay upon Milton's imitations of the Ancients, faid to be written by a gentleman of North Britain, whose name, it is believed, has not been divulged; the Letters concerning poetical translations, afcribed to Auditor Benfon; and the Critical Observations on Shakespeare, in which are interspersed remarks upon Milton, by Mr. Upton; were the next publications, from which Dr. Newton professes to have derived assistance. But, besides the flower of those which had been already published, he added many new observations both of others and his own. He was indebted, for several ingenious illustrations of Paradise Lost to his relation, Dr. Greenwood. He was also obliged by the use of Dr. Heylyn's manufcript remarks on the fame poem; which had been before communicated to Bentley, and of which the greater part had been disingenuoufly adopted, by that critick, without acknowledgement. By the manufcript communications of Richardson, Jortin, and Warburton; and more particularly by those of the modest and liberal Mr. Thyer; his commentary on Paradise Loft was

confiderably enlarged. To the fame learned coadjutors, with the addition of fuch respectable names as Sympson, and Seward, the editors of Beaumont and Fletcher; of the Rev. Mr. Meadowcourt, Prebendary of Worcester; of the Rev. Mr. Calton, of Lincolnshire; and of Mr. Peck, the antiquary; Dr. Newton's subsequent edition of Paradise Regained, Samfon Agonistes, and the Smaller Poems, was also gratefully indebted.

In the year after the publication of Dr. Newton's edition of Paradise Loft, there was published at Glasgow the first Book of that poem with a large and very learned commentary; from which fome notes are selected in this edition. They, who are acquainted with this commentary, will concur with the present editor in wishing that the annotator had continued his ingenious and elaborate criticisms on the whole poem.

In a letter from the late Mr. Mason to Dodsley, the bookfeller, dated May 31, 1747, now in the poffeffion of a friend, an editorial intention is announced which, though not accomplished, it may not be improper here to notice; as it coincides with the opinion of him, who has fo ably illustrated the picturesque defcription, and romantick imagery, of the poems which Mr. Mason mentions; and to whose illustrations the editor must next express his obligations. " I could wish to know," says Mr. Mafon, "whether Tonfon or any other Bookfeller has a property in the second volume of Milton. I have often thought it a great pity that many of the beautiful pieces it contains should be so little read