n known as a Masque, and it
is the greatest of its class. It far surpassess any work of a similar
kind by Ben Jonson, that prolific writer of Masques. Some critics,
like Taine and Saintsbury, consider _Comus_ the finest of Milton's
productions. Its 1023 lines can soon be read; and there are few poems
of equal length that will better repay careful reading.

_Comus_ is an immortal apotheosis of virtue. While in Geneva in 1639,
Milton was asked for his autograph and an expression of sentiment. He
chose the closing lines of _Comus_:--

[Illustration: MILTON'S MOTTO FROM COMUS, WITH AUTOGRAPH. _Written
in an album at Geneva_.]

_Lycidas_, one of the world's great elegies, was written on the death
of Milton's classmate, Edward King. Mark Pattison, one of Milton's
biographers, says: "In _Lycidas_ we have reached the high-water mark
of English poesy and of Milton's own production."

He is one of the four greatest English sonnet writers. Shakespeare
alone surpasses him in this field. Milton numbers among his pupils
Wordsworth and Keats, whose sonnets rank next in merit.

Paradise Lost; Its Inception and Dramatic Plan.--Cambridge
University has a list, written by Milton before he was thirty-five, of
about one hundred possible subjects for the great poem which he felt
it was his life's mission to give to the world. He once thought of
selecting Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table; but his final
choice was _Paradise Lost_, which stands first on this special list.
There are in addition four separate drafts of the way in which he
thought this subject should be treated. This proves that the great
work of a man like; Milton was planned while he was young. It is
possible that he may even have written a very small part of the poem
earlier than the time commonly assigned.

All four drafts show that his early intention was to make the poem a
drama, a gigantic Miracle play. The closing of the theaters and the
prejudice felt against them during the days of Puritan ascendancy may
have influenced Milton to forsake the dramatic for the epic form, but
he seems never to have shared the common prejudice against the drama
and the stage. His sonnet on Shakespeare shows in what estimation he
held that dramatist.

Subject Matter and Form.--About 1658, when Milton was a widower,
living alone with his three daughters, he began, in total blindness,
to dictate his _Paradise Lost_, sometimes relying on them but more
often on any kind fr