The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life of John Milton, by Richard Garnett

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Life of John Milton

Author: Richard Garnett

Release Date: September 26, 2005 [EBook #16757]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF JOHN MILTON ***

Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Louise Pryor and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.
Produced from page images provided by Internet
Archive/Canadian Libraries
(http://www.archive.org/details/toronto).

"Great Writers."
EDITED BY
PROFESSOR ERIC S. ROBERTSON, M.A.

* * * * *

_LIFE OF MILTON._

LIFE

OF

JOHN MILTON

BY

RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D.

LONDON
WALTER SCOTT, 24, WARWICK LANE
1890
(_All rights reserved._)

NOTE.

The number of miniature "Lives" of Milton is great; great also is the
merit of some of them. With one exception, nevertheless, they are all
dismissed to the shelf by the publication of Professor Masson's
monumental and authoritative biography, without perpetual reference to
which no satisfactory memoir can henceforth be composed. One recent
biography has enjoyed this advantage. Its author, the late Mark
Pattison, wanted neither this nor any other qualification except a
keener sense of the importance of the religious and political
controversies of Milton's time. His indifference to matters so momentous
in Milton's own estimation has, in our opinion, vitiated his conception
of his hero, who is represented as persistently yielding to party what
was meant for mankind. We think, on the contrary, that such a mere man
of letters as Pattison wishes that Milton had been, could never have
produced a "Paradise Lost." If this view is well-founded, there is not
only room but need for yet another miniature "Life of Milton,"
notwithstanding the intellectual subtlety and scholarly refinement
which render Pattison's memorable. It should be noted that the recent
German biography by Stern, if adding little to Professor Masson's facts,
contributes much valuable literary illustration; and that Keighley's
analysis of Milton's opinions occupies a position of its own, of whi