it asserted by
a gentleman not unacquainted with literature, that perfectly to
understand l'Allegro and Il Penseroso, requires no inconsiderable
portion of ancient and modern knowledge. It employed several hours on
different days to read and explain Comus, so as to make it
intelligible to a boy of ten years, who gave his utmost attention to
it. The explanations on this poem were found to be so numerous and
intricate, that we thought it best not to produce them here.
Explanations which are given by a reader, can be given with greater
rapidity and effect, than any which a writer can give to children: the
expression of the countenance is advantageous, the sprightliness of
conversation keeps the pupils awake, and the connection of the parts
of the subject can be carried on better in speaking and reading, than
it can be in written explanations. Notes are almost always too formal,
or too obscure; they explain what was understood more plainly before
any illustration was attempted, or they leave us in the dark the
moment we want to be enlightened. Wherever parents or preceptors can
supply the place of notes and commentators, they need not think their
time ill bestowed. If they cannot undertake these troublesome
explanations, they can surely reserve obscure poems for a later period
of their pupil's education. Children, who are taught at seven or eight
years old to repeat poetry, frequently get beautiful lines by rote,
and speak them fluently, without in the least understanding the
meaning of the lines. The business of a poet is to please the
imagination, and to move the passions: in proportion as his language
is sublime or pathetic, witty or satirical, it must be unfit for
children. Knowledge cannot be detailed, or accurately explained, in
poetry; the beauty of an allusion depends frequently upon the
elliptical mode of expression, which passing imperceptibly over all
the intermediate links in our associations, is apparent only when it
touches the ends of the chain. Those who wish to instruct, must pursue
the opposite system.

In Doctor Wilkins's Essay on Universal Language, he proposes to
introduce a note similar to the common note of admiration, to give the
reader notice when any expression is used in an ironical or in a
metaphoric sense. Such a note would be of great advantage to children:
in reading poetry, they are continually puzzled between the obvious
and the metaphoric sense of the words.[121] The desire to make
childr