TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
The original text was not separated in chapters. For the only purposeof facilitating the navigation on the HTML version and hand-helddevices chapters were added to the transcribed text. The addition ofthose chapters was arbitrary and did not follow any particular logic.Consequently, the Table of Contents was also added by the Transcriber.
The book cover was modified by the Transcriber and has been added tothe public domain.
A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenatedvariants. For the words with both variants present the one more usedhas been kept.
Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been silentlycorrected.
MILTON
Thomas Babington Macaulay
New York, H. M. Caldwell & Co.
1900
Table of Contents
| Pag. | |
| Chapter I | 1 |
| Chapter II | 9 |
| Chapter III | 26 |
| Chapter IV | 43 |
| Chapter V | 76 |
| Chapter VI | 113 |
| Chapter VII | 149 |
MILTON[1]
CHAPTER I
Toward the close of the year1823, Mr. Lemon, deputy keeperof the state papers, in the course of hisresearches among the presses of hisoffice, met with a large Latin manuscript.With it were found correctedcopies of the foreign despatches writtenby Milton, while he filled the office ofSecretary, and several papers relating to[Pg 2]the Popish Trials and the Rye-HousePlot. The whole was wrapped up inan envelope, superscribed To Mr. Skinner,Merchant. On examination, thelarge manuscript proved to be the longlost Essay on the Doctrines of Christianity,which, according to Wood andToland, Milton finished after the Restoration,and deposited with CyriacSkinner. Skinner, it is well known,held the same political opinions withhis illustrious friend. It is thereforeprobable, as Mr. Lemon conjectures,that he may have fallen under thesuspicions of the government duringthat persecution of the Whigs whichfollowed the dissolution of the Oxfordparliament, and that, in consequenceof a general seizure of his papers, thiswork may have been brought to the[Pg 3]office in which it has been found. Butwhatever the adventures of the manuscriptmay have been, no doubt canexist that it is a genuine relic of thegreat poet.
Mr. Sumn