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JOHN MILTON. EDITED WITH COPIOUS EXPLANATORY NOTES, AND WITH EXERCISES IN SYNONYMES, FOR THE USE OF CLASSES IN READING, ANALYSIS, AND PARSING, BY HOMER B. SPRAGUE, A.M., Ph.D., Late Pkincipal of the Adelphi Academt, and formekly Professor of Rhetoric IN CoKNELL University. NEW YORK: J. W. Schermerhorn & Co., No. 14 Bond Street. 1876. ^ ^v <,"• <^'\. i ■d'^ h\^. Copyright, HOj^IER b. sprague, 1870. New York ; Lange, Little & Co., Printers. Nos. 10 to 20 Astor Place. PEEFAOE. ' A STRONG desire has been expressed, in quarters entitled to distinguished consideration, to have the parts included in the Masterpieces in English Literature bound up separately, for class use in reading, analysis, parsing, and rhetorical criticism. In compliance with this wish, Milton's Comus has been selected from the body of the Masterpieces^ and is here presented with explanatory notes. At the bottom of most of the pages are lists of synonymes, which it may be well for the reader to study and illustrate. The judicious teacher can supply others ad libitum. If this little work shall at all contribute to a better knowledge and appreciation of Milton's most elegant masterpiece, the editor's object will have been gained. H. B. S. Brooklyn, May 15, 1876. JOHN MILTON. 1608—1674. "Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart ; " Thou liadit a voice whose sound was like the sea, Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free. So didst thou travel on life's common way In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay." — Wordsicorth. John Mxlton, who has been styled "the greatest of great men," was born in London in 1608, and died therie in 1(j74. His father Avas a business man in comfortable circumstances, and took great pains with the education of his son, first employing private tutors, then sending him to St. Paid's School, and afterward placing him as a student in Cambridge University. Tlie young man, having distinguished himself by his scholarship and talents in all these positions, was graduated Master of Arts, in 1632. .For the next six years he continued to pursue his studies with extraordinary diligence; occasionally, however, spending a sliort time in tlie composition of a poem, such as Comus, Lycidas, D Allegro, U Penseroso. Upon his mother's death, in 1638, he left England and traveled on the Continent, spending most of his time in Italy for fifteen months, making the acquaintance and enjoying the friendship of some of the most distinguished men of that day. In 1639, he returned to England to take part in the great struggle, then coming to a crisis, between the King and Parliament. Milton sided with the latter, and wrote several powerful controversial works in favor of religious and political reforms. He also opened a boys' school, and gave much time to the subject of education, on which he wrote a very able treatise, in 1644. In the same year, he wrote his great work on the freedom of the press. In 1643, he married Mary Powell, after a very brief acquaintance with her. But their dispositions proved uncongenial. The young wife was fond of gay society, and was glad to return to her father's house, wliere she remained about two years. Milton was deeply pained at this desertion, and after much reflection upon the subject, he determined to repudiate her, and JOHX MILTOISr. 7 wrote four treatises on divorce. They were reconciled, however, npou her vohintary return to him, in 1645. She died some years later, and he was twice married afterward, liis third wife surviving him over fifty years. On the execution of King Charles I., in 1649, Milton was appointed Secretary of State, the duties of which position he continued to discharge for several years. Several powerful arguments from his pen followed against the King and against Monarchy, and in favor of popular rights and in defense of the people of England. It was in writing one of these books that he lost his eyesight, his jihysicians having distinctly warned him that blind- ness would be the inevitable consequence of the literary labor. '■'■ I did not long 'balance^'''' said Milton, " ichether my duty should he preferred to my eyes.''^ Charles II. became King of England, in 1060, and Milton was in great danger of punishment for having dared to speak so boldly against Charles I. and despotism. After a time, however, the Act of Amnesty was passed. Milton's later years were mainly spent in the comijosition of his great epic poems. Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, as well as his tragedy of Sam^yson Agonistes, and certain controversial religious and educational works. Dr. Symmons admirably expresses the views of many of the most thoughtful minds, when he pronounces John Milton, "A man in whom Avere illustriously combined all the qualities that could adorn or elevate the nature to which he belonged ; a man who at once possessed beauty .of countenance, symmetry of form, elegance of manners, benevolence of temper, magnanimity and loftiness of soul, the brightest illumination of intellect, knowledge the most various and extended, virtue that never loit- ered in her career nor deviated in her course; a man, who, if he hadleen delegated as the representative of his species to one of the superior worlds, would have suggested a grand idea of the Imman race, as of heings affluent in moral and intellectual treasure, raised and distinguished in the universe as the favorites and heirs of heaven ! " COMUS. ORIGIN OF THE STORY. "It seems that an accidental event, which occurred to the family of Milton's patron, John Egerton, Earl of Bridgewater, then keeping his court at Ludlow Castle, as Lord President of Wales, gave birth to this fable. The Earl's two sons and daughter. Lady Alice, were benighted, and lost their way in Haywood Forest ; and the two brothers, in the attempt to exjilore their path, left the sister alone in a track of country rudely inhabited by sets of boors and savage peasants. On these simple facts the poet raised such a superstructure of fairy spells and poetical delight, as has never been equalled. ' ' Masks were then in fashion with the court and great nobility ; and when the lord president entered upon the state of his new office, this entertain- ment was properly deemed a splendid mode of recommending himself to the country, in the opening of his high function. Milton was the poet on whom Lord Bridgewater would naturally call, the bard having already produced the "Arcades" for the countess's mother. Lady Derby, at Hare- field, in Middlesex." — Sir Egerton Brydges. "CoMUS, well worked out, with a complete originality and extraordinaiy elevation of style, is perhaps Milton's masterpiece, and is simply the eulogy of virtue." — Taine. "The loftiest poem in praise of female i:)urity in any language." — Emerson. COMUS: A MASK. THE PERSONS. TheATTENDANTSpiRiT, afterwards in the habit I TheLadt, personated by Lady Alice Egerton. of Thtksis, personated by Henry Lawes. First Biiothbr, " Lord Brackley. CoJius, with his crew. | Second Brother, " Mr. Thos. Egerton. Sabuina, the Nymph. The first Scene discovers a wild wood. The attendant Spirit descends or enters. Before the starry tliresliolcT of Jove's court My mansion is; where those immortal shapes Of bright aerial spirits live insphered t In regions mild of calm and serene air, * The Mask or Masque, was a dramatic performance which, on account of the allegori- cal persons introduced, required the actors to be masked. Taine says : "Ben Jonson was the great, the inexhaustible inventor of Masques, a kind of masquerades, ballets, poetic dances, in which all the magnificence and imagination of the English Renaissance are displayed. The Greek gods and all the ancient Olympus ; the mythic personages whom the artists of the time delin- eate in their pictures ; the antique heroes of popular legends; all worlds, the actual the abstract, the divine the human, the ancient the modern, are searchedby his hand, brought on the stage to furnish costumes, harmonious groups, emblems, songs, whatever can excite, intoxicate, the artistic sense." t Insphered, in the sphere whither departed spirits pass from earth. Write out concisely the respective meanings of the following pynonymes, illustrating each by an appropriate sentence: Calm, serer^e. j)lacid, tranqnU. stilly quiet . 'uriduti!rbed,imrvffled, peaceful, composed, halcyon. (The iinaliridged dictionaries will be found useful in this exercise. See also Crai)b's Synonymes, Roget's Themums, Graliam's English Synonynus, etc.> N. B. The pages are numbered to coincide with the pages in Spragiie's Masterpieces in English Literatur<> to which volume reference is occasionally made in the foot-notes. 252 MASTERPIECES IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot 'W'liich men call earth ; and, with low-thoughted care, Confined and pestered* in this pinfold here, Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being, ' I Unmindful of the crown that virtue gives, 10. After this mortal change, to her true servants, Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats. Yet some there be that, by due steps, aspire To lay their just hands on that golden key, That opes the palace of eternity. To such my errand is ; and, but for such, I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds With the rank vapors of this sin-worn mold. But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream, 20. Took in by lot, 'twixt high and nether Jove, Imperial rule of all the sea-girt isles. That, like to rich and various gems, inlay The unadorned bosom of the deep ; Which he, to grace his tributary gods. By course commits to several government. And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns, And wield their little tridents. But this isle. The greatest and the best of all the main, He quarters to his blue-haired deities; 30. And all this tract that fi'onts the falling sun, A noble peer, of mickle trust and power, Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide An old and haughty nation, proud in arms : Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore, Are coming to attend their father's state And new-intrusted sceptre. But their way Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood, The nodding horror of whose shady brows Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger ; 40. And here their tender age might suffer peril. But that, by quick command from sovereign Jove, I was dispatched for their defence and guard : And listen why ; for I will tell you now What never yet was heard in tale or song, * Pestered, croivded. enemnbered.—'Pva{o\6. {pev, incloisure ; fold, a sheep-pen) a pound. —Golden key, virtue —High and nether Jove. High Jove \» Jupiter ; netlier Jove is Plu- 'to.— "By covivse^ b>i mtthoiliccd jirocedure. —Ti-i6.ents, lln-ee-prongi'd scejitres. (Tres, three, dentef:, teeth.)— Isle, Enuhmd, Scothmd, and \V:Ues.— Quarters, «WoA<.— Blue-haired, blue because the i.cean is blue.— Mickle (obs., except in Scoteli). mwh. great. Akin to Lat. magnwi, Gr. fteya?, Ews. mwh. See GrinimV Law, pp. 2:5, 197.— Nation, the Welsh.— Father's. This lather, the peer of micUle trust and mislil, is the Earl ol' Bridgewater, the soveruor of the Welsh.— State, iimugurulion, or entry with pomp upon the duties of his high office. JOHN MILTON. 253 From old or modern bard, in hull* or bower. Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine, After the Tuscan mariners transformed, Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed, 50. On Circe's island fell. (Who knows not Circe, The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape. And downward fell into a grovelling swine ?) This nympli, that gazed upon his clustering locks With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth. Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son Much like his father, but his mother more. Whom, therefore, she brought up, and Comus named : Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age, 60. Roving the Celtic and Il:)eriau fields. At last betakes him to this ominous wood, And, in thick shelter of black shades imbowered. Excels his mother at her mighty art, Offering, to every weary traveller, His orient liquor in a crystal glass. To quench the drought of Phoebus ; which as they taste, (For most (\o taste, through fond intemperate thirst,) Soon as the potion works, their human countenance, The express resemblance of the gods, is changed 70. Into some brutish form, of wolf, or bear. Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded geat. All other parts remaining as they were ; And they, so perfect is their misery, Not once perceive their foul disfigurement. But boast themselves more comely than before, And all their friends and native home forget, To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty. Therefore, when any, favored of high Jove, Chances to pass through this adventurous glade, * In hall. "The alUi^^ion is to the nneiftiit mode of entertnininf; a splendid, assembly, by siiiLiiiiLC or i-ecitiiiir tales." T. TT'rt;'''o/).— Bacchus, ihogodof wine and revelry. See p. 77, —Tuscan mariners transformed. A Latinism (jwH navtus Tyrrkt-nos nmtatos), after the transformation of the Tuscan niaiiners, tlie Tyi'rhene pirates, who are npreseiiled as having been transformed into dolphins by Bacchns.— Tyrrhene, the same as Tnscan.— Circe persoiu- fies the brutalizing power of tlie inloxicaling clip. >?he occupies a large space in ancient myths and leirends. — Ivy was a favorite plant with Bacchiuf. In V AUdgro \\ig.~-G\xSirdist.n.. "Are they not all uiinisteriris spirits?" Paid. Sye the fine lines on the 'niini>iry of angels, qiiotefl in the bioirraphical sketch of Spenser.— Silver lining-. Even in the ni