Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Poetical Works of John Milton: With a Life of the Author, Preliminary Dissertations on Each Poem, Notes Critical and Explanatory, an Index to the Subjects of Paradise Lost, and a Verbal Index to All the Poems
Any attempt, however humble, to make the Poems of Milton more widely circulated, intelligently read, and wisely appre cisted, needs no apology. I may state, however, the simple incident to which the present edition owes its origin. Five years ago, when preparing my Compendium of English Li terature, I had occasion to look at Todd's Verbal Index to Milton, in connection with Lycidas, and found the first two references to which I turned, to be wrong. Surprised at this, I soon after, at my leisure, compared every word in Lycidas with this Index, and found, in its references to that short poem of one hundred and ninety-three lines, sixty-three mistakes! This discovery made me resolve to prepare, as early as my numerous engagements would permit, an edition of Milton's Poems, withan Index subjoined on which some reliance for accuracy might be placed. But though I began the examination of Todd's Index more than three years ago, so laborious has been the work that I have been able but recently to bring it to a close. The result is, that, after two careful examinations, (in the first of which I was assisted, in some portions, by two or three literary friends, ) there have been found three thousand three hundred and sixty-two mistakes! This I could scarcely believe, had I not marked the number on each page at its foot, and had not the careful addition of the figures brought about the astound ing result; so that, on the whole, the work of examining and comparing Todd's Index has been about equivalent to that of making out, independently, an entirely new one. I need hardly say how richly I have been repaid for my labour, in my constant communings, day by day, with the mind of the whose astonishing learning and genius have cited in me fresh admiration and delight. N 0 work could more amply bring with it its own rich reward.
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