Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 7.djvu/103

 JOHN MILTON 65 " Paradise Lost " was published. Originally it was printed in ten books ; m the second and subsequent editions, the seventh and tenth books were each divided into two. Milton received only 5 in the first instance on the publication of the book. His farther profits were regulated by the sale of the first three editions. Each was to consist of fifteen hundred copies, and on the second and third, re- spectively, reaching a sale of thirteen hundred, he was to receive a farther sura of $ for each, making a total ot iy. The receipt for the second sum of ^5 is dated April 26, 1669. In 1670 Milton published his " History of Britain," from the fabulous period of the Norman Conquest. And in the same year he published in one volume " Paradise Regained " and " Samson Agonistes." It has been currently asserted that Milton preferred the " Paradise Regained " to " Paradise Lost." This is not true ; but he may have been justly offended by the false principles on which some of his friends maintained a reasonable opinion. The " Paradise Regained " is inferior by the necessity of its subject and design. In the " Paradise Lost " Milton had a field properly adapted to a poet's purposes ; a few hints in Script- ure were expanded. Nothing was altered, nothing absolutely added ; but that which was told in the Scriptures in sum, or in its last results, was developed into its whole succession of parts. Thus, for instance, ** There was war in heaven," furnished the matter for a whole book. Now for the latter poem, which part of our Saviour's life was it best to select as that in which paradise was regained ? He might have taken the crucifixion, and here he had a much wider field than in the temptation ; but then he was subject to this dilemma : if he modified, or in any way altered, the full details of the' four evangelists, he shocked the relig- ious sense of all Christians ; yet, the purposes of a poet would often require that be should so modify them. With a fine sense of this difficulty, he chose the nar- row basis of the temptation in the wilderness, because there the whole had been wrapped up in the Scriptures in a few brief abstractions. Thus " be showed him all the kingdoms of the earth," is expanded, without offence to the nicest relig- ious scruple, into that matchless succession of pictures, which bring before us the learned glories of Athens, Rome in her civil grandeur, and the barbaric splendor of Parthia. The actors being only two, the action of " Paradise Regained " is unavoidably limited. But in respect of composition, it is, perhaps, more elabo- rately finished than " Paradise Lost." His subsequent works are not important enough to merit a separate notice. His end was now approaching. In the summer of 1674 be was still cheerful, and in the possession of his intellectual faculties. But the rigor of Iris bodily constitution had been silently giving way, through a long course of years, to the la t ages of gout. It was at length thoroughly undermined ; and about Novem- ber 10, 1674, he died with tranquillity so profound that his attendants were un- able to determine the exact moment of his decease. He was buried, with nnn snal
 * of honor, in the chancel of St. Giles at Cripplegate.