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PREFACE

THIS edition of the Essay on Milton has been prepared with a purpose to make it simple, concrete, and interesting. To secure simplicity the editor has reduced the amount of information sometimes presented as notes in similar editions. It has been thought well to present scarcely more facts than the pupil may be required to learn; and, in general, only such explanations as are needed to elucidate the passage.

On the other hand, the editor has sought to give interest by treating the biography and history somewhat fully, presenting the personal sides of the lives of Macaulay and Milton as well as the public aspect of their work.

LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J.

EDWARD LEEDS GULICK.

INTRODUCTION

THE name of Macaulay is familiar to successive generations of school boys and girls who have read the Horatius, and in whose ears Macaulay's History of England has been a household word. With the study of his Essay on Milton must go a knowledge of his life, his personality, his work, and his times.

His personality, so vivid, simple, and direct, will furnish a key to his work, explaining both his successes as author and debater, and his limitations as thinker and philosopher.

Few persons are so easily understood as Macaulay. There was a perfect openness in his life, and his biographer has no concealments to make. His was not a complex or confused character. The traits which were manifested in his youth are seen to be fundamental in his maturity. There is thus a delightful unity in his life, his work, and his works. What he was in thought, that he was in his words and in his acts.

We shall first consider the main facts of Macaulay's private life and character, then make a study of the political tendencies of his times, and then indicate the honorable part played by him in the politics of England. The subsequent study of Macaulay as an author will

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