CHAPTER XVIII.

JOHN MILTON, AND THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH.

Historical Facts--Charles I.--Religious Extremes--Cromwell--Birth and Early Works--Views of Marriage--Other Prose Works--Effects of the Restoration--Estimate of his Prose

THE POETRY OF MILTON.

The Blind Poet--Paradise Lost--Milton and Dante--His Faults--Characteristics of the Age--Paradise Regained--His Scholarship--His Sonnets--His Death and Fame

COWLEY, BUTLER, AND WALTON.

Cowley and Milton--Cowley's Life and Works--His Fame--Butler's Career--Hudibras--His Poverty and Death--Izaak Walton--The Angler; and Lives--Other Writers