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feffion of any of the most lucrative employments, and might have enjoyed it with a patent for life. But Your Lordship was content to leave others in place and power, who You thought were most able and best qualified for the administration of public affairs, and retired Yourself with only a dignity, which had been offered You feveral times before. Such inftances of magnanimity and difinterestedness have not been common in any age, and are very uncommon in the present.

Thus much the love of truth and virtue, which is infeparable from the love of Your Lordship, has obliged me to fay, and if I am partial to Your Lordship's character, there are other reasons which have made me fo, befides the friendship and kindness which You have shown to

me

me upon all occafions. Your love of religion and virtue, which You express in all Your difcourfes and actions; Your reverence for the holy Scriptures, and how unfashionable foever it may be, Your open profeffion of the truth of the Chriftian revelation; Your regard for our establish'd Church, and regular attendance upon the public worship; Your conftant and in

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violable affection to the conftitution and liberties of Your country; Your acting always upon the true Whig principles, and afferting equally the prerogatives of the crown and the privileges of the people; Your fteddy and fincere attachment, tho' not always to the minifters, yet always to the perfon of our moft gracious King, and the true interefts of his royal family, who next under God are the great bulwark

and

and defenfe of our religion and liberties; Your readiness at all times to maintain the liberty of the press, tho' no man ever suffered more by the abuse of it than Yourfelf; Your humane and compaffionate temper; Your uncommon knowledge, and extenfive genius for literature or business; Your eafy wit, and flowing conversation, often inftructive, always agreeable and entertaining; Your social and convivial spirit, that it is a happiness to live or converfe with You; thefe, these are the good qualities, which have gained my affection, and must gain every one's who hath equal opportunities of obferving them. If I knew any man, who poffeffed and exerted them all in a greater and more eminent degree than Your Lordship, I should love him and admire him more: but till

then

then I must have the highest honor for Your Lordship, and cannot help profeffing myself without reserve, and with all poffible veneration,

MY LORD,

Your LORDSHIP's ever obliged,

May 20, 1749.

and devoted Servant,

THOMAS NEWTON.

T

O publish new and correct editions of the works of approved authors has ever been efteemed a service to learning, and an employment worthy of men of learning. It is not material whether the author is ancient or modern. Good criticism is the fame in all languages. Nay I know not whether there is not greater merit in cultivating our own language than any other. And certainly next to a good writer, a good critic holds the fecond rank in the republic of letters. And if the pious and learned bishop of Theffalonica has gained immortal honor by his notes upon Homer, it can be no difcredit to a graver Divine than myself to comment upon fuch a divine poem as the Paradife Loft, especially after fome great men, who have gone before me in this exercife, and whofe example is fanction fufficient,

My defign in the prefent edition is to publish the Paradife Loft, as the work of a claffic author cum notis variorum. And in order to this end, the first care has been to print the text correctly according to Milton's own editions. And herein the editors of Milton have a confiderable advantage over the editors of Shakespear. For the first editions of Shakespear's works being printed from the incorrect copies of the players, there is more room left for conjectures and emendations; and as according to the old proverb,

Bene qui conjiciet vatem hunc perhibebo optimum, the best gueffer was the best diviner, fo he may be faid in fome measure too to be the best editor of

Shakespear, as Mr. Warburton hath proved himself

by

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