with the approbation it deserves, only because it has not been more read and considered.  His subject indeed is confined, and he has a narrow foundation to build upon, but he has raised as noble a superstructure, as such little room, and such scanty materials would allow.  The great beauty of it is the contrast between the two characters of the tempter and Our Saviour, the artful sophistry, and specious insinuations of the one, refuted by the strong sense, and manly eloquence of the other.’  The first thought of Paradise Regained was owing to Elwood the Quaker, as he himself relates the occasion, in the History of his own Life.  When Milton had lent him the manuscript of Paradise Lost at St. Giles’s Chalfont, and he returned it, Milton asked him how he liked it, and what he thought of it? ’which I modestly and freely told him (says Elwood) and after some further discourse about it, I pleasantly said to him, thou hast said much of Paradise Lost, but what hast thou to say of a Paradise Found?  He made me no answer, but sat some time in a muse, then broke off that discourse, and fell upon another subject.’  When Elwood afterwards waited upon him in London, Milton shewed him his Paradise Regained, and in a pleasant tone said to him, ’this is owing to you, for you put it into my head by the question you put me at Chalfont, which before I had not thought of.’

In the year 1672 he published his Artis Logicae plenior Institutio ad Rami methodum concinnata, London, in 8vo. and in 1673, a Discourse intitled, Of True Religion, Heresy, Schism, Toleration, and what best Means may be used against the Growth of Popery, London, in 4to.  He published likewise the same year, Poems, &c. on several Occasions, both English and Latin, composed at several times, with a small Tractate of Education to Mr. Hartlib, London, 8vo.  In 1674 he published his Epistolarum familiarium, lib. i. & Prolusiones quaedam Oratoriae in Collegio Christi habitae, London, in 8vo and in the same year in 4to. a Declaration of the Letters Patent of the King of Poland, John iii. elected on the 22d of May, Anno Dom. 1674, now faithfully translated from the Latin copy.  Mr. Wood tells us[5], that Milton was thought to be the author of a piece called the Grand Case of Conscience, concerning the Engagement Stated and Resolved; or a Strict Survey of the Solemn League and Covenant in reference to the present Engagement; but others are of opinion that the stile and manner of writing do not in the least favour that supposition.  His State Letters were printed at London 1676 in 12mo. and translated into English, and printed 1694, as his Brief History of Muscovy, and of their less known Countries, lying Eastward of Russia, as far as Cathay, was in 1682 in 8vo.  His Historical, Poetical, and Miscellaneous Works were printed in three volumes in folio 1698 at London, though Amsterdam is mentioned in the title page with the life of the author, by Mr. Toland; but the most compleat and elegant edition