Note 96 — Front matter (continued 2)

When "Paradise Lost" was first published, in 1667, Edmund Waller, himself a poet, politician, and critic, said: "The old blind schoolmaster, John Milton, has published a tedious poem on the fall of man; if its length be not considered a merit, it has no other." The second edition was not brought out until seven years later, 1674, the year in which Milton died. This edition was prefaced by two short poems, the first by Andrew Marvell in English, and the second by Samuel Barrow in Latin, in which Milton's poem is placed "above all Greek, above all Roman fame."