TO THE

MY LORD,

RIGHT HONOURABLE

LORD FRANCIS EGERTON,

&c. &c. &c.

THE prominent position which

you

hold in the literature and talent of the Country, would point you out as the scholar to whom I could, with the greatest propriety, dedicate this Edition of the great work of our great Poet. But, independently of your Lordship's personal eminence, the literary association of the name of Egerton with that of Milton, the poet-for it is one of the many signal honours of your old and noble line, that your ancestors, the Earls of Bridgewater, whose fortune, and whose zeal for literature