Τ Η Ε STATE of INNOCENCE: я 1250 Described in MILTON'S PARADISE LOST. Render'd into PROSE. With Historical, Philofophical and Explanatory N O TES. From the French of the Learned RAYMOND DE ST. MAUR. By a GENTLEMAN of OXFORD. · O N D ON: J. HILDYARD, at York. M DCCXLY, Dir. 40349 PREFACE. N O Poem bus bad greater, or juster Praise from the most eminent Judges of Literature, than PARADISE Lost, as well - far the Sublimity of the Subje&t and Sentiments, as the profound and extensive Learning it is enrich'd with. It comprehends almost every Thing within the Extent of human Knowledge; but being wrote in the bighest Stile of heroick Poetry, and the Thoughts, many of trem express’d by Figures of Grammar and Rhetoric, being full of Digressions and Sentences transposed, as well as difficult Terms in the Mathematicks, History, Astronomy, Astrology, Geography, Architecture, Navigation, Anatomy, Alchymy, Divinity, and all other buman Arts and Sciences, it bath fo bappened, that many Readers have been unable to see the Beauties of the Poem, for Want of being able to come at the proper Explication of those Things, which have been out of their Reach; and this must happen to a great many; for how few are there who have had Leisure com Opportunity to be Master of all the Sciences ? besides which it is necessary they should understand the Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, Syriac, Phænician, and Egyptian, and all the dead Languages, with the living and modern ones, in all their different Dinleits: So that it has been a frequent Complaint of the Readers of MILTON, that he has not calculated bis Poem for common Eyes ; wbo pasing by the most instructive Passages, or else uxcertainly guessing at their Meaning and Reading altogether doubtfully, lose the Pleasure and Benefit which might arise from the thorough Understanding of the improving Leiture, and the moral and philosophical Instructions |