Students who are sufficiently good Latin scholars should read Milton's Latin poems in the original, especially the '_In Quintum Novembris: anno ætatis 17_,' the '_Ad Patrem_,' and the '_Epitaphium Damonis_.' The '_In Quintum Novembris_' (On the fifth of November, that is, the anniversary of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot) is described by Masson as 'one of the very cleverest and most poetical of all Milton's youthful productions, and certainly one of the most characteristic.' The '_Epitaphium Damonis_' has been admirably edited with notes by C. S. Jerram, M.A. Trin. Coll. Oxon., along with 'Lycidas.'
The student should first read carefully all the selections, prose and poetical, without referring to the notes. Notes are a necessary evil, and should not be read until after a requisite general impression has been received from an independent reading; often two or more independent readings should precede any attention to explanatory notes. Even such a poem as Browning's 'The Ring and the Book,' abounding as it does in out of the way allusions, difficult syntactical constructions, etc., requiring explanation, should be so read. The student would thus get a better impression of the poem as a whole, and would derive from it a greater pleasure (the pleasure resulting from the less interrupted exercise of his higher faculties) than if he should read it at first with the aid of abundant notes explanatory of details. A special attention to the details should be given only after the reader has, in a general way, taken in the articulating thought and the informing life of the poem.
There are thousands of allusions in the 'Paradise Lost' which a reader might not know, and yet be able to read the whole poem for the first time and enjoy it, and, what is all-important, be uplifted by it, without a single explanatory note.
The portrait of Milton is from that first drawn in crayons by William Faithorne, and afterward engraved by him for the poet's 'History of Britain,' published in 1670. Underneath the original engraving is the inscription, '_Joannis Miltoni Effigies Ætat: 62. 1670. Gul. Faithorne ad Vivum Delin. et Sculpsit_' (John Milton's effigy at the age of 62. 1670. Drawn from life and engraved by William Faithorne).