He
was the very opposite of Shelley, who could never look at a piece of
his own composition a second time, but when he had thrown it off at a
heat, rushed into something else. Milton's adhesiveness was such that
he could never give up a design once entered upon. In these four
years, as if conscious that his time was now nearly out, he laboured
to complete five such early undertakings.
(1.) Of his _Compendium of Theology_ I have already spoken. He was
overtaken by death while preparing this for the press.
(2.) His _History of Britain_ must hare cost him much labour, bestowed
upon comparison of the conflicting authorities. It is the record of
the studies he had made for his abandoned epic poem, and is evidence
how much the subject occupied his mind.
The _History of Britain_, 1670, had been preceded by (3) a Latin
grammar, in 1669, and was followed by (4) a Logic on, the method of
Ramus, 1672.
(5.) In 1673 he brought out a new edition of his early volume of
_Poems_. In this volume he printed for the first time the sonnets, and
other pieces, which had been written in the interval of twenty-seven
years, since the date of his first edition.
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