John Milton (1608–1674)
The third edition of Paradise Lost, published by Simmons four years later, is substantially the same as the second. Like the 1674 edition, it is prefaced by two commendatory poems. The first is in Latin and may be by Samuel Barrow. The second is in English and is by Andrew Marvell, with whom Milton had shared the office of Latin secretary to Cromwell's Council of State. Marvell’s ‘On Paradise Lost’ is a brilliant critique of Milton’s poem, which also offers an insight into Marvell’s personal poetics. After the Restoration, Marvell had helped persuade the government of Charles II not to execute Milton despite his outspoken antimonarchical sentiments.