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Teachers' Resource Web Blake on Milton: the Preface to Milton Richard Kroll, UCI Milton I Preface The Stolen and Perverted Writings of Homer & Ovid, of Plato & Cicero, which all Men ought to contemn, are set up by artifice against the Sublime of the Bible; but when the New Age is at leisure to Pronounce, all will be set right, & those Grand Works of the more ancient & consciously & professedly Inspired Men will hold their proper rank, & the Daughters of Memory shall become the Daughters of Inspiration. Shakespeare & Milton were both curb'd by the general malady & infection from the silly Greek & Latin slaves of the Sword. Rouze up, O Young Men of the New Age! set your foreheads against
the ignorant Hirelings! For we have Hirelings in the Camp, the Court & the
University, who would, if they could, for ever depress Mental prolong
Corporeal War. Painters! on you I call. Sculptors! Architects! Suffer
not the fash[i]onable Fools to depress your powers by the prices
they pretend to give for contemptible works, or the expensive advertizing
boasts that they make of such works; believe Christ & his Apostles
that there is a Class of Men whose whole delight is in Destroying.
We do not want either Greek or Roman Models if we are but just & true
to our own Imaginations, those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall
live for ever in Jesus our Lord.
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