The Adamus exul of Grotius; or The Prototype of Paradise Lost — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

PREFACE. An original copy of Grotius’s Adamus Exul, from the Library of the late Mr. Heber, is now in my hands. It is dated 1601, ex typographio Alberti Henrici Hage Comitatensi. By confirming | the genuineness of Lauder’s edition of this Drama, with the ex- ception of a few verbal alterations, it has solved a question of deep interest, which has often been asked, but hitherto asked in vain. The Adamus Exul of Grotius was published when he was only | eighteen years of age—a remarkable instance of precocious talent, if we may venture to call that talent precocious which possesses the severest attributes of virility, without a particle of feebleness or crudeness. In writing his dedication tothe Prince of Condé, at that time presumptive heir to the crown of France, he seems to have been conscious that the Tragedy was no common effort. ‘¢ When,” says he, ‘“‘ my study of law, history, and the arts has allowed me any spare or leisure time, I have reflected to what style of composition I might best devote it, so as to amuse myself with a variety of agreeable exercises. I therefore undertook to write a tragedy, because our age is less fruitful in the loftier forms of the drama than other kinds of litera- ture. As to my argument, I resolved it should be sacred ; which, you will say, was sufficiently audacious, since now- a-days sacred themes are less generally ornamented than de- graded by presumptuous scribblers. However, I laboured ‘hard so to modify my style that nothing should appear in the present poem displeasing to the taste of Christians. It elaborates COL @ DOO <S (c@