One of the most instructive facts about the period of British literature often refered to as "the eighteenth century" is that it is hard to name and impossible to confine to settled boundaries. It is not only that the period contains such a variety of works, some of them built on principles entirely antagonistic to each other; it is also that many of the great writers of the period were engaged in exploding myths or revealing the specious falsehood hidden under a popular name or tag. One of the most enduring exhortations of the eighteenth century is, as Samuel Johnson put it: "'Clear your mind of cant!" By cant he meant primarily the jargon of any school of thought or any trade or profession,but, by extension, he also meant the language of uncritically received assumptions...

The third edition of this successful anthology collects an exceptional range of historical literatures that span the period from the British Civil War to the French Revolution. This volume presents an extensive selection of canonical texts, many reprinted from their earliest recoverable versions. Challenging the boundaries of eighteenth-century literary studies, this volume also includes many non-canonical works and many works by women writers of the period. Additionally, selectionS of literature from private and public life, from letters to political ballads, help to illuminate the history and cultural contexts in which the major literary works were created.

This new edition includes a number of significant updates. In addition to reintroducing and extending selections from the previous editions and incorporating new drama selections, new works by other major authors have been added,including Pope's Eloisa to Abelard, a portion of Lucy Hutchinson's Order and Disorder, part of a pamphlet by Reeve and Muggleton, and Rochester's A Ramble in St. James's Park. Additionally, a chronology, an alternative list of contents by theme, and updated headnotes lend added accessibiliw.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

from Hesperides (1648)

  The Argument of His Book

  To Daffodils

  The Night-piece, to Julia

  The Hock-Cart, or Harvest Home

  Upon Julia's Clothes

  When he would have his verses read

  Delight in Disorder

  To the Virgins, to make much of Time

  His Return to London

  The Bad Season Makes the Poet Sad

  The Pillar of Fame

John Reeve (1608-1658) and Lodowicke Muggleton(1609-1698)

from Joyful News from Heaven or the Last Intelligence from Our

   Glorified Jesus above the Stars

John Milton (1608-1674)

from The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce; Restored to the Good of

   Both Sexes, From the bondage of Canon Law, and other mistakes,

   to Christian freedom, guided by the Rule of Charity. Wherein also

   many places of Scripture, have recovered their long-lost meaning.

   Seasonable to be now thought on in the Reformation intended. (1643)

   Book I The Preface

   from Chapter I

   from Chapter VI

 from Areopagitica; A Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of

   Unlicensed Printing, to the Parliament of England (1644)

 from Poems (I673)

   Sonnet 18 (I655) On the Late Massacre in Piemont

   Sonnet 19 (16527) "When I Consider how my Light is Spent"

   Sonnet i6 [To the Lord General Cromwell, 1652]

 from Paradise Lost (1667)

   The Verse

   Book I

   Book II

   Book IV

   Book IX

……