peare,' printed dfolio edition s we know, no when Henry e performance d had himself or his friends, the title : chaelmasse night, ewater, Vicount Maiesties most strum ne of the Three 's autograph Cambridge, use, and the utograph at that Milton ns in which reserved at 1638, with e entitled : ærentibus, of it was ard King, rinted till Moseley, a Civil War leave to print his miscellaneous poems and a new edition of Poems of Mr. John Milton, both English and Latin, Compos'd at Baccare frontem Cingite, ne vati noceat mala lingua futuro, Virgil, Eclog. 7. Printed and publish'd, according to Order. London, Printed by Facing the title-page was the unlucky engraved por- So runs the Greek and, as an epigram in English can Unskilled the hand that such a print could trace The engraving is so distinctly below the ave Marshall's work that Milton may perhaps have i that the caricature was intentional-that Mars fact, disagreed so much with his recently expresse on divorce that he was aiding the evil tongues to in the Virgilian quotation of the title-page, by a most unpoetic face. If he entertained such a s Milton's malice, otherwise a little unworthy, w excusable enough. In any case, however, his wr hardly have extended to Humphrey Mosele publisher, who sent forth the book with this com tory letter of his own: THE STATIONER TO THE READER. Ir is not any private respect of gain, Gentle Reader, for the Pamphlet is nowadayes more vendible then the Works of learned but it is the love I have to our own Language that hath m diligent to collect, and set forth such Peeces both in Prose an as may renew the wonted honour and esteem of our English and it's the worth of these both English and Latin Poems, flourish of any prefixed encomions that can invite thee to bu though these are not without the highest Commendations and A of the learnedst Academicks, both domestick and forrein: And those of our own Countrey, the unparallel'd attestation of that re Provost of Eaton, SIR HENRY WOOTTON : I know not thy palat relishes such dainties, nor how harmonious thy soul is; perhap trivial Airs may please thee better. But howsoever thy opinion upon these, that incouragement I have already received from th ingenious men in their clear and courteous entertainment WALLER'S late choice Peeces, hath once more made me ad into the World, presenting it with these ever-green, and not blasted Laurels. The Authors more peculiar excellency in studies, was too well known to conceal his Papers, or to keep m attempting to sollicit them from him. Let the event guide itself way it will, I shall deserve of the age by bringing into the Light 1 Printed in this edition after the dedication of 'Comus,' V P. 155. average of ve imagined Marshall, in essed views a Birth, as the Muses have brought forth since our famous SPENCER wrote; whose Poems in these English ones are as rarely imitated, as sweetly excell'd. Reader, if thou art Eagle-eied to censure their worth, I am not fearful to expose them to thy exactest perusal. ues alluded by drawing a suspicion would be wrath can seley, the commenda the slightest h made me e and Vers, ish tongue : ms, not the buy them, d Applause nd amongst renowned alat how it haps more on is spent the most c of MR. adventure not to be in these me from elf which at as true Vol. II., Thine to command, HUMPH. MOSELEY. Soon after 1645 English publishers began to print lists of their books, which they bound up at the end of their new ones as an advertisement. In 1653 Moseley issued a more extensive list than any previously published, and among its 140 entries that of Milton's Poems figures as the sixty-sixth. They were, therefore, still on sale eight years after their publication, though the fact that they come in one of the sections of the list printed only in small type, may show either that the stock at that date was not large enough to tempt the publisher to give them prominence, or else that the active share which Milton, since their first appearance, had taken in politics made Moseley despair of commending them to his patrons, who were probably mostly on the other side. However this may be, the good man deserves our gratitude for having given them to the world. Besides the Latin poems and the reprints of 'Comus' and 'Lycidas,' the volume contained nearly all Milton's minor poems, the exceptions being the 'Elegy on a Fair Infant dying of a Cough,' the eleventh and subsequent sonnets, the translation of Horace's Ode to Pyrrha, At a Vacation Exercise,' and the renderings of Psalms i-viii. and lxxx-lxxxviii. Of these the four political sonnets, on Fairfax, Cromwell, and Sir Henry Vane, and the second to Cyriack Skinner, were perforce withheld till 1695, after the Revolution; all the rest appeared in a second edition of the Poems, published by Tho. Dring in 1673, together with Milton's Tractate of Education, to Mr. Hartlib.' Twenty-two years elapsed after the appearance Poems of 1645 before Milton was in need of a pi for a new volume of his poetry. On April 27th, he signed an agreement with Samuel Symons or Sir conveying to him his executors and assignes A Booke, Copy, or Manuscript of a Poem intituled dise Lost,' in consideration of an immediate p of Five Pounds, and three other payments of tl amount after the sale of a first, second, and third of 1300 copies each, to particular reading custo the printer being allowed to print an extra two hu copies of each edition, apparently to allow for pre tion, spoilt copies, and other wastage. In the agre the poem is described as now lately Licensed printed,' and a manuscript copy of the first book, v out fair in a clerk's hand, has been preserved, b the 'Imprimatur' of 'Tho. Tomkyns,' domestic ch to Gilbert Sheldon, Archbishop of Canterbury, who as the Archbishop's deputy in licensing books. preservation of this manuscript is fortunate as pr that, despite his blindness, Milton was able to exceptional accuracy in the printing of his poem manuscript differing from the printed text in little few minute points of spelling. In thus entirely suppo the printer it of course empties itself of much interest. Nevertheless, an attempted sale at Sotheby January 25th, 1904, showed that its owner valued it less than £5000, an estimate which, since no single has ever fetched more than £10,000, seems to insufficient margin for the relative value of the ten more interesting autograph manuscript at Trinity Co n's 'Small nce of the - publisher 7th, 1667, Simmons, s All that aled Parapayment f the like rd edition ustomers,' ! hundred presentagreement ed to be -, written bearing chaplain ho acted Cambridge, of Comus,' Lycidas,' and the minor poems. Not quite four months after the agreement had been signed, Paradise Lost' was registered at Stationers' Hall, on August 20th, 1667. Between registration and publication an indefinite interval might elapse, and we have no strict proof that the poem, though its earliest titlepage bears the date 1667, was not actually published in the border months of the two reckonings then in use, since any date before March 25th, 1668, belonged in popular account to 1667. But the practice of post-dating books, so as to make them seem new as long as possible, works in the opposite direction, and it was probably in the autumn of 1667 that the poem appeared, with the following title-page : Paradise lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books. By John Milton. Licensed and Entred according to Order. London Printed, and are to be sold by Peter Parker under Creed Church neer Aldgate; And by Robert Boulter at the Turks Head in Bishopsgate-street; And Matthias Walker, under St. Dunstons Church in Fleet-street, 1667. It will be observed that Samuel Symons or Simmons, the real printer and publisher of the book, does not here give his own name on the title-page. In registering the copyright he had indicated the author by initials (a Booke or Copie Intituled Paradise Lost, a Poem in Tenne bookes, by J. M.), and though initials in the seventeenth century were very lightly used, with no idea of concealment, we may fairly imagine that Simmons was alarmed lest Milton's political record should injure both the book and the publisher. It is probably to these fears, and the recovery from them, that we may ascribe the extraordinary succession of title-pages with which the first edition was issued. Before 1667 was out that which |