No More Learning

To follow them exactly was impossible, as
the books are so very different in size.

At this point the candid reader may perhaps ask what advantage is gained
by presenting these poems to modern readers in the dress of a bygone
age. If the question were put to me I should probably evade it by
pointing out that Mr. Frowde is issuing an edition based upon this, in
which the spelling is frankly that of to-day. But if the question were
pressed, I think a sufficient answer might be found. To begin with, I
should point out that even Prof. Masson, who in his excellent edition
argues the point and decides in favour of modern spelling, allows that
there are peculiarities of Milton's spelling which are really
significant, and ought therefore to be noted or preserved. But who is
to determine exactly which words are spelt according to the poet's own
instructions, and which according to the printer's whim? It is
notorious that in Paradise Lost some words were spelt upon a deliberate
system, and it may very well happen that in the volume of minor poems
which the poet saw through the press in 1645, there were spellings no
less systematic. Prof. Masson makes a great point of the fact that
Milton's own spelling, exhibited in the autograph manuscript of some of
the minor poems preserved in Trinity College, Cambridge, does not
correspond with that of the printed copy. [Note: This manuscript,
invaluable to all students of Milton, has lately been facsimiled under
the superintendence of Dr. Aldis Wright, and published at the Cambridge
University press]. This is certainly true, as the reader may see for
himself by comparing the passage from the manuscript given in the
appendix with the corresponding place in the text. Milton's own
spelling revels in redundant e's, while the printer of the 1645 book is
very sparing of them.
But in cases where the spelling affects the
metre, we find that the printed text and Milton's manuscript closely
correspond; and it is upon its value in determining the metre, quite as
much as its antiquarian interest, that I should base a justification of
this reprint. Take, for instance, such a line as the eleventh of Comus,
which Prof. Masson gives as:--

Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats.

A reader not learned in Miltonic rhythms will certainly read this

Amongst th' enthroned gods

But the 1645 edition reads:

Amongst the enthron'd gods

and so does Milton's manuscript. Again, in line 597, Prof.
Masson reads:

It shall be in eternal restless change
Self-fed and self-consumed. If this fail,
The pillared firmament is rottenness, &c.

But the 1645 text and Milton's manuscript read self-consum'd; after
which word there is to be understood a metrical pause to mark the
violent transition of the thought.

Again in the second line of the Sonnet to a Nightingale Prof. Masson
has:

Warblest at eve when all the woods are still

but the early edition, which probably follows Milton's spelling though
in this case we have no manuscript to compare, reads 'Warbl'st. ' So the
original text of Samson, l. 670, has 'temper'st. '

The retention of the old system of punctuation may be less defensible,
but I have retained it because it may now and then be of use in
determining a point of syntax. The absence of a comma, for example,
after the word hearse in the 58th line of the Epitaph on the Marchioness
of Winchester, printed by Prof. Masson thus:--

And some flowers, and some bays
For thy hearse to strew thy ways,

but in the 1645 edition:--

And som Flowers, and som Bays,
For thy Hears to strew the ways,

goes to prove that for here must be taken as 'fore.

Of the Paradise Lost there were two editions issued during Milton's
lifetime, and while the first has been taken as our text, all the
variants in the second, not being simple misprints, have been recorded
in the notes.