No More Learning

This edition of Milton's Poetry is a reprint, as careful as Editor and
Printers have been able to make it, from the earliest printed copies of
the several poems. First the 1645 volume of the Minor Poems has been
printed entire; then follow in order the poems added in the reissue of
1673; the Paradise Lost, from the edition of 1667; and the Paradise
Regain'd and Samson Agonistes from the edition of 1671.

The most interesting portion of the book must be reckoned the first
section of it, which reproduces for the first time the scarce small
octavo of 1645. The only reprint of the Minor Poems in the old
spelling, so far as I know, is the one edited by Mitford, but that
followed the edition of 1673, which is comparatively uninteresting since
it could not have had Milton's oversight as it passed through the press.
We know that it was set up from a copy of the 1645 edition, because it
reproduces some pointless eccentricities such as the varying form of the
chorus to Psalm cxxxvi; but while it corrects the errata tabulated in
that edition it commits many more blunders of its own. It is valuable,
however, as the editio princeps of ten of the sonnets and it contains
one important alteration in the Ode on the Nativity. This and all other
alterations will be found noted where they occur. I have not thought it
necessary to note mere differences of spelling between the two editions
but a word may find place here upon their general character. Generally
it may be said that, where the two editions differ, the later spelling
is that now in use. Thus words like goddess, darkness, usually written
in the first edition with one final s, have two, while on the other
hand words like vernall, youthfull, and monosyllables like hugg, farr,
lose their double letter. Many monosyllables, e. g. som, cours, glimps,
wher, vers, aw, els, don, ey, ly, so written in 1645, take on in 1673 an
e mute, while words like harpe, windes, onely, lose it. By a reciprocal
change ayr and cipress become air and cypress; and the vowels in daign,
vail, neer, beleeve, sheild, boosom, eeven, battail, travailer, and many
other words are similarly modernized. On the other hand there are a few
cases where the 1645 edition exhibits the spelling which has succeeded
in fixing itself, as travail (1673, travel) in the sense of labour; and
rob'd, profane, human, flood and bloody, forest, triple, alas, huddling,
are found where the 1673 edition has roab'd, prophane, humane, floud and
bloudy, forrest, tripple, alass and hudling.
Indeed the spelling in
this later edition is not untouched by seventeenth century
inconsistency. It retains here and there forms like shameles, cateres,
(where 1645 reads cateress), and occasionally reverts to the
older-fashioned spelling of monosyllables without the mute e. In the
Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester, it reads--' And som flowers
and some bays. ' But undoubtedly the impression on the whole is of a
much more modern text.

In the matter of small or capital letters I have followed the old copy,
except in one or two places where a personification seemed not plainly
enough marked to a modern reader without a capital. Thus in Il
Penseroso, l. 49, I print Leasure, although both editions read leasure;
and in the Vacation Exercise, l. 71, Times for times. Also where the
employment or omission of a capital is plainly due to misprinting, as
too frequently in the 1673 edition, I silently make the correction.
Examples are, notes for Notes in Sonnet xvii. l. 13; Anointed for
anointed in Psalm ii. l. 12.

In regard to punctuation I have followed the old printers except in
obvious misprints, and followed them also, as far as possible, in their
distribution of roman and italic type and in the grouping of words and
lines in the various titles. To follow them exactly was impossible, as
the books are so very different in size.