1749, and so complete the Poetical Works. Separate editions of the MINOR POEMS have been very few. By far the most important of these few were the two editions, in 1785 and 1791 respectively, by Thomas Warton, "with notes critical and explanatory, and other illustrations." Warton's notes in these editions were most careful and valuable; and Todd and all other subsequent editors and biographers of Milton have been greatly indebted to them. Todd's own editing of the MINOR POEMS, after Warton, was not without good results; and in Mr. Keightley's edition of Milton (1859) there is evidence of real pains bestowed upon the MINOR POEMS. The same cannot be said of the reprint of them in the handsome eight-volume edition of Milton from Pickering's press in 1851, with life by Mitford. Not only were the Poems printed there without the original prefaces, etc., of the edition of 1645, but they were printed in an arbitrary order, which was neither that of the original edition, nor intelligible in itself. To most of the editions of the Minor Poems that have appeared since Milton's own second edition of 1673 there have, of course, been added such pieces of verse, not inserted in that edition, as Milton would himself have included in any final edition. Thus the metrical scraps, whether in English or in Latin, which lay dispersed through the text of his prose-writings, are now generally included among the Poems. Those four English Sonnets, also, which Milton. had, from prudential reasons, omitted in the edition of 1673, though they were then in his possession, are now in their places. After the Revolution of 1688 there was no reason for withholding those interesting sonnets from the public; and, accordingly, when Milton's nephew, Edward Phillips, published, in 1694, his English translation of the State-Letters which had been written by his uncle in his Latin Secretaryship to the Commonwealth and to Oliver, and prefixed to the book a Memoir of his uncle, he very properly printed the four missing Sonnets as an appendix to the Memoir. From that time they have always been included in editions of the Minor Poems. THE MILTON MSS. AT CAMBRIDGE. Even had Milton not given his Minor Poems to the world in print during his lifetime, those interesting productions of his genius would not, perhaps, have been wholly lost. A proportion of them would have remained recoverable. It is at this point, and more especially in connexion with the Minor Poems, that the reader ought to have some particular account of certain very precious MILTON MSS. now extant at Cambridge. Milton, from the time when he had first begun to write poems or other things, had carefully kept the MSS. In particular, there was a folio-sized notebook, or set of folio sheets, in which, from about 1632 or 1633, when he began his life of studious leisure in his father's country-house at Horton, and again after his return from his Italian tour in 1639, when he began his independent London life, he was accustomed to keep the first drafts of his English pieces, or copies of them. This book, or set of sheets (with other notebooks or sets of sheets, not now extant, in which he had kept his Latin pieces and of which he also availed himself now and then for a stray English piece), had served him in 1645, when Moseley brought out, "printed by his true copies," the first collective edition of the Minor Poems. The "true copies," however, used by Moseley's printer, were not the drafts in the original MS. book or set of sheets just mentioned, but were amended copies from these made on purpose. The original MS. book or set of sheets remained in Milton's possession, and was occasionally used by him to receive fresh jottings till as late as 1658, -the latest jottings, however, not being in his own hand, but in the hands of the various amanuenses whom he employed in his blindness. Such MSS. of Milton as came to his widow by his death in 1674 seem to have been dispersed by her, by gift or otherwise, before her final removal from London, in or about 1681, to her native place, Nantwich in Cheshire, where she died in 1727. What became of the bulk of the manuscripts is unknown; but the portion of them in which we are now interested came somehow into the hands of a Sir Henry Newton Puckering, baronet. He was the son of a Sir Adam Newton, who had been tutor to Prince Henry, the eldest son of James I.; but he had taken the name of Puckering after his uncle, a Sir Thomas Puckering, of Warwickshire. It is just possible that he may have had some acquaintance with Milton. He had been educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; and I find that his uncle and aunt had been neighbours of Milton in Aldersgate Street. At all events, he was a scholar and a book-collector. So scholarly were his tastes, and so strong was his affection for his old college in Cambridge, that, in his eightieth year (about 1697), he desired to be readmitted into it, and had rooms in it assigned him, where he lived for some time. At his death in 1700, he left his collection of books, amounting to 4000 volumes, to Trinity College Library. In this collection were many MSS., and among them such of Milton's as had come into the old collector's possession. These documents lay neglected among the other MSS., in the College till Charles Mason, a Fellow of the College, and subsequently Woodwardian Professor in the University, took the pains to seek them out and arrange them. Finally, in 1736, another Fellow of the College,―Thomas Clarke, afterwards Knight, and Master of the Rolls,—had them carefully and handsomely bound in morocco in a thin folio volume, with this inscription pasted on the inside of one of the covers: "Membra hæc eruditissimi et pæne divini "Poeta, olim miserè disjecta et passim sparsa, postea verò fortuito "inventa, et in unum denuo collecta a Carolo Mason, ejusdem Collegii socio, et inter Miscellanea reposita, deinceps eâ quâ decuit religione "servari voluit Thomas Clarke, nuperrimè hujusce Collegii, nunc verò "Medii Templi Londini, Socius. 1736. ("These relics of a most "learned and almost divine poet, formerly miserably thrown asunder, "and scattered about, but afterwards by chance found, and latterly "collected into one by Charles Mason, Fellow of the same College, "and placed among the Miscellanies of the Library, are now at length to be preserved with all due piety by the wish of Thomas Clarke, very recently Fellow of this College, and now of the Middle "Temple, London. 1736.") Accordingly, this thin morocco-bound volume of Milton MSS. is to this day one of the most valuable curiosities in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. It is shown to visitors in a glass table-case, arranged so as to gratify them with the sight of a page or two of Milton's autograph. By permission of the Master and Fellows, but only in the presence of one of the Fellows, it may be removed from the case for more leisurely examination. A full account of the volume, and ample specimens of it in facsimile, will be found in the late Mr. Sotheby's sumptuous folio volume entitled Ramblings in the Elucidation of Milton's Autograph (1861). It is only to be regretted that Mr. Sotheby, while he was engaged in his task, did not facsimile the volume entire. The volume consists of fifty-four pages, all of folio size, except an interpolated leaf or two of small quarto. Eight of the pages are blank; all the other forty-six are written on, most of them very closely. The following is an inventory of the contents of the whole volume, in the order in which they stand as bound up by Clarke's care in 1736 MATTER AND HANDWRITING. PAGES 1-3 Draft of the ARCADES in Milton's own hand. 4-5 "SONG, AT A SOLEMN MUSIC." Three Drafts (two of them erased) in Milton's own hand. 6-7 PROSE LEtter to a FrieND, giving Milton's reasons for hesitating to enter the Church or any other profession. There are two drafts of the letter, the first containing a copy of his SONNET ON HAVING ARRIVED AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE, but the second draft containing only a blank space for the Sonnet. Both the Sonnet and the two prose drafts are in Milton's own hand. "ON TIME: to be set on a Clock-case:" in Milton's own hand (apparently a transcript from a former copy). 8 9 "UPON THE CIRCUMCISION :" in Milton's own hand (apparently a transcript from a former copy). SONNET beginning "Captain or Colonel" (1642): in another hand (boyish-looking), save that the title "When the assault was intended to y citty" is written in Milton's own hand, in lieu of this title, first written, but afterwards erased: "On his Dore when ye citty expected an assault." SONNET "To a Lady," beginning, "Lady that in the prime" (1644) in Milton's own hand. SONNET," To the Lady Margaret Ley," beginning, that good Earl" (1644): in Milton's own hand. 10-12 These three pages are blank. "" Daughter to 13-29 COMUS (1634), much corrected throughout: all in Milton's own hand. 30-34 LYCIDAS (1637), with corrections throughout: all in Milton's own hand. 35-41 These seven pages are occupied with those JOTTINGS of Subjects, AND SKETCHes of Subjects, FOR SCRIPTURAL TRAGEDIES and TRAGEDIES OF BRITISH HISTORY, to which reference has been already made (see ante, p. 16 and p. 84), but to which there will be further reference in the Introductions to PARADISE LOST, PARADISE REGAINED, and SAMSON AGONISTES. The Jottings are wholly in Milton's own hand, and were made, it can be proved, in 164042. This page is blank. SONNET TO HENRY LAWES: two drafts-one headed, "To my freind, Mr. Hen. Laws, Feb. 9, 1645,” and signed “J. M.” (which draft is erased); the other headed, "To Mr. Hen. Laws on the publishing of his Aires" (1645-6). Heading of the second draft in another hand; but both drafts and first heading in Milton's own hand. SONNET "On the Detraction which followed upon my writing certaine PAGES 44 Treatises," that one of the two under this title which begins " I did but prompt the age" (1645): in Milton's own hand. SONNET "On the Religious Memorie of Mrs. Catharine Thomson, my Christian friend, deceased 16 December, 1646,”—i.e. Sonnet beginning "When Faith and Love": two drafts, both in Milton's own hand; the first scored for erasure. 45, 46 These two pages consist of an interpolated leaf of small quarto, containing transcripts, in another hand, of the three Sonnets last named, together with a transcript, in the same hand, of the Sonnet immediately following on p. 47,-i.e. the Sonnet beginning "A Book was writ of late," which now appears as one of the two under the common title, "On the Detraction," etc., but which has in this transcript a separate heading, "On the reception his Book of Divorce met with." The four Sonnets, though transcribed in this order, have numbers prefixed to them, showing in what order Milton, when the transcript was made, meant them to be printed. The Sonnet "I did but prompt the age" is marked to come first, as No. II of the entire series of the Sonnets up to that date; then the Sonnet "A Book was writ of late" is marked as No. 12; then the Sonnet to Lawes, as No. 13; and, lastly, the Sonnet to the Memory of Mrs. Catharine Thomson, as No. 14. 47 29 48 49 SONNET "A Book was writ of late" (1645 or 1646); being the draft in Milton's own hand (with corrections in another) of which there is a transcript as above. SONNET TO FAIRFAX (1648): in Milton's own hand, with this title Lines ON THE FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE: in another hand. A note Second SONNET TO CYRIACK SKINNER, beginning "Cyriack, this three years' day" (1655?): in another hand; dictated by Milton. SONNET TO THE MEMORY OF HIS SECOND WIFE, beginning "Methought I saw" (1658): in another hand; dictated by Milton. 51-54 These last four pages are blank. 50 It thus appears that in this precious volume at Cambridge there are preserved (mostly in Milton's own hand, but occasionally in the hands of amanuenses, who either transcribed from his original drafts before he was blind, or, after he was blind, wrote to his dictation) actual MS. copies of all Milton's MINOR ENGLISH POEMS with these exceptions:-Paraphrases of Psalms CXIV. and CXXXVI.; On the |
