Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

PARADISE REGAINED.

INTRODUCTION

ΤΟ

PARADISE REGAINED.

66

Paradise Regained seems to have been complete in manuscript before the publication of Paradise Lost. This we infer from an interesting passage in the Autobiography of the Quaker, Thomas Ellwood, in which he gives an account of the origin of Paradise Regained, and claims the credit of having suggested the subject to Milton. We have already seen (Introduction to Paradise Lost, p. 15) how young Ellwood, visiting Milton, in 1665, at the cottage in Chalfont St. Giles, Buckinghamshire, where he was then residing to avoid the Great Plague in London, had a manuscript given him by the poet, with a request to read it at his leisure, and return it with his judgment thereon. On taking this manuscript home with him, Ellwood tells us, he found it to be Paradise Lost. He then proceeds as follows:-" After I had, "with the best attention, read it through, I made him another visit, and returned "him his book, with due acknowledgment of the favour he had done me in communicating it to me. He asked how I liked it, and what I thought of “it; which I modestly, but freely, told him: and, after some further discourse about it, I pleasantly said to him, 'Thou hast said much here of "Paradise Lost; but what hast thou to say of Paradise Found?' He made me no answer, but sate some time in a muse, then brake off that discourse "and fell upon another subject. After the sickness was over, and the city well "cleansed and become safely habitable again, he returned thither. And when, "afterwards, I went to wait on him there (which I seldom failed of doing, "whenever my occasions drew me to London), he showed me his second poem, called Paradise Regained, and in a pleasant tone said to me, 'This is owing to you; for you put it into my head by the question you put to me at "Chalfont, which before I had not thought of.' The inference from this passage may certainly be that the poem was at least begun in the cottage at Chalfont St. Giles (say in the winter of 1665-6), and that, if not finished there, it was finished in Milton's house in Artillery Walk, shortly after his return to town in 1666. When Paradise Lost, therefore, was published in the autumn of 1667, its sequel, though kept back, was ready.

66

[ocr errors]

66

66

*The History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood, Second Edition (1714), pp. 24C, 247.

But.

According to this calculation, the poem remained in manuscript for about four years. It was not published till 1671, when Paradise Lost had been in circula. tion for four years, and when the first edition of that poem must have been nearly, if not quite, exhausted-for that edition was restricted to 1,500 copies at the utmost, and Milton's receipt for the second five pounds, due, by agree. ment, on the sale of 1,300 of these copies, bears date April 26, 1669. for some reason or other, Simmons, the publisher of Paradise Lost, was delaying a second edition of that poem-which did not appear till 1674. It may have been owing to dissatisfaction with this delay on Milton's part that Milton did not put Paradise Regained into Simmons's hands, but had it printed (as appears) on his own account. Conjoining with it Samson Agonistes, which he also had for some time by him, or had just composed, he issued the two poems in a small octavo volume of 220 pages, with this general title-page-“ Paradise Regain'd. A Poem. In IV. Books. To which is added Samson Agonistes. The Author John Milton. London, Printed by J. M. for John Starkey at the Mitre in Flectstreet, near Temple Bar. MDCLXXI." There is no separate title-page to Paradise Regained; which commences on the next leaf after this general title, and extends to p. 112 of the volume. Then there is a separate title-leaf to Samson Agonistes; which poem, occupying the rest of the volume, is separately paged. On the last leaf of the whole volume are two sets of Errata, entitled Errata in the former Poem" and "Errata in the

66

66

66

latter Poem.

[ocr errors]

Not Samuel Simmons of the Golden Lion in Aldersgate Street, the publisher of Paradise Lost, it will be seen, but John Starkey, of the Mitre in Fleet Street, was the publisher of the new volume. He was, however, the publisher only, or agent for the printer "J. M." Such, at all events, is the inference of so good an authority in such matters as the late Mr. Leigh Sotheby, who, after quoting the title of the volume, as above, adds: "It is interesting here to "notice that the initials of Milton occur in the imprint as the printer of the 66 volume. Such was frequently the case when a work was printed solely at "the expense of the author."* In connexion with which observation we may here note the entry of the volume in the books of the Stationers' Company:

Septemb. 10, 1670: Mr. John Starkey entered for his copie, under the hands of Mr. Tho. Tomkyns and Mr. Warden Roper, a copie or Booke Intituled Paradise regain'd, A Poem in 4 Bookes. The Author John Milton. To which is added Samson Agonistes, a drammadic [sic] Poem, by the same Author.

The volume itself furnishes an additional item of information. On the page opposite the general title-page at the beginning is this brief imprint, "Licensed, July 2, 1670"-from which it appears that the necessary licence had been obtained by Milton from the censor Tomkyns. Apparently Tomkyns gave this licence more easily than he had given that for Paradise Lost.

The volume containing the first editions of Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes is handsome enough in appearance-the paper thicker than that of the first edition of Paradise Lost, and the type more distinct and more widely spaced. But the printing, especially the pointing, is not nearly so accurate. Within the first few pages one finds commas where there should be full stops or colons, and vice versa, and becomes aware that the person or persons who assisted Milton in seeing the volume through the press cannot have been so

* Ramblings in the Elucidation of the Autograph of Milton, 1861, p. 83.

careful as those who performed the like duty for the former poem-where, though the pointing is not our modern pointing, it rarely conflicts with the

sense.

Whatever was the number of copies printed, it sufficed the demand during the rest of Milton's life, and for six years beyond. When he died in 1674, there was a second edition of the Paradise Lost, to be followed by a third in 1678; but it was not till 1680 that there was a second edition of the Paradise Regained and Samson. It was brought out by the same publisher, Starkey, and is of inferior appearance and getting-up to the first-the size still small octavo, but the type closer, so as to reduce the number of pages to 132. The title-pages remain the same; but the two poems are now paged continuously, and not separately. There seems to have been no particular care in revising for the press, for errors noted in the list of errata in the former edition remain uncorrected in the text of this.

Third editions, both of the Paradise Regained and of the Samson, appeared in folio in 1688, sold, either together or separately, by a new publisherRandal Taylor; and these are commonly found bound up with the fourth or folio edition of Paradise Lost, published by another bookseller in the same year. From this time forward, in fact, the connexion between Paradise Regained and Samson, originally accidental, is not kept up, save for mere convenience in publication. The tendency was to editions of all Milton's poetical works collectively-in which editions was natural to put Paradise Lost first, then Paradise Regained, then Samson Agonistes, and after these the Minor Poems. The greater demand for Paradise Lost, however, making it convenient to divide the Poetical Works in publication, two methods of doing so presented themselves. On the one hand, there was an obvious propriety, if the Poems were to be divided at all, in detaching Paradise Regained from Samson and the rest, and attaching it to Paradise Lost; and, accordingly, there are instances of such conjoint editions of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, apart from the other poems, in 1692, 1775, and 1776. But a more convenient plan, mechanically, inasmuch as it divided the Poems collectively into two portions of nearly equal bulk, was to let Paradise Lost stand by itself in one or more volumes, and throw Paradise Regained, Samson, and the Minor Poems together into a separate issue in one or more volumes-the two sets combinable or not into a collective edition. This plan, first adopted by Tonson, in 1695, has prevailed since.

There is not the least reason for doubting Ellwood's statement as to the way in which the subject of Paradise Regained was suggested to Milton. There is no such evidence as in the case of Paradise Lost of long meditation of the subject previous to the actual composition of the poem. Among Milton's jottings, in 1640-1, of subjects for dramas, or other poems (see Introduction to Paradise Lost, p. 11), there are indeed several from the New Testament History. There is a somewhat detailed scheme of a drama, to be called Baptistes, on the subject of the death of John the Baptist at the hands of Herod. There are also seven notes of subjects from the Life of Christ-the first entitled Christus Patiens, accompanied by a few words which show that, under that title, Milton had an idea of a drama on the scene of the Agony in the Garden; the others entered simply as follows: "Christ Born," Herod Massacring, or Rachel Weeping (Matt. ii.)," "Christ Bound," "Christ Crucified," "Christ Risen," and “Lazarus (John xi.)." But not one of those eight subjects, thought of in Milton's early manhood, it will be seen, corresponds with the precise subject of

66

« AnteriorContinua »