John Milton

1607–1674

Introduction

Autograph Manuscripts

Although Milton must have left many manuscripts that have subsequently perished — including a lost Latin dictionary compiled by dictation during the years of his blindness and at least one theological commonplace book — the number of extant manuscripts by and associated with him is not inconsiderable for his period.

A collection of literary drafts by him, the Trinity MS (Trinity College, Cambridge, MS R. 3. 4 (James 583)) — must be the single most important autograph poetical manuscript of the seventeenth century still to survive. This is despite some measure of deterioration since the mid-eighteenth century, caused by careless handling by many admiring visitors to the college. Early facsimiles show, for instance, page numbers which by the turn of the 20th century had been rubbed off, and changes have been discernible even more recently. A number of lost readings, particularly on now frayed outer leaves, were, however, partly recorded in earlier editions and transcripts: see particularly The Poetical Works of Milton, ed. Henry Todd, 6 vols (London 1801), V, 57-9, 172, 418-31, 504-7. Collations of various poems and of Comus in this manuscript were incorporated in the manuscript volume of transcripts of works by Milton made by his biographer Francis Peck (1692-1743), now in the British Library (Add. MS 28637). A complete transcript of the Trinity MS made in 1792 by Arthur Young, a student of Trinity College, was offered for sale at Sotheby's (with a facsimile example in the catalogue) on 19 July 1990, lot 11. It was sold to Pickering, and is now at Princeton (Gen. MSS. Misc. No. AM 91-22). This transcript is discussed, with facsimile examples of both the transcript and of the Trinity MS itself, in Peter McCullough, Arthur Young, Jr's 1792 Transcript of Milton's Trinity Manuscript, English Manuscript Studies, 5 (1995), 85-106. Anonymous extracts from the Trinity MS made on three duodecimo leaves were also offered in Thomas Rodd's sale catalogue of manuscripts in 1841, lot 611.

Besides the Trinity MS there survive an early, apparently autograph, set of academic exercises in Latin verse and prose (*MnJ 7, *MnJ 8, *MnJ 50) and a largely autograph commonplace book recording Milton's private studies from his later university days to c.1665 (*MnJ 66), as well as a number of autograph letters, inscriptions and annotations in books and albums, signed documents and some other fragmentary material. In addition, several extant manuscripts, both literary and otherwise, were written on his behalf by amanuenses — most notably the deservedly celebrated manuscript of the first book of Paradise Lost (MnJ 22); the Bridgewater Manuscript of Comus (MnJ 59); and the complete manuscript, not published until 1825, of his De Doctrina Christiana (MnJ 46).

The majority of the undisputably authentic examples of Milton's handwriting conform, even with developments in some letter formations (such as his shift from epsilon e to italic e) over a period, to a clearly recognizable and idiosyncratic style of writing: the familiar simple but uneven italic, generally written in his mature years with a thickish pen. The one exception is the set of early academic exercises (*MnJ 7, *MnJ 8, *MnJ 50), written in a mixture of secretary and italic forms, many of which bear no counterpart anywhere else in Milton manuscripts. Had these exercises not been found inserted in Milton's Commonplace Book (*MnJ 66), and with Milton's name on them, it is unlikely that they would ever have been associated with Milton on the basis of palaeographical evidence alone. Even now one hesitates to attribute them to Milton with absolute certainty. Nevertheless, in view of the circumstantial evidence, their probable early dating and their limited palaeographical affinities with Milton's mature hand, the likelihood is that they are the only surviving examples of Milton's writing as a schoolboy.

Given the importance of Milton, it is not surprising that these various manuscripts should have attracted over the years considerable scholarly attention. As with Shakespeare, however, this kind of attention has not been uniformly conducive to clarity and light. Even with so many indisputable examples of his handwriting in existence, the supposed identification of other so-called autographs by Milton has sometimes reached fanciful proportions. For the most part, spurious attributions amount probably to no more than wishful thinking — such as many printed books supposedly annotated by him, and the so-called Milton Ovid (see below). Nevertheless, the common failure of scholars (with honourable exceptions such as Maurice Kelley) to discriminate adequately on palaeographical grounds mars the usefulness of most accounts of Milton autograph manuscripts. This failing appears in some of the items included in the monumental Columbia edition and in J. Milton French's seminal listing, The Autographs of John Milton, English Literary History, 4 (1937), 301-30, as well as in some of the entries relating to manuscripts in A Milton Encyclopedia.

General discussions about Milton's handwriting (varying in reliability) are to be found in: Sotheby, Ramblings (1861), passim; Hugh C H. Candy, Milton Autographs Established, The Library, 4th Ser. 13 (1932), 192-200; Helen Darbishire, The Chronology of Milton's Handwriting, The Library (1933), 229-35; Hugh C.H. Candy, Milton's Prolusio Script, The Library, 4th Ser. 15 (1934-5), 330-9; Maurice Kelley, J and I in Milton's Script, Modern Language Review, 44 (1949), 545-7; Helen Darbishire, The Chronology of Milton's Handwriting, Seventeenth-Century News, 11, No. 4 [Supplement] (Winter 1953), 11; Croft, Autograph Poetry, I, 47; Petti, English Literary Hands, No. 59; and see also, of related interest, John T. Shawcross, What Can We Learn from Milton's Spelling, Huntington Library Quarterly, 26 (1963), 351-61, and One Aspect of Milton's Spelling: Idle Final E, PMLA, 78.i (1963), 501-10.

No less controversial is the identification in extant manuscripts of Milton's amanuenses — a subject discussed further below. Nor can the Milton manuscripts — some of them compiled over a period of years — always be readily dated. The dating of the various drafts and revisions in, most especially, the Trinity MS, on the basis of inking, palaeographical changes, and spelling variants, as well as external evidence regarding particular poems, is likely to remain a subject of debate; for which reason a too precise dating is avoided in the entries in CELM where there are insufficient grounds for certainty.

Letters

Two original autograph letters signed by Milton are currently known (*MnJ 69-70), in addition to two autograph drafts of a letter in the Trinity MS (*MnJ 68). A number of other original letters by Milton were written by amanuenses, and also sometimes signed on his behalf, chiefly because of his blindness, which progressed over a period of eight years or so and was complete by February 1651/2 (see MnJ 71-85).

Twenty-nine further letters by Milton are known only from the texts printed in Epistolarum Familiarium (London, 1674), which are reprinted, with English translations, in Columbia, XII.

Some now lost letters written by Milton in the purest Latin to the convent at Vallombrosa after his return to England were reported in 1873 by Dr James H. Dixon to have been preserved there a few years previously. Two of them are also recorded in 1877 as having been seen a few years ago, when residing in Florence by one C.J.H.: see N&Q, 4th Ser. 11 (18 January 1873), 62; 5th Ser. 7 (23 June 1877), 493; 5th Ser. VIII (11 August 1877), 117; and recorded in Columbia, XII, 413, and LR, I, 381; II, 5. No trace of these letters has since come to light; and it may be that the reports of their existence were entirely fanciful: see Edward Chaney, The Visit to Vallombrosa: A Literary Tradition, in Milton in Italy, ed. Mario A. Di Cesare (Binghamton, NY, 1991), pp. 113-46.

There have also been rumours, from other sources, of lost letters by Milton to Cromwell and to John Winthrop (1606-76): see Parker, II, 1168. An unspecified letter by Milton was apparently included in an Album of Autograph Letters (including examples by Buckhurst, Congreve and Waller) sold at Sotheby's on 17 February 1890 (Alexander Foote sale), lot 285, to Stileles.

Some of the letters sent to Milton by his many correspondents have survived in various forms. The originals of nine, written between 1625 and 1666, are known (and are all edited in Columbia, XII). Those by Diodati, Dati, Leo van Aizema, Heimbach, Henry Lawes and Andrew Sandelands are in the British Library (Add. MSS 5016; 36354); in the New York Public Library; and in the National Archives, Kew (SP 18/23/6; SP 18/34/105). A series of autograph drafts of thirteen letters to Milton by Hermann Mylius (together with one to Georg Rudolph Weckherlin, once thought to be addressed to Milton) are preserved in Mylius's Tagebuch in the Niedersächsische Staatsarchiv (Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73, fasc. 13). They are printed in Columbia, XII, with a facsimile example after p. 356, and see also facsimile examples and further discussion in Miller (esp. pp. 24, 30). Henry Oldenburg's retained copies of five letters by him to Milton are in his notebook preserved by the Royal Society (MS I, ff. 9r-v, 11r-v, 22v-3, 30r-v, 61r-v). They are edited in LR, IV. Letters written to Milton by Andrew Marvell in 1654 and by Moses Wall in 1659 are known only from eighteenth-century transcripts in the Ayscough MS (British Library, Add. MS 4292, Nos. 120-1), edited in Columbia, XII, 331-6. Sir Henry Wotton's warm and eulogistic letter to Milton, dated 13 April 1638, is known only from Milton's own printing of it in his Poems (1645).

The original parliamentary warrant sent to Milton by John Bradshaw on 25 June 1650, ordering him to search the papers of William Prynne, was owned in the 1930s by Miss Dorothy Margaret Stuart and is now at the University of Illinois (Pre-1650 MS 0168). The text is edited in LR, II, 315-17. The version of the warrant in the official order book, now in the National Archives, Kew (SP 25/64, p. 483) has a space where Milton's name should be. It is, incidentally, interesting to compare this warrant with one issued by the Privy Council to William Trumbull, at the time of Prynne's original indictment before the Star Chamber on 1 February 1632/3, now in the British Library and reproduced in Sotheby's catalogue The Trumbull Papers, 14 December 1989, lot 30.

Documents

A number of other surviving miscellaneous documents — ranging from Milton's student subscriptions to his scrawled entries in libri amicorum when blind — bear Milton's autograph signature or additions and are given entries in CELM (*MnJ 88-90, *MnJ 92-93, *MnJ 95-100, *MnJ 102, *MnJ 106, *MnJ 108).

An additional item is what was described, not very convincingly, as an Official Letter, said to be in [Milton's] autograph, as Secretary to Cromwell, signed Oliver P., and by his son-in-law Charles Fleetwood. This was offered for sale at Sotheby's, 27 May 1875, lot 266.

Yet other documents recorded in CELM (MnJ 101, MnJ 103, MnJ 105, MnJ 107, MnJ 109-112) — including perhaps the most famous contract in English literary history (MnJ 111) — were signed on Milton's behalf by amanuenses: i.e. they generally bear procurational signatures resulting from the management of Milton's affairs by other parties because of his blindness.

A detached signature by or on behalf of John Milton and cut from [a] parchment document was sold at Christie's, 27 March 1985, lot 178A, to Rendell (and is reproduced in the sale catalogue). It may, for all one can tell, relate to the poet, but it is not in his own hand. Neither is the signature John Milton as witness on an indenture for the mortgage of land in Reigate, Surrey, between John Woodman and George Caffey, 23 January 1657/8, a document formerly owned by Roger W. Barrett of Chicago. Despite general scepticism about it, it was offered for sale at Sotheby's, New York, 14 December 1988, lot 141, with a facsimile of the signatures in the sale catalogue (sold to Quaritch but returned). This document was recorded in Columbia, XVIII, 625-6, and edited in LR, IV, 211-14, but disputed in Parker, II, 1049; and see also [Leo Miller], Caveat Emptor, Milton Studies, 23 (1989), 88. The particular John Milton concerned here is very unlikely to be the poet.

Other documents, the originals of which Milton might have signed, are known only from contemporary copies. Two examples are:

(i) The will of William Blackborow, witnessed by Milton (John Milton), 11 April 1645, proved 5 June 1646. (copy in the National Archives, Kew, PROB 10/660, registered copy PROB 11/196/82). Recorded in Columbia, XVIII, 624, and in LR, II, 147. It is possible, however, that the signature on the original may have been that of John Milton Senior.
(ii) The will of Richard Powell, witnessed by Milton (John Milton), 30 December 1646 (registered copy in the National Archives, Kew, PROB 11/199/52, and another copy is in the Bodleian, MS Top. Oxon. c. 289, ff. 49-51). Recorded in Columbia, XVIII, 624, and edited in LR, II, 164-6.

Milton's State Letters and Papers

Milton worked for the Commonwealth as Secretary for the Foreign Tongues to the Council of State from March 1648/9, just after the execution of Charles I, until at least the autumn of 1659, a few months before the Restoration. (The last recorded payment of his salary is dated 25 October 1659: LR, IV, 280-1.) Both in translating and in drafting or revising state letters and other papers, Milton was partly or wholly responsible for a considerable number of surviving official documents of this period.

The bulk of those for which Milton was largely responsible have been identified by virtue of three collections. One is the posthumous edition Literae Pseudo-Senatus Anglicani … a Joanne Miltono (1676), which was anonymously translated in 1682 and again, by Edward Phillips, in 1694 (LR, V, 237-8, 260, 295). The other two, both manuscripts, are: (i) the so-called Columbia MS, a volume of state tracts and papers including transcripts of 156 state letters probably originally written by Milton (Columbia University, X823M64/S62: MnJ 84) and (ii) the so-called Skinner MS, a letterbook in the hand of Daniel Skinner, comprising 139 state letters, entitled Epistolae Johannis Miltonii Angli Pro Parlamento Anglicano interregni tempore scriptae (National Archives, Kew, SP 9/194: MnJ 85).

Other manuscript collections of transcripts of Milton's state letters are: (iii) Bodleian, MS Rawl. A. 260 (including 71 state letters from 1653/4-55, partly composed by Milton: MnJ 82); (iv) Bodleian, MS Rawl. A. 261 (including c.105 letters of state from 1653/4-55 partly composed by Milton): MnJ 83; and (v) the Nalson Papers in the Bodleian.

The Nalson Papers, which have not been given separate entries, are a set of transcripts of state papers, including many of the letters of state composed by Milton, made before 1682 by Dr John Nalson (1638?-86), Rector of Doddington and Canon of Ely. Some of these papers came into the possession of Bishop Tanner and are now in the Bodleian (MSS Tanner, passim). The main collection, however, was bound together in 22 volumes in 1730 by Nalson's grandson, Philip Williams. It later came into the possession of the Duke of Portland and is now in the Bodleian (MSS Nalson, i-xxiii, formerly Dep. c. 152-176). Photocopies are preserved in the Parliamentary Archives. The Nalson Papers relating to Milton are calendared in HMC, 13th report, Appendix, Part I, Portland I (1891) [with an index in Portland II], and are cited in Yale, V, Part 2, passim.

Many of the originals of these various transcripts, as drafted or sent, as well as a number of other state papers in which Milton was involved, are preserved in the National Archives, Kew, and (some) in the Bodleian, British Library and New York Public Library, as well as in state archives in Amsterdam, Basel, Brandenburg, Bremen, Budapest, Copenhagen, Florence, Gdansk, Geneva, The Hague, Kiel, Lübeck, Merseburg, Moscow, Oldenburg, Paris, Simancas, Stockholm, Turin, Venice, and Zürich. No doubt other examples will come to light in due course.

For details of these state papers, and circumstances surrounding their production, see, inter alia, Columbia, XIII and XVIII; Yale, V, Part 2; J. Milton French, That Late Villain Milton, PMLA, 55 (1940), 102-15; Maurice Kelley, Additional Texts of Milton's State Papers, Modern Language Notes, 67 (1952), 14-19; J. Max Patrick, Significant Aspects of the Miltonic State Papers, Huntington Library Quarterly, 33 (1969-70), 321-30; Robert Thomas Fallon, Miltonic Documents in the Public Record Office, London, Studies in Bibliography, 32 (1979), 82-100; Maurice Kelley and Leo Miller, The Columbia Milton: Sixth Supplement, N&Q, 226 (1980), 43-4; Shawcross, Bibliography; Leo Miller, Establishing the Text of Milton's State Papers, TEXT, 2 (1985), 181-6; Leo Miller, Two Milton State Letters: New Dates and New Insights, N&Q, 231 (December 1986), 461-4; Leo Miller, Another Milton State Paper Recovered and a Mystery Demystified, English Language Notes, 25 (1987-8), 21-33; Leo Miller, John Milton and the Oldenburg Safeguard (New York, 1985); Leo Miller, Milton's Conversations with Schlezer and his Letters to Brandenburg, N&Q, 232 (September 1987), 321-4; Leo Miller, The Milton/Cromwell Letter to Transylvania, N&Q, 234 (December 1989), 435-42; and see also Robert Thomas Fallon, Filling the Gaps: New Perspectives on Mr. Secretary Milton, Milton Studies, 12 (1979), 165-95, and his Milton in Government (University Park, PA, 1993).

One of the traditional bones of scholarly contention over Milton's Secretaryship is whether he worked (in Parker's words) as little more than a translator and interpreter for monolithic bosses, or as (in Don M. Wolfe's words) a prompt, resourceful coworker in the immense variety of duties imposed upon the Council by the daily issues faced by the new republic (see Fallon, art. cit. in Milton Studies, 1979, and also light thrown on the matter in Miller, esp. pp. 297-303). J. Max Patrick (Yale, V, Part 2, 477) has drawn attention to the existence of scribal drafts of various documents in the Nalson Papers which indicate that Milton's contributions (showing far more than stylistic renderings) were substantial. Further evidence in support of the latter assumption is provided by the papers of Milton's immediate predecessor in that position, Georg Rudolph Weckherlin (1584-1653), which show vividly and in remarkable detail the kind of responsibilities involved in Milton's job. These papers were offered at Sotheby's on 14 December 1989 (separate hardbound catalogue, The Trumbull Papers), lot 41, and are now in the British Library (Add. MSS 72434-72438). It is interesting to note of Weckherlin's Letters and other papers of publique concernement that, according to an order issued by John Bradshaw on 4 February 1649/50 (ibid., lot 42, illustrated in the catalogue), they should have been delivered to Milton for his use (and see also the copies of corresponding orders in the National Archives, Kew, quoted in LR, II, 295-6). However, this order was evidently not complied with.

Weckherlin's papers are, in any case, not to be identified with another group of state papers (of in-coming letters to Cromwell, Ireton and others) bequeathed by Milton to Thomas Ellwood and published by John Nicholls as Original Letters and Papers of State … From the Year MDCXLIX to MDCLVIII (London, 1743): see LR, V, 339-40. These papers are now in the Library of the Society of Antiquaries (MS 138).

Presentation Exempla of Books by Milton

Milton evidently presented exempla of various of his printed books to friends and persons of influence. (His Pro populo anglicana defensio secunda (London, 1654), for instance, he is known to have given to Bradshaw and to Andrew Marvell, among others.) There is no way of knowing how many such presentation exempla there once were, neither is it an easy matter to distinguish Milton's hand in manuscript corrections that have been recorded as occurring in various printed exempla of his works. Besides the possibility that such corrections were made by the printers or else by contemporary readers, there is the likelihood that, even if Milton were entering them himself, he would have tended to conform to the printed type in the books, any personal idiosyncrasies of his writing being reduced to a minimum in such circumstances.

With this caveat, a few probably legitimate examples known to survive are given entries in CELM (MnJ 113-116). Other volumes too have been occasionally recorded as containing inscriptions or additions in Milton's hand, though not authenticated. Two examples, for instance, are the exempla of Poems (1645) in the New York Public Library (Rare Book Room, *KC 1645), and of Areopagitica (1644) offered in Maggs's sale catalogue No. 620 (1936), item 4 (with a facsimile in the catalogue).

A number of further presentation volumes have been recorded from time to time as containing apparently contemporary ex dona authoris inscriptions, at least some of them by known friends or associates of the poet. Most of these are recorded in Columbia, XVIII, in LR, or in Yale, and see also Leo Miller, Miltoniana: Some Hitherto Unrecognized Items, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 70 (1976), 107-10. Examples, which are not given separate entries, include:

An Apology against … A Modest Confutation (London, 1642). British Library, E. 147. 22.
Areopagitica (London, 1644). Exempla in British Library (C. 55. c. 22 (9)); at Yale (Ij.M642.C641.v.3); and in Quaritch's sale catalogue No. 1132 (December 1990), item 69. The inscribed title-page of the Yale item is reproduced in facsimile in Yale, II, 485. These and other exempla with printers' corrections are briefly discussed in Helen Darbishire, Pen-and-Ink Corrections in Books of the Seventeenth Century, RES, 7 (1931), 72-3.Articles of Peace Made and Concluded with the Irish Rebels, and Papists, by James Earle of Ormond (London, 1649). Exemplum inscribed on the title-page by John Bradshaw Ex dono Authoris. 10 Maij 1649 and By y^e Pen of John Mylton. Quaritch's sale catalogue English Literature in Manuscript (November 1996), item 5, with a facsimile of the inscribed title-page.
The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, 2nd edition (London, 1644). H. Jackson, ex dono Authoris, with manuscript corrections. Thorpe's sale catalogue, 1832, Part I, item 1687. Yale, 1972 1004.
Eikonoklastes, 2nd edition (London, 1650). One exemplum given to Thomas Barlow in 1656: Bodleian, 4° Rawl. 408 (reproduced in facsimile in John Milton, Prose Works 1641-50, 3 vols (Menston: Scolar Press, 1967-8), Vol. III). Another exemplum given to John Durie: British Library, G 11718.Of Education (London, 1644). Exemplum presented to Samuel Hartlib. William H. Robinson's sale catalogue No. 56 (1935), item 133.
Of Reformation touching Church-Discipline in England (London, 1641). One exemplum given to J[?]H: Bodleian (D.12.6. Linc.). Another given to George Thomason: British Library, E 208 (3).
Pro populo anglicano defensio (various issues: London, 1651). One exemplum given to Henry Darley, MP: Alexander Turnbull Library, New Zealand (recorded in Kathleen Coleridge, Descriptive Catalogue of the Milton Collection in the Alexander Turnbull Library (Oxford, 1980), p. 59). Another given to John Rous: Bodleian, E 2. 20. Art. Yet others given to Walter Frost (University of Texas at Austin, Stark 6472*); to John Morris (British Library, C114.b.37, formerly 599.c.26); to Charles Vane (Harvard, *fEC65 M6427 651 pb (B)); and to other unidentified recipients (Harvard, *EC65 M6427 651paa (B), and Pierpont Morgan Library, PML 17280.W4D).

For the exemplum of Eikonoklastes (London, 1649) once given by someone (but not Milton) to the Earl of Carbery, see D.S. Robertson, A Copy of Milton's Eikonoklastes, TLS (15 June 1951), p. 380, and (22 June 1951), p. 396.

Yet other exempla of printed works by Milton bear what are clearly printers' manuscript corrections — not a particularly especially rare occurrence in this period. Examples, probably among many others, are exempla of The Reason of Church-Government (London, 1641) in the British Library (E.137.9); of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (London, 1649) at Yale (Ij M642 649t); and of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, 2nd edition (London, 1644), including an exemplum in the British Library (E.31.(5)).

Milton's Library

The attempt to identify individual books from Milton's library, which was dispersed both before and after his death, has been a chequered record, over the past three centuries, of spurious claims, misidentifications (inscriptions by other John Miltons), plain wishful thinking (the most common cause of misattribution) and even, on occasions, of downright forgery (one by J.P. Collier, for instance). Only a relatively small handful of extant volumes with reasonably credible evidence of provenance — the presence of Milton's authentic signature, inscription or annotations — are currently known. These have been given separate entries in CELM (*MnJ 117-123).

Downright spurious attributions are legion — and despite elaborate claims made by earlier commentators. For the record, exempla of volumes in this category are given entries in CELM (MnJ 124-135). They may be supplemented by many other books of unreliable provenance and which are no longer traceable, including various other Bibles, works by Creccelius, Malvezzi, M.A. Muret, Polycarp, Thomas White, Beza, Nieremberg, John Pits, J. Sleidan, Olaus Magnus, Thomas Lodge, Montaigne, Thomas Cooper, Henry Peacham, and others. See Columbia (XVIII, 575-82); LR (passim); Boswell; and Association Copies, Library and Marginalia in A Milton Encyclopedia, I (1978), 106-8, and V (1979), 23-5, 73-5. Even this list may be extended. We have, for instance, the claim of Sotheby's catalogue for 18 May 1853 (Thomas Jolley sale) that lot 1294, an exemplum of Herodian, Historia … Angelo Politiano interprete (Basel, 1563), bore on the title-page the poet's autograph signature JOHN MILTON (almost certainly spurious if thus written), as well as his marginal references … on several of the pages. On 26 February 1861 Sotheby's offered as lot 115 (sold to Ellis) an exemplum of Plutarch, Opusculorum de liberorum institutione and Isocrates, Orationes tres (London, 1627) with the following note on title-page, pretium hujus libri — 6d I.M. Julii 2, 1646 (supposed to be in the autograph of John Milton). In their Catalogue of English Literature (August-November 1884), Quaritch offered as item 22960 an exemplum of Thomas Cooper's Thesaurus (London, 1573) which was allegedly Milton's as attested by the thoroughly unreliable J.P. Collier in a note dated November 1875. On 21 May 1890 Sotheby's also offered (lot 79), as an alleged autograph by Milton, the inscription J. M., Pret. 5^s., 2^d. hand, which was written on the back of a portrait of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, to whose memory Milton wrote an elegy.

Milton's Amanuenses

Like the dating of Milton's manuscript poems, the identification of Milton's many amanuenses (perhaps dozens, counting the government clerks he employed in the 1650s) remains a controversial subject. That Milton made use of amanuenses throughout his life — particularly, of course, during the years of his blindness after 1652 — is well attested. According to Cyriack Skinner's Life of Milton (see below), The Youths that hee instructed from time to time servd him often as Amanuenses, & some elderly persons were glad, for the benefit of his learned Conversation, to perform that Office. Although the identities of some of Milton's amanuenses are known — as also the names of a few of his pupils (see Parker, II, 924-5) — it is not always easy to match them with particular samples of extant handwriting. This uncertainty, together with the presence of other, entirely unidentified hands in the Milton manuscripts, has encouraged speculation by scholars so that the overall picture is now far from clear. The subject would still benefit greatly from a fresh, detailed and systematic study, and the comments made below are offered as but a guide to current thinking on the matter.

Those identified amanuenses most relevant to the Milton manuscripts may be listed briefly as follows:

Thomas Ellwood (1639-1713), Quaker friend and student of Milton, adviser on both Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, to whom Milton bequeathed his collection of state letters (see above). For a discussion of Ellwood, with facsimile examples of autograph manuscripts by him (in the Library of the Society of Friends, London), see Elizabeth T. McLaughlin, Milton and Thomas Ellwood, Milton Newsletter, 1 (1967), 17-28. Although Ellwood may conceivably have served on occasions the same office as Milton's other friends (and later he did act as amanuensis to one other poet, Edmund Waller), nowhere does he state in his autobiography that he did so; nor can his hand be identified among recorded Milton manuscripts, despite suggestions by John Shawcross that the publishing contract for Paradise Lost and receipt of 26-27 April 1669 written on Milton's behalf (see above) may be in Ellwood's hand (see McLaughlin, p. 24, and facsimile of the receipt, p. 22). The suggestion that a now lost manuscript copy of the tract The Readie and Easie Way to Establish a free Commonwealth may be in Ellwood's hand would also seem to be no more than speculation by an auction cataloguer in 1963 (see MnJ 55).
Elizabeth Milton, née Minshull (1638-1727), Milton's third wife, who, according to Bishop Newton in 1749, used to write down verses from her husband's dictation first thing each morning (Columbia, XVIII, 390). Legal documents written or signed by her survive: for instance, a signed receipt for payment by Samuel Symmons, 21 December 1680, now at Christ's College, Cambridge (the signature reproduced in facsimile in Gentleman's Magazine, 92.ii (1822), 13, and in Sotheby, Ramblings, pp. 137-40, Plate XVIII, No. iii); a similar document, releasing Symmons from claims on the copyright of Paradise Lost, 29 April 1681, at Christ's College (facsimile in Illinois, III, 17); her signed will, 22 August 1727 (in the Cheshire Record Office, WS 1727); and some related documents, including a copy of her will, sold at Sotheby's, 2 August 1820, lot 62, and 12 May 1882, lot 2104, now in the New York Public Library (these are printed in John Fitchett Marsh, Papers connected with the Affairs of Milton and his Family, Chetham Society Publications XXIV (1851), pp. 1-46, with a facsimile example as frontispiece: see LR, V, 255-6, 258-9, 303-5, 312-14, 325-6). A further document signed by her (and not recorded in LR) is the assignment to Joseph Watts, for 10 guineas, of copyright in Milton's prose works (which are listed in full), a document signed at Mainwarings Coffee house in ffleet Street, 24 June 1695, now in the Bedfordshire Record Office (P 11/28/2, pp. 314-15). This is printed, with a related document (see below), in Henry John Rose, Remarks on some Documents relating to John Milton and Isaac Barrow, preserved in the Rectory House of Houghton-Conquest, Bedfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society, 8th Report (1855), 319-31 (pp. 328-30). There are, however, no recorded literary manuscripts in Elizabeth Milton's hand.
Edward Phillips (1630-96?), Milton's nephew and pupil who, according to an entry he made himself in John Aubrey's Life, was his uncle's, cheif Amanuensis for Paradise Lost (see below) and who certainly possessed some of Milton's papers after the poet's death. His distinctively bold, cursive hand survives in many letters and documents, especially in translations and antiquarian works of Elias Ashmole (Bodleian, MSS Ashmole 826, 842, 857, 865, 1109, 1110, 1119, 1123, 1125, 1127, 1128, 1139 and 1149), and see also Christ Church, Oxford (Evelyn Papers MS 3, Vol. II, items 128 and 129). Facsimile examples of Edward Phillips's handwriting are reproduced in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 190 (Plate XXIV, Nos i [a presentation inscription in a book owned by Samuel Leigh Sotheby] and ii [from pages in the Ashmolean manuscripts]); in Darbishire, Early Lives, after p. 12 [Bodleian, MS Aubrey 8, f. 68r: part of Edward Phillips's additions to Aubrey's Life]; and in Maurice Kelley, Milton and Machiavelli's Discorsi, Studies in Bibliography, 4 (1951-2), 123-7 (Plate II) [ditto].From this evidence Edward Phillips's distinctive hand can confidently be identified in some of the corrections in the extant manuscript of Book I of Paradise Lost (MnJ 22), in some of the entries in Milton's Commonplace Book (*MnJ 66), and in one of Milton's letters to Mylius (MnJ 78).
John Phillips (1631-1706?), Edward's brother who was likewise his uncle's pupil, also probably served as an amanuensis at times and is so characterized by a contemporary reader on the title-page of the British Library exemplum of John Phillips's Responsio in 1652 (LR, III, 291). No definitive example of John Phillips's handwriting is known; however, the manuscript of his A Satyr against Hypocrites of 1655 survives in the Bodleian (MS Rawl. poet. 30). The main text is evidently in the hand of a professional scribe, but the neatly penned and signed dedication to John Churchill (f. 2r-v), as well as the title-page (f. 1r), is very probably in the hand of John Phillips himself, who was also most likely responsible for a series of neatly inserted corrections and side-notes in the main text. A reduced facsimile of the last page of the dedication (f. 2v) appears in Darbishire, Early Lives, after p. xviii.On this evidence Darbishire has argued that later versions of the same hand are to be found in the Trinity MS, p. 49 (Sonnets XXI and XXII: MnJ 42, MnJ 43) and also in the anonymous Life of M^r John Milton (written as a would-be fair copy with deletions and inserted revisions in a single, slightly florid but non-professional hand, evidently that of the author) in the Bodleian (MS Wood D. 4, ff. 140r-4r), a Life which she consequently attributes to John Phillips (and see her facsimile examples, after pp. xxvi and 18). Her identification — as, indeed, any correspondence between MS Rawl. poet. 30 and the other manuscripts cited — has not generally been accepted (see, for instance, Maurice Kelley, Milton's Later Sonnets and the Cambridge Manuscript, Modern Philology, 54 (1956), 20-5 (pp. 24-5)), and the Life can now positively be attributed to Cyriack Skinner (see below).Sotheby, Ramblings, reproduces after p. 190 (Plate XXIV, Nos iii-iv) facsimiles of two signatures by, respectively, Jn°: Phillips and John Phillipp[s] (which appear in then privately owned printed books). However, these do not clarify matters, since they were evidently written by two different people, neither of whom was necessarily Milton's nephew — any more than the John Phillipps and J. Phillips who, respectively, wrote letters of 15 February [1653/4] and c.30 September 1681 now in the Bodleian (MSS Rawl. A. 11, f. 342, and Wood F. 43, f. 223), or the Johannes Philips who inscribed the flyleaf of a verse miscellany in the British Library (Add. MS 19268). An exemplum of Edward Phillips, Theatrum Poetarum (London, 1675) at Harvard (EC65.P5425.675t) likewise bears on a flyleaf the names Edward Phillips and John Phillips, both in the same hand (which is certainly not that of the former), as well as the name Heph Philips, but this too is unreliable evidence.No less potentially misleading is John T. Shawcross's readiness to identify as John Phillips's a host of other manuscripts: see especially his Notes on Milton's Amanuenses, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 58 (1959), 29-38, and entry on Amanuenses in A Milton Encyclopedia, I (1978), 41-3. Ranging from a series of entries in Milton's Commonplace Book (*MnJ 66), the ode Ad Joannem Rousium (MnJ 1), and the inscription in Christopher Arnold's album in 1651 (*MnJ 99), to various of Milton's letters to Mylius and translations of two intercepted letters by Princess Sophie (see Shawcross, Bibliography, No. 81), as well as a sonnet copied in Milton's exemplum of Della Casa's Rime et prose (*MnJ 120). These entries are written in a variety of styles which bear no certain relationship to one another, let alone to the one probably example of John Phillips's hand in MS Rawl. poet. 30.
Jeremie Picard (fl. 1658-60). Very little is known of Picard — unless he be the Mr. Packer mentioned by Aubrey as one of Milton's pupils or, perhaps, the Jeremiah Pickard who was admitted for a time to Bedlam in 1678 and 1700 — but his signature and distinctively rounded handwriting occur in a number of documents which show that he served for a period as one of Milton's amanuenses. He signed one document, on 14 January 1657/8, as witness (MnJ 105), and probably also both this document and one of 5 May 1660 (MnJ 107) on Milton's behalf; he added two entries after 17 March 1657/8 to Milton's family Bible (*MnJ 118), as well as in an annotation there in Romans xv.6; he added two entries, on pp. 188 and 195, to Milton's Commonplace Book (*MnJ 66); he entered Sonnet XXIII in the Trinity MS (MnJ 44), as well as directions to the printer at the top of p. 45 (MnJ 32); and, most substantially, he transcribed De Doctrina Christiana (MnJ 46). Picard's hand also appears in an audit of moneys collected for relief of the Piedmontese (National Archives, Kew, SP 46/112/63). See James Holly Hanford, The Rosenbach Milton Documents, PMLA, 38 (1923), 290-6 (pp. 293-4 and facsimile examples after p. 292 [Nos. 1-4, and questionably Nos. 5-6]); Maurice Kelley, This Great Argument (Princeton, 1941), pp. 71-2; William Elton, New Light on Milton's Amanuensis, Huntington Library Quarterly, 26 (1963), 383-4; Parker, II, 1063; Yale, VI, 12 (n. 4); and facsimile examples in other sources cited. Hanford suggests, less convincingly, that it may also have been Picard who signed on Milton's behalf the two Rosenbach documents of 7 June 1665 and the publishing contract for Paradise Lost on 27 April 1667 (v, vi, viii above, and vii is also probably in the same hand).
Cyriack Skinner (1627-1700), a pupil, close friend and (at least in 1654-6) neighbour of Milton. William Riley Parker records (in TLS (13 September 1957), p. 547) sight of a letter by Cyriack Skinner, dated 23 March 1668/9, in the city archives of Kingston upon Hull. On this evidence he argued that it was Cyriack Skinner, rather than John Phillips, who was probably responsible for Sonnets XXI and XXII in the Trinity MS, p. 49 (MnJ 42, MnJ 43) and for the anonymous Life of M^r John Milton in the Bodleian (MS Wood D. 4, ff. 140-4) — a suggestion made, for different reasons, by Maurice Kelley in Modern Philology, 54 (1956), 25. R.W. Hunt, of the Bodleian Library (in TLS (11 October 1957), p. 609), registered some reservation about this identification, leaving open the possibility that the Life was by John Phillips.In fact there are two autograph letters by Cyriack Skinner in the City Record Office, Hull (BRL 794 and 795), dated 9 and 23 March 1668/9 respectively (and, incidentally, mentioning Andrew Marvell), as well as one to his sister-in-law, from Dublin, 1 November 1675, in the Leeds Archives (WYL 1352/A2/1/1). The handwriting here is in every respect so distinctive — even down to the peculiar style of deletion employed — as to leave no doubt whatsoever, pace Hunt, that Cyriack Skinner was also responsible for page 49 in the Trinity MS and for the Life of Milton in Bodleian, MS Wood A. 4, ff. 140r-4r.
Daniel Skinner (b.1651?). There is no clear evidence that Daniel Skinner ever acted as Milton's amanuensis; nevertheless, it was he who, after the poet's death, cull'd out some of Milton's papers and also wrote about them in surviving letters. His distinctively dashing cursive hand is found in a number of letters in the National Archives, Kew; in the Bodleian (MSS Rawl. A. 185, ff. 133r, 271r, 396r), and elsewhere: see, for instance, LR, V, 69, 238-9; Maurice Kelley, Modern Language Notes, 64 (1949), 522-5; and elsewhere. For facsimile examples, see Sotheby, Ramblings, after pp. 162 and 164 (Plates XX, No. I, ii*, and XXXIII, Nos i, iv); and Maurice Kelley, Milton and Machiavelli's Discorsi, Studies in Bibliography, 4 (1951-2), 123-7 (Plate II) [from Bodleian, MS 185, f. 396r].Skinner's career is outlined notably in J.H. Hanford, Pepys and the Skinner Family, Review of English Studies, 7 (1931), 257-70; in J. Milton French, That Late Villain Milton, PMLA, 55 (1940), 102-15; in Maurice Kelley, Addendum: The Later Career of Daniel Skinner, PMLA, 55 (1940), 116-18; in Parker, I, 610-12 et passim; and in Maurice Kelley [review of Parker], Seventeenth-Century News, 28 (1970), 1. For further references, see Yale, VI, 11-12, 36-8.On this evidence Daniel Skinner's hand can be identified as the scribe responsible for the Skinner MS of state letters by Milton (see above) and for much of the surviving manuscript of De Doctrina Christiana (MnJ 46), which, until threatened with government disfavour, he tried to publish in Amsterdam (LR, V, 237-9). In addition, he evidently owned and initialled Milton's exemplum of Euripides (see v above) and he may also have owned the Trinity MS and Milton's Commonplace Book.

Various other anonymous amanuenses of Milton have been discussed, and comparisons made, by scholars, but, again, not always with illuminating results: for instance, pace Shawcross (What Can We Learn from Milton's Spelling, Huntington Library Quarterly, 26 (1963), 351-61), Sonnet XIV on page 46 of the Trinity MS (MnJ 38), Milton's letter to Whitelocke (MnJ 77) and his letter to Bradshaw (*MnJ 81) are not written by the same amanuensis, but are in three quite different hands.

Circulation of Milton's Works in Manuscript

Milton is not a poet whose works one would normally associate with manuscript circulation. Nevertheless, there are rare instances of this happening. At Cambridge, despite his professed contempt for the fashionable outpourings of his academic contemporaries (those new fangled toys of our late fantasticks, as he calls them, for instance, in At a Vacation Exercise in 1628: Darbishire, II, 127), he could not remain entirely detached from the less formal literary life of his university. His Hobson poems, which had some degree of manuscript circulation (MnJ 2-5, MnJ 19), bear witness to his participation in at least one thoroughly characteristic student activity; and isolated contemporary manuscript copies of On Time (MnJ 20-21) and An Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester (MnJ 9-9.5) reflect a similar impingement on student commonplace-book culture. In the special case of A Mask Presented at Ludlow-Castle (Comus) transcripts of the text were evidently made besides those recorded in CELM (MnJ 57-64). In the Dedication to Milton's Poems (1645), Henry Lawes says the often Copying of it hath tir'd my Pen to give my severall friends satisfaction. The celebrated Bridgewater Manuscript of this masque (MnJ 59) was indeed once though to bear Lawes's own handwriting (adding the names of the actors on the title-page), but this suggestion may now safely be discounted. A highly accomplished scribe, who varied his style for the component parts of the title-page and for stage directions and headings in the text, was responsible for this manuscript. What was probably another hand, writing in a lighter (now brown-coloured) ink and making some attempt to imitate the calligraphic features of the original scribe (in the majuscule S and C, for instance), has added abbreviated names of characters (Co:, La:, El: bro., 2 bro:, De:, Sab:) at various points in the margin and in spaces left by the scribe in the text. It should be noted that these additions are rarely visible in the Illinois facsimile of the manuscript, although incorporated in the transcript printed there.

Of non-autograph manuscripts, apart from the unique Picard-Skinner manuscript of De Doctrina Christiana (MnJ 46), clearly by far the most valuable to survive — being indeed one of the major literary manuscripts of its century — is the First Book of Paradise Lost (MnJ 22), part of the printer's copy for the first edition. As noted above, Edward Phillips was allegedly his uncle's chief Amanuensis during the writing of the poem (All the time of writing it, according to Aubrey, this was 4 or 5 yeares of his doeing it: Darbishire, Early Lives, pp. 9, 13). In his life of Milton published in 1694, Edward Phillips himself recalled how he had the perusal of the poem from the very beginning (… for some years, as I went from time to time, to Visit him, in a Parcel of Ten, Twenty, or Thirty Verses at a Time, which being Written by whatever hand came next, might possibly want Correction as to the Orthography and Pointing …: Darbishire, Early Lives, p. 73).

Other Texts

Some other, later, texts of poems by Milton, or translations or adaptations of them, which have not been given separate entries in CELM, can be listed briefly as follows.

A quarto volume of manuscript transcripts of works by Milton made by his eighteenth-century biographer Francis Peck was offered for sale at Sotheby's, 15-25 March 1871 (Joseph Lilly sale), lot 1765, and is now in the British Library (Add. MS 28637). Invariably transcribed from early printed sources (such as Poems (1645)), but also incorporating readings taken from the Trinity MS, the 87-leaf manuscript includes Peck's transcripts of Arcades (ff. 65r-6r), arguments from Paradise Lost (ff. 16r-51r), and some 29 of his miscellaneous poems including L'Allegro and Il Penseroso (ff. 52r-64r, 67r-87r). Peck's transcript of Comus (ff. 2r-14r) is briefly discussed in S.E. Sprott's edition of that work (Toronto, 1973).

William Cowper's partly autograph drafts and fair copies of his translation into English of some of Milton's Latin and Italian poems are in the British Library (Add. MS 30801). An autograph manuscript of Thomas Warton's translation into Latin of Song On May morning (Now the bright morning Star, Dayes harbinger), with his transcript of the original poem, 1750, is in Boston Public Library (MS Ch.H.1.27). Latin versions of Lycidas, made in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, are in Cambridge University Library (Add. MS 42, ff. 152-9) and Lambeth Palace Library (MS 841, item 8; recorded in Shawcross, Bibliography, No. 410). A calligraphic illuminated copy of Lycidas made in 1850-53 by Anna Maria Fay (1828-1922/3) is at Harvard (MS Eng 1622) and a twentieth-century calligraphic copy of the poem is at the University of Texas at Austin (X-7).

A Latin verse translation of Paradise Lost by Thomas Power (Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, fl.1680-5), the First Book only of which was published (in 1691), is now somewhat dispersed. His revised manuscript of Books II-VII, on 137 quarto leaves (including blanks), is at Trinity College, Cambridge (MS R.2.38: James 538). His Books VIII-XII occupy pp. 194-336 of MS R.2.37 (James 537). The last five Books are in the same college (C.1.64). His Book XI is also at Harvard (14487.42.21*: Lobby XI. 4. 7, 13 [folio pages]) and (14487.42.20*: Lobby XI. 1. 24: [179 quarto pages, with a translation of the First Book added by Dr Henry Newcome, the manuscript once owned by John Plumptre (1753-1825)]).

A Latin verse translation of much of Book III of Paradise Lost made c.1805-25 by William Parsons, of Bewdley, is in the Bodleian (MS Top. Salop d. 1, f. 34r et seq.). A manuscript of a translation of Paradise Lost, Book I, into Italian, by Lorenzo Magalotti (1637-1712) is in the British Library (Lansdowne MS 845, ff. 14r-24v), as is part of a prose translation into French (Sloane MS 3324, ff. 273r-88v). Extracts from an Italian translation of the poem are in the British Library (Lansdowne MS 928, ff. 133v-42r). The manuscript of an incomplete German translation of the poem by Theodore Haak (1605-90) is in the Landesbibliothek und Murhardsche Bibliothek der Stadt Kassel (Poet. MS 4° 2) [Shawcross, Bibliography, No. 290]; and another early German translation of Book I, by Christopher Wegleiter, is in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg (MS Hs 40 660) [Shawcross, Bibliography, No. 411]. The manuscript of Sarah Siddons's reading text of Paradise Lost, as abridged and arranged by her for four public readings in 1817, on 279 quarto pages, presented by her to Miss Wilkinson in July 1818, is at Harvard (14486.42.5*: Lobby XI. 1. 26). For John Dryden's operatic version of Paradise Lost, see DrJ 287-294.3.

A manuscript adapted version of Comus, in a cursive hand with deletions and revisions, on twelve quarto leaves (rectos only), now at Harvard (MS Eng 591), is of Comus. as acted at the TR-Cov^t Garden Mad^e Vestris Management: i.e. under Madame Vestris (1797-1856). A pencil note on a flyleaf, dated 1932, claims that the masque was prepared for stage by J R Planché (1795-1889, playwright) & perhaps in his hand writing. The prompt-book of W.C. Macready's acting version of Comus as staged in 1846, copied by the Drury Lane prompter D. Home with stage directions inserted by the prompter George Ellis, is in the Charles Kean Collection at the Folger (see Charles H. Shattuck, Macready's Comus: A Prompt-Book Study, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 60 (1961), 731-48). A late eighteenth-century mask entitled The Cestus, written in imitation of Comus, a manuscript once in the library of the Osborne family, Dukes of Leeds, at Hornby Castle, Yorkshire, is in the British Library (Egerton MS 3507). It is discussed in Thomas B. Stroup, The Cestus: Manuscript of an Anonymous Eighteenth-Century Imitation of Comus, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, 2 (1962), 47-55.

An anonymous English translation of Pro populo anglicano defensio (1651), differing from that by Joseph Washington published in 1692, survives in a manuscript of 345 octavo pages in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand (MS-1649, formerly MS G MIL 111,610 [Shawcross, Bibliography, No. 416; Kathleen Coleridge, Descriptive Catalogue of the Milton Collection in the Alexander Turnbull Library (Oxford, 1980), pp. 69-70]). Joad Raymond, In the next room, TLS, 12 February 2016, 16-17, attributes the translation to the manuscript's former owner, Thomas Margetts (1620-1691).

Miscellaneous extracts from Milton's works, largely from printed texts, occur in many seventeenth- and eighteenth-century miscellanies, some of which are given entries in CELM (MnJ 136-148).

Hobson's Epitaph and Other Dubious Attributions

Of those poems that have been spuriously attributed to Milton the most common found in manuscript sources is Hobson's Epitaph (Here Hobson lyes amongst his many debters). This epitaph (which is edited in Columbia, XVIII, 359) was first published in A Banquet of Jests (London, 1640), along with one of Milton's two genuine poems on Hobson (MnJ 2-5, MnJ 19). Unlike those, however, it was not included in Milton's Poems (1645), is nowhere actually ascribed to him, and, despite attempts (albeit cautious) by W.R. Parker (in Modern Language Review, 31 (1936), 395-402), John Shawcross (in Review of English Studies, NS 18 (1967), 433-7) and others to suggest otherwise, would seem to be only one of a number of humorous poems by Milton's contemporaries (including Thomas Randolph, William Hall, and one Hacksby) on what was a popular topical subject in Cambridge circles in the 1630s. The many known versions of this epitaph in chiefly seventeenth-century miscellanies (some of which begin Here lies Hobson amongst his many betters or with other variants of this line) are not given separate entries in CELM, but may briefly be listed for the record:

Bodleian, MSS Eng. poet. f. 10r, fol. 101v; Eng. poet. f. 27, pp. 81-2; Rawl. poet. 26, f. 64v; Rawl. poet. 117, ff. 105v-6r; Tanner 465, pp. 235-6.
British Library, Add. MSS 5807, f. 2v; 6400, f. 67v; 15227, f. 74r; 30982, f. 65r-v; 58215, f. 173v rev.; Egerton MS 1160, f. 139r; Harley MSS 791, f. 45r; 6057, ff. 15v-17r; 6383, ff. 26v-7r; 6396, f. 21r; 6931, f. 24v; Sloane MS 542, f. 52r.
Cambridge University Library, MS Add. 8684, f. 20v.
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, MS 309, f. 48v.
Dorset History Centre, D51/5, p. 214.
Durham Cathedral Library, Hunter MS 125, pp. 53-4.
Folger, MSS E. a. 6, f. 4r; V.a.97, f. 68v; V.a.160, p. 50.
Harvard, MS Eng 686, f. 79.
Huntington, HM 116, p. 103.
University of Manchester, English MS 410, ff. 31v-2r.
Leicestershire Record Office, DG. 7/Lit. 2, f. 355r.
Massachusetts Historical Society, Ms SBd-69, pp. 155-6.
Rosenbach Museum & Library, MS 239/27, pp. 359-60; MS 1083/16, p. 62.
St John's College, Cambridge, MS S. 32 (James 423), f. 18v.
Yale, Osborn MS b 200, pp. 225-6.

Various of these texts are edited, collated or recorded in Columbia; in G. Blakemore Evans, Milton and the Hobson Poems, Modern Language Quarterly, 4 (1943), 281-90; in The Complete English Poetry of John Milton, ed. John T. Shawcross (New York, 1963); and in Shawcross, A Note on Milton's Hobson Poems, Review of English Studies, NS 18 (1967), 433-7.

A number of other spurious attributions are edited or recorded in Columbia (XVIII, 351-3), and see also Attributions in A Milton Encyclopedia, I (1978), 111-14. Of these perhaps the most spectacular is the so-called Milton Ovid (LR, I, 52). This is a series of 166 eight-line stanzas (beginning A chaos all confus'd on heapes doth ly) relating to scenes in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is written in a seventeenth-century hand on blanks in a printed exemplum of Johannes Posthius, Tetrasticha in Ovidii Matamor. Lib. XV (Frankfurt, 1563). The stanzas were proclaimed as Milton's holograph, with elaborate discussions, by Hugh C.H. Candy in TLS (26 January 1922) and in N&Q, 1922-3 (passim), and were printed in full, with facsimile examples, in his Some Newly Discovered Stanzas written by John Milton on Engraved Scenes illustrating Ovid's Metamorphoses (London, 1924). For all Candy's sensible palaeographical discussions elsewhere, his determination to prove as Milton's this manifestly un-Miltonic work — written in a conventional mid-seventeenth century cursive mixed hand — must be accounted no more than a folly of obsession. The volume, sold at Sotheby's on 29 March 1926, lot 461 (with facsimile examples in the sale catalogue), resurfaced and was sold there again on 22 July 1985, lot 30 (also with a facsimile example in the sale catalogue). It is now in the Brotherton Collection, Leeds University (MS Lt. 76).

The anonymous printed pamphlet The Plot Discovered [1641?] was once attributed to Milton: see LR, II, 44, and TLS (24 October 1936), p. 868, and (19 December 1936), p. 1056. On the basis of manuscript evidence identifying the inscribed exemplum in the General Theological Seminary, New York (285.0512E), as that owned by Sir Edward Dering (1599-1644), a case for the attribution to Milton was revived by Jason P. Rosenblatt in Sir Edward Dering's Milton, Modern Philology, 79 (1981-2), 376-85, and in English Literary Renaissance, 15 (1985), 318-52.

Miscellaneous

Many printed exempla of works by Milton have interesting annotations or associations. For instance, the exemplum of Poems (1645) from John Evelyn's library (see LR, V, 64) was offered in Quaritch's sale catalogue No. 1043 (December 1984), item 110. An exemplum of this edition once owned by Samuel Pepys and the Earl of Anglesey was in 1908 in the possession of Sir Richard Tangye (LR, II, 138), while Edmund Waller also owned an exemplum of the 1673 edition (see *WaE 890 and LR, V, 64). The exemplum traditionally owned by Cromwell's chaplain Lewis Stucley (d.1687) was sold at Sotheby's, 19 June 1934, to Pickering. Milton French also records (LR, V, 64) an exemplum containing anonymous annotations at Yale. An apparently presentation exemplum of Justa Edouardo King naufrago, ab amicis moerentibus, amoris (Cambridge, 1638), with Milton's Lycidas, inscribed Ex Dono Joh. Alsop (i.e. the probable editor of the book, John Alsop), was offered in Quaritch's sale catalogue of English Books New Acquisitions Midwinter 2009, item 50.

Numerous exempla of Paradise Lost bear readers' annotations: for instance, a first edition at Keble College, Oxford (with corrections once actually thought autograph) and an improved exemplum of the 1695 edition offered at Sotheby's, 16 July 1984, lot 13. The poet William Cowper's annotated Paradise Lost (1790) is in the Pierpont Morgan Library (PML 966-7); his annotations to an exemplum of Richard Bentley's edition (1732) is at Christ's College, Cambridge (Ee.2.8); other drafts of his commentary on the poem are in the Bodleian (MS Eng. poet. c. 11, ff. 106r-7r; and yet others are recorded in Margaret M. Smith, IELM, III.i (1986), pp. 290-1 (CpW 702-5). An exemplum of the 1678 edition copiously annotated by Francis Atterbury (1662-1732), Bishop of Rochester, is at Yale (Osborn pb 9 [Shawcross, Bibliography, No. 325]). William Wordsworth's annotated exemplum of the 1674 edition is at Dove Cottage: see Bishop C. Hunt, Jr, Wordsworth's Marginalia in Paradise Lost, Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 73 (1969), 167-83, with a facsimile example. An autograph letter by Wordsworth quoting the last four lines of Paradise Lost, 1 January 1831, was offered for sale at Sotheby's, with a facsimile in the sale catalogue, 13 December 1990, lot 197, and his autograph quotation from Sonnet XII, dated 23 October 1842, was offered in Maggs's sale catalogue No. 1126 (1991), item 219 (also with a facsimile in the catalogue). What is alleged to be William Blake's annotated exemplum of the edition by Richard Bentley (1732), once owned by the second Earl of Wharncliffe (1856-1926) and now in private ownership, is discussed in Mark Crosby, William Blake's Annotations to Milton's Paradise Lost, The Book Collector, 57/4 (Winter 2008), 513-46. The Earl of Mulgrave's exemplum of Paradise Lost (1668 edition) was sold at Sotheby's, 26 June 1885 (Rev. J.F. Russell sale), lot 772, to Quaritch), and J.P. Kemble's exemplum of the first edition (1667) was offered in Henry Sotheran's sale catalogue Bibliotheca Pretiosa (1907), item 305.

S.T. Coleridge's annotated exemplum of the 1777 edition of Paradise Lost is not known today, but for his annotations in his exemplum of the 1791 edition of Milton's Poems, see The Collected Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Vol. 12, Marginalia III, ed. H.J. Jackson and George Whalley, pp. 881-905. Herman Melville's annotated exemplum of Milton's Poetical Works, 2 vols (Boston, 1836), was sold at Sotheby's, New York, 9-10 November 1989 (The Garden Sale), lot 182 (with facsimile examples in the sale catalogue), and is now at Princeton ((Ex)PR3551.M57 1836). Thomas Hardy's annotated exemplum of Milton's Poetical Works (Halifax, 1865) is in the Dorset County Museum: see James L. Persoon, Hardy's Pocket Milton: An Early Unpublished Poem, English Language Notes, 25 (1988), 49-52. Gerard Manley Hopkins's exemplum of Milton's poems, given to him as a school prize, is privately owned in London. An exemplum of Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes (London, 1671) with contemporary MS. Verses on fly-leaf was sold at Sotheby's on 26 June 1885 (Rev. J.F. Russell sale), lot 775, to Layster. The tally of such association volumes can no doubt be multiplied indefinitely.

There are very many other documents, in the public records and elsewhere, relating to Milton's life and works — documents such as his horoscope, university records, writs relating to his acrimonious dispute with the family of his first wife, Mary Powell, and so on, as well as documents relating to his Roman Catholic brother, Christopher, and many others signed by his scrivener father, John Milton the Elder. For most of these, see Milton French, LR, and Parker (and see also William R. Parker, John Milton Scrivener 1590-1632, Modern Language Notes, 59 (1944), 532-7). For a few additions, see also Lois Spencer and J. Milton French, A Supplement to The Life Records of John Milton from the Thomason Manuscript Catalogue, N&Q, 205 (November 1960), 424-5. There is also the assignment by Edward Vize of copyright in Milton's Judgement of Martin Bucer (1644) to Joseph Watts, 14 February 1688/9 (Bedfordshire Record Office, P 11/28/2, pp. 309-10). This is edited (with a related document signed in 1695 by Milton's widow, Elizabeth Minshull (P11/28/2, pp. 313, 315)), by Henry John Rose in Bedfordshire Architectural and Archaeological Society, 8th Report (1855), 319-31 (pp. 327-8), and discussed and edited, with facsimiles, in Peter Lindenbaum, Authors and Publishers in the Late Seventeenth Century: New Evidence on their Relations, The Library, 6th Ser. 17/3 (September 1995), 250-69. Jacob Tonson's assignment of the copyright of Paradise Lost to his nephew Jacob Tonson the Younger, on 17 September 1718, is in the Rosenbach Museum & Library (417/10). A receipt signed by Richard Bentley relating to payment by Jacob Tonson for Bentley's edition of Paradise Lost, dated 23 May 1732, was sold at Sotheby's, 27 October 1970, lot 438, to Pickering & Chatto. There was also another document signed as witness by the elder John Milton (no doubt one of many resulting from his active professional career that might be identified) in a group of indentures relating to Hartley Wintney, Hampshire, sold at Sotheby's, 20 November 1973, lot 83, to Lewin. For facsimiles of Milton's Cambridge supplicats in 1629-32, written on his behalf by university officials, see J. Milton French, Milton's Supplicats, Huntington Library Quarterly, 5 (1942), 349-53.

Various references to Milton between c.1643 and 1653 are also found in the working diary cum commonplace book Ephemerides compiled by his occasional associate, the virtuoso Samuel Hartlib (c.1600/2-62), now at the University of Sheffield (50H: see especially 30/4/89a, 91a; 31/22/21a; 28/1/13b, 34a, 62a; 28/2/53a, 62a).

Milton's earliest biography (Bodleian, MS Wood D. 4, ff. 140-4) — once ascribed to John Phillips but demonstrably written by Cyriack Skinner — has been noted above. The text is edited (not altogether accurately), with a facsimile example, in Darbishire, Early Lives, pp. 17-34. John Aubrey's autograph brief life of Milton, with additions by Edward Phillips, is in the Bodleian (MS Aubrey 8, ff. 63r-8r), and is also edited, with facsimile examples, in Darbishire, Early Lives, pp. 1-15. Shawcross has noted (Bibliography, No. 335) that Milton's tract Of Education is also cited in Bodleian, MS Aubrey 10, Aubrey's Ideas of Education of Young Gentlemen of 1683/4. Notes on Milton by William Oldys (1696-1761) are written in his exemplum of Gerard Langbaine, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets (Oxford, 1691), now in the British Library (C.28.g.1, pp. 375-7). Notes on Milton by the Rev. Joseph Hunter (1783-1861) in his Chorus Vatum Anglicanorum (Volume IV) are also in the British Library (Add. MS 24490, ff. 183r-91r, 289r-90r). Part of the autograph life of Milton written in 1834 by Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges (1762-1837) is in the Pierpont Morgan Library. The manuscript of Mark Pattison's biography of Milton, of 1879, is in the Bodleian (MS Pattison 111).

Notes on Milton's poems by the Rev. G.S. Luke were offered at Puttick & Simpson's, 7 June 1852, lot 205. Notes on Milton appear in the autograph Remarks & Observations on the most celebrated Authors & Artists by the Rev. Philip Bliss (1787-1857), antiquary and book collector, which was sold at Sotheby's, 15 December 1852, lot 117, to Quaritch and is now in the Bodleian (MS Don. e. 132). A letter by Thomas Keightly about his forthcoming edition of Milton's poems, 8 February 1858, is in Boston Public Library (MS Eng. 535). Materials for an edition of Paradise Lost by Dr Edward Hill (1741-1830), Regius Professor of Medicine, are at Trinity College Dublin (MS 629 (K.5.14-18)): see J.B. Lyons, Milton's Dublin Editor: Edward Hill MD, in What did I die of? The Death of Parnell etc. (Dublin, 1991), pp. 40-63; and a further 450-page manuscript by Hill, on the same subject, dated from 1811 to 1821, is at Harvard (MS Eng 1599: Lobby XI.1.38). A mid-eighteenth-century manuscript discussion of Paradise Lost, Book I, lines 1-663, is among the Foster Library manuscripts in the Lincolnshire Archives Office (F. L. MISC/1/8). A transcript of Paradise Lost made by Katherine Howard between 3 December 1733 and 17 May 1735 was exported to Robert J. Wickenheisck, and a microfilm of it is in the British Library (RP 3915). The Miltonic collections of Maurice Kelley, comprising six large albums containing facsimiles of examples of Milton's handwriting known to him, are preserved at Princeton (Oversize Bound MSS, No. AM 83-114 (Kelley)): see Princeton University Library Chronicle, 45 (1983), 82.

Abbreviations

Boswell: Jackson Campbell Boswell, Milton's Library: A Catalogue of the Remains of John Milton's Library and an Annotated Reconstruction of Milton's Library and Ancillary Readings, (New York & London, 1975).
Carey & Fowler: The Poems of John Milton, ed. John Carey and Alastair Fowler (London, 1968).
Columbia: The Works of John Milton, General Editor: Frank Allen Patterson, 18 vols plus 2 index vols (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931-8).
Darbishire: The Poetical Works of John Milton, ed. Helen Darbishire, 2 vols (Oxford, 1952-5; reprinted 1978).
Darbishire, Early Lives: The Early Lives of Milton, ed. Helen Darbishire (London, 1932).
Hanford: James Holly Hanford, A Milton Handbook (London, 1928).
Illinois: John Milton's Complete Poetical Works Reproduced in Photographic Facsimile, ed. Harris Francis Fletcher, 4 vols (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1943-8).
LR: The Life Records of John Milton, ed. J. Milton French, 5 vols (New Brunswick, 1949-58).
Masson: David Masson, The Life of John Milton, 7 vols (Cambridge, 1859-94).
Miller: Leo Miller, John Milton & The Oldenburg Safeguard (New York, 1985).
A Milton Encyclopedia: A Milton Encyclopedia, General Editor: William B. Hunter, Jr, 9 vols (Lewisburg & London, 1978-83).
Parker: William Riley Parker, Milton: A Biography, 2 vols (Oxford, 1968).
Poems (1645): Poems of Mr John Milton, both English and Latin, compos'd at several times (London, 1645).
Poems (1672): John Milton, Poems Reproduced in Facsimile from the Manuscript in Trinity College, Cambridge with a Transcript (Menston: Scolar Press, 1972).
Shawcross, Bibliography: John T. Shawcross, Milton: A Bibliography for the Years 1624-1700 (Binghamton, New York, 1984).
Sotheby, Ramblings: Samuel Leigh Sotheby, Ramblings in the Elucidation of the Autograph of Milton (London, 1861).
Yale: Complete Prose Works of John Milton, General Editor: Don M. Wolfe, 8 vols [Vol. VII revised and reissued in 1980] (New Haven: Yale University Press; and London: Oxford University Press, 1953-82).

Verse

Ad Joannem Rousium Oxoniensis Academiae Bibliothecarium ('Gemelle cultu simplici gaudens liber')

First published in Poems &c. upon several Occasions (1673). Columbia, I, 316-25. Darbishire, II, 284-6. Carey & Fowler, pp. 299-304.

MnJ 1

Copy, in the hand of an amanuensis, with a correction in another hand, on two quarto leaves, sent by Milton to John Rous (1574-1652), Librarian of the Bodleian Library, 23 January 1646/7.

Formerly preserved pasted in an exemplum of Poems (1645) sent by Milton to the Bodleian as a replacement for one lost en route [8° M. 168. Art.].

1647

This MS collated in Columbia. Recorded in Darbishire and in Carey & Fowler. Complete facsimile in Illinois, I, 457-62. Facsimile examples in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 114 (Plate [XVII]); in Greg, English Literary Autographs, Plate LIII(d-e); and in Maurice Kelley, Milton and the Notes on Paul Best, The Library, 5th Ser. 5 (1950), 49-51.

Bodleian Library, other MSS (MS Lat. misc. d. 77 (at Arch. F. d. 38))

Another on the same [Hobson the University Carrier] ('Here lieth one who did most truly prove')

First published in A Banquet of Jests (London, 1640). Poems (1645). Columbia, I, 33-4, and XVIII, 349-50. Darbishire, II, 137-8. Carey & Fowler, pp. 125-6.

MnJ 2

Copy, headed On Hobson y^e Cambridge carrier who died 1630 in y^e vacancy of his carriage by reason of y^e sicknesse then hott at Cambridge and here beginning Here Hobson lies who did most truly prove.

This MS collated in Columbia and in Darbishire; also in William R. Parker, Milton's Hobson Poems: Some Neglected Early Texts, MLR, 31 (1936), 395-402; recorded in John T. Shawcross, A Note on Milton's Hobson Poems, RES, NS 18 (1967), 433-7.

An octavo verse miscellany, in two or more hands, 95 leaves (plus blanks), including two Indexes, in contemporary vellum.

Compiled by an Oxford University man, possibly a member of St John's College.

c.1634-43

A receipt (f. 104r) by John Weston recording payment from his brother Ed: Weston, 3 May 1714. The name John Saunders inscribed on the final leaf.

Bodleian Library, Malone Collection (MS Malone 21 f. 69r)

MnJ 3

Copy, headed Hobson the Carrier and here beginning Here Hobson lyes, who did most truely prove.

This MS discussed in Shawcross, RES, 18 (1967).

A quarto miscellany of verse and some prose, 129 leaves, in half-vellum on marbled boards.

Compiled and largely written by William Fulman (1632-88), Oxford antiquary.

Mid-17th century

Corpus Christi College, Oxford (MS 309 f. 48r-v)

MnJ 4

Copy of a 26-line version, headed Vpon old Hobson Cambridge Carrier who dyed 1630 in y^e Vacation by reason of y^e Sicknesse yⁿ hot at Camb: and here beginning Here Hobson Lyes, who did most truly proue.

This MS collated in Darbishire; also in G. Blakemore Evans, Two New Manuscript Versions of Milton's Hobson Poems, MLN, 57 (1942), 192-4. Recorded in Shawcross, RES, 18 (1967).

A small quarto verse miscellany, almost entirely in a single, minute non-professional italic hand, probably someone associated with Oxford University, comprising 180 pages now all separated and mounted, interleaved, in 19th-century calf.

c.late 1630s

Later in the libraries (with bookplates) of the book collector Richard Heber (1774-1833); of the bibliographer and antiquary Joseph Haslewood (1769-1833); of the biographer and literary editor Alexander Chalmers (1759-1834); and of the antiquary Edward King (1795-1837), Viscount Kingsborough (his sale by Charles Sharpe in Dublin, 1 November 1842, lot 577).

The Huntington Library, shelfmarks F through M (HM 116 pp. 100-1)

MnJ 5

Copy, here arranged as lines 1-12, 27-8, 13-14, 21-4, 29-34, headed Another of old Hobson who dyed in the vacancie of his Carriage the sicknes being breife in Cambridge. 1630, beginning Here Hobson lyes, who did most truly prove and ascribed to Jo: Milton.

This MS collated in Shawcross, RES, 18 (1967).

A quarto verse miscellany, including ten poems by Henry King, perhaps almost entirely written over a period in a single secretary hand with slightly varying styles, 54 leaves, in limp vellum.

c.1636-40s

The name of the possible compiler John Pike inscribed on f. 1r: i.e. possibly a member of the Pike family of Cambridge (one John Pike (d.1677) matriculating at Peterhouse in 1662).

Cited in IELM, II.i (1987) as the Pike MS: KiH Δ 12. Described in Mary Hobbs's thesis (see KiH Δ 6), pp. 143-7.

St John's College, Cambridge (MS S. 32 (James 423) ff. 18v-19r)

At a solemn Musick ('Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heav'ns joy')

First published in Poems (1645). Columbia, I, 27-8. Darbishire, II, 132-3. Carey & Fowler, pp. 161-5.

*MnJ 6

Autograph

Three autograph drafts: the first, headed Song, with extensive revisions and struck out, the page mutilated; the second, untitled, also with extensive revisions and struck out; the third, headed At a solemn Musick, a fair copy.

This MS collated in Columbia, in Daribishire, and in Carey & Fowler. A complete facsimile in Poems (1972). A facsimile example in Desmond Flower and A.N.L. Munby, English Poetical Autographs (London, 1938), p. 11. Discussed in P.L. Heyworth, The Composition of Milton's At a Solemn Musick, BNYPL, 70 (1966), 450-8.

A composite collection of working literary papers by Milton, predominantly autograph, partly in the hands of amanuenses (including Jeremie Picard and Cyriack Skinner), on 47 pages, comprising one group of 25 large leaves c.12¼ x 7½ inches) bound with two leaves c.8½ x 6¾ inches), some leaves torn or frayed and probably now lacking a few present in the original collection; containing various drafts and fair copies of nineteen poems, two dramatic works, and some notes and drafts in prose, much of this material probably based on (lost) earlier drafts.

The papers were arranged in their present form in 1736 by Charles Mason and Thomas Clarke, Fellows of Trinity College. The MS cannot be dated precisely, but has been traditionally thought to begin in 1632, though it has been argued that it may date later, with earlier work transcribed not before 1637. Milton's autograph contributions end probably in 1652, with additions in other hands continuing probably until the late 1650's (when Picard was known to be associated with Milton: see further below).

c.1630s-[70s?]

This MS possibly among the MSS given to Trinity College in 1691 by Sir Henry Newton Puckering (though not recorded in the 1697 catalogue of that collection), but it might instead derive from Daniel Skinner, who owned some of Milton's papers; who was a B.A. and minor fellow of the College in 1674 and became a major fellow in 1679.

Cited by editors as the Trinity MS. A complete facsimile, with transcript, in Poems (1972). Earlier complete facsimiles published in an edition by W.A. Wright (Cambridge, 1899), in the Illinois Edition of Milton's Complete Poetical Works, 1943-8 (I, 381-455; II, 12-29), and by the Scolar Press (Menston, 1970). Facsimile examples in Sotheby, Ramblings (1861); in Masson, I, after p. 780; in The Cambridge Manuscript of Milton, ed. F.A. Patterson (New York, 1933); in Greg, English Literary Autographs, Plate LII; in Carey & Fowler, after p. 234; in Croft, Autograph Poetry, I, 47; and in Petti, English Literary Hands, No. 59.

Discussed in Edmund Gosse, The Milton Manuscripts at Trinity, Atlantic Monthly, 85 (1900), 586-93; in Laura Lockwood, Milton's Corrections to the Minor Poems, MLN, 25 (1910), 201-5; in Allan H. Gilbert, The Cambridge Manuscript and Milton's Plans for an Epic, SP, 16 (1919), 172-6; in David Harrison Stevens, The Order of Milton's Sonnets, MP, 17 (1919-20), 25-33; in James Holly Hanford, The Arrangement and Dates of Milton's Sonnets, MP, 18 (1920-1), 475-83; in Columbia, I, ii, 408-11; in W.R. Parker, Some Problems in the Chronology of Milton's Early Poems, RES, 11 (1935), 276-83; in John S. Diekhoff, Milton's Craftsmanship as Revealed by the Revisions of the Poems of the Trinity College Manuscript (unpub. Ph.D. diss., case Western Reserve University, 1937); in John S. Diekhoff, Milton's Prosody in the Poems of the Trinity Manuscripts, PMLA, 54 (1939), 153-83; in John S. Diekhoff, Critical Activity of the Poetic Mind: John Milton, PMLA, 55 (1940), 116-18; in Maurice Kelley, Addendum: The Later Career of Daniel Skinner, PMLA, 55 (1940), 116-18; in John S. Diekhoff, The Trinity Manuscript and the Dictation of Paradise Lost, PQ, 28 (1949), 44-52; in Helen Darbishire, The Chronology of Milton's Handwriting, SCN, 11, No. 4 [Supplement] (Winter 1953), 11; in Maurice Kelley, Milton's Later Sonnets and the Cambridge Manuscript, MP, 54 (1956), 20-5; in John T. Shawcross, Speculation on the Dating of the Trinity MS of Milton's Poems, MLN, 75 (1960), 11-17; in Maurice Kelley, Daniel Skinner and Milton's Trinity College Manuscript, N&Q, 222 (May-June 1977), 206-7; in [John Shawcross] in A Milton Encyclopedia, VIII (1980), 92-3; in Masahiko Agari, A Note on Milton's Trinity MS, ELN, 22 (1984), 23-6; in William B. Hunter, A Bibliographical Excursion into Milton's Trinity Manuscript, Milton Quarterly, 19 (1985), 61-71; and elsewhere.

Trinity College, Cambridge (MS R. 3. 4 (James 583) pp. 4-5)

MnJ 6.5

Copy.

Copied or owned by Peter Sterry (1613-72), theologian, Fellow of Emmanuel College from 1636.

Mid-17th century

Emmanuel College, Cambridge (Peter Sterry MSS 289)

Carmina Elegiaca [i] ('Surge, age surge, leves, iam convenit, excute somnos')

First published in A Common-Place Book of John Milton and a Latin Essay and Latin Verses presumed to be by Milton, ed. Alfred J. Horwood, Camden Society NS. 16 (1876), pp. 62-3. Columbia, I, 326 (with translation p. 327). Darbishire, II, 288. Carey & Fowler, pp. 10-11.

*MnJ 7

Autograph

An early autograph academic exercise in Latin verse on the theme of early rising.

Edited (from the early British Library photograph of the MS) in Columbia, in Darbishire, and in Carey & Fowler. Discussed with a facsimile example in Hugh C. Candy, Milton's Prolusio Script, The Library, 4th Ser. 15 (1934-5), 330-9. A facsimile also in IELM, II.ii (1993), Facsimile IIIa.

Three neatly written early autograph works by Milton, composed while at St Paul's School, on both sides of a single folio leaf.

c.1624-6

Once loosely inserted in Milton's commonplace book (MnJ 66) in the library of the Graham family at Netherby Hall, Cumberland, descended from Sir Richard Graham, Viscount Preston (1648-95), and possibly acquired from Daniel Skinner. Sotheby's, 27 November 1967, lot 189, with a facsimile in the sale catalogue. Formerly Ms file (Milton J.) Works: Pre-1700 MS 127.

First recorded in HMC, 6th Report (1877), Appendix, p. 320. Discussed, with a facsimile example, in Hugh C.H. Candy, Milton's Prolusio Script, The Library, 4th Ser. 15 (1934-5), 330-9. Photographic and autotype reproductions of it in the British Library (Add. MS 41063 I, ff. 84r-5r, and RP 211) and in the National Archives, Kew (Autotypes Milton &c/Fac. 6/Library/Shelf 156A).

For the kind of exercise at St Paul's School represented in this MS, see the discussion in Donald Lemen Clark, John Milton at St. Paul's School (New York, 1948), esp. pp. 208-13.

University of Texas at Austin (HRC 127 [item 2])

[Carmina Elegiaca [ii]] ('Ignavus satrapam dedecet inclytum')

First published in A Common-Place Book of John Milton and a Latin Essay and Latin Verses presumed to be by Milton, ed. Alfred J. Horwood, Camden Society NS. 16 (1876), pp. 62-3. Columbia, I, 326, 328 (with translation pp. 327, 329). Darbishire, II, 288. Carey & Fowler, pp. 11-12.

*MnJ 8

Autograph

An early autograph academic exercise in Latin verse, on the theme of early rising.

Edited from this MS in Horwood and (from the early British Library photograph of it) in Columbia, in Darbishire, and in Carey & Fowler. Facsimile also in IELM, II.ii (1993), Facsimile II.

Three neatly written early autograph works by Milton, composed while at St Paul's School, on both sides of a single folio leaf.

c.1624-6

For the kind of exercise at St Paul's School represented in this MS, see the discussion in Donald Lemen Clark, John Milton at St. Paul's School (New York, 1948), esp. pp. 208-13.

University of Texas at Austin (HRC 127 [item 3])

An Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester ('This rich Marble doth enterr')

First published in Poems (1645). Columbia, I, 28-31. Darbishire, II, 133-5. Carey & Fowler, pp. 126-9.

MnJ 9

Copy, headed On the Marchionesse of Winchester whoe died in Childbedd. Ap: 15. 1631 [the date here changed from 1633] and subscribed Jo Milton of Chr: Coll Cambr.

This MS collated by editors; discussed in William R. Parker, Milton and the Marchioness of Winchester, MLR, 44 (1949), 547-50.

A quarto verse miscellany, written in two styles of hand (A: ff. 2r, after first six lines, to 64v; B: ff. 2r, first six lines, 64v-91v, 92v-4r), possibly both in the same hand, with an Index (ff. 93r-4r), 94 leaves, in modern half-morocco.

Including 22 poems (plus two of doubtful authorship) by Carew, 13 poems by King, and 24 poems (plus one of doubtful authorship) by Strode, and probably associated with Christ Church, Oxford.

c.1633

Inscribed names including (f. 93v, in court hand) ffrancis Baskeruile: i.e. probably the Francis Baskerville who married Margaret Glanvill in 1635 and was in 1640 MP for Marlborough, Wiltshire. Other scribbling including (f. 1r) accounts referring to Wanborough, Wiltshire; (f. 9v) Elizabeth White; (f. 54v) William Walrond his booke 1663; (f. 92r) accounts dated 1658; and (f. 94r) John Wallrond. Later owned by Sir Hans Sloane, Bt (1660-1753), physician and collector.

Recorded in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), as the Baskerville MS: CwT Δ 20, KiH Δ 10, StW Δ 13. Facsimile examples of ff. 55r and 68r in Mary Hobbs, Early Seventeenth-Century Verse Miscellany Manuscripts (Aldershot, 1992), Plate 6, after p. 86.

The British Library: Sloane Collection (Sloane MS 1446 ff. 37v-8v)

MnJ 9.5

Copy.

A quarto verse miscellany, 171 leaves, with an index, imperfect at the beginning, in contemporary calf (rebacked).

Compiled by Colonel Gabriel Lepipre, being the 4^th Vol. of his compilations.

c.1748-50s

Donated in 1938 by F.F. Madan.

Bodleian Library, Eng. poet. e. MSS (MS Eng. poet. e. 40 ff. 27r-9r)

[Fragment] ('Fixe heere yee overdated sphears')

First published in A Common-Place Book of John Milton, ed. Alfred J. Horwood, Camden Society NS. 16 (1876), p. xvi. Columbia, XVIII, 226. Carey & Fowler, p. 254.

*MnJ 10

Autograph

Autograph of two lines drafted on the back of a letter to Milton by Henry Lawes written probably in April 1638.

Edited from this MS in Horwood, in Columbia, and in Carey & Fowler.

John Milton's Commonplace Book.

c.1632-60s

This MS probably given to Viscount Preston by Daniel Skinner, his former schoolfellow at Westminster School; Milton's Commonplace Book (MnJ 66), together with the letter addressed to him by Henry Lawes (MnJ 10), were discovered by Alfred J. Horwood in 1874 among the papers of the Graham family at Netherby Hall, Longtown, Cumberland, and recorded in HMC, 6th Report (1877), Appendix, p. 320. The state papers of Viscount Preston, among whose muniments Milton's commonplace book (with related material) was found, were sold at Sotheby's on 10 July 1986, lot 303, and are now in the British Library (Add. MSS 63752-63781).

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 35000 through 39999 (Add. MS 36354 f. 1v)

Ignavus satrapam dedecet inclytum

See MnJ 8.

Il Penseroso ('Hence vain deluding joyes')

First published in Poems (1645).

MnJ 10.2

Copy or extracts.

A duodecimo commonplace book, compiled by John Adamson, later Rector of Burton-Coggles, Lincolnshire, 67 leaves plus 60 blank leaves.

c.1665-90

Maggs's sale catalogue No. 536 (1930), item 1310.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Adamson MS] [unspecified page numbers])

L'Allegro ('Hence loathed Melancholy')

First published in Poems (1645).

MnJ 10.5

Copy of part of the poem.

A quarto literary commonplace book, in several hands, ii + 175 leaves, including inserted printed matter, plus numerous blanks, in half-calf.

c.1776

Bookplate of Jos. Coltman. Acquired on 8 August 1980 from Richard Hatchwell.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 60000 through end (Add. MS 61842 ff. 76v-7r)

MnJ 10.8

Copy or extracts.

A duodecimo commonplace book, compiled by John Adamson, later Rector of Burton-Coggles, Lincolnshire, 67 leaves plus 60 blank leaves.

c.1665-90

Maggs's sale catalogue No. 536 (1930), item 1310.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Adamson MS] [unspecified page numbers])

Lycidas ('Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more')

First published, among Obsequies to the memorie of Mr. Edward King, in Justa Edouardo King naufrago, ab amicis moerentibus, amoris (Cambridge, 1638). Poems (1645). Columbia, I, 76-83. Darbishire, II, 163-70. Carey & Fowler, pp. 232-54.

*MnJ 11

Autograph

Autograph draft, with revisions, beginning with untitled drafts of lines 1-14, 142-50 (deleted), 142-50 (again) and 58-63 (marked to be inserted in the later text), then a text of the whole poem headed Lycidas [Novemb: 1637. deleted] / In this Monodie the author bewails a lerned freind unfortunatly drownd in his passage from Chester on the Irish seas 1637.

This MS collated in Columbia and in Darbishire, and selectively in Carey & Fowler. Facsimiles in Poems (1972), and in Lycidas: 1637-1645 (Menston: Scolar Press, 1970). Facsimile examples in Darbishire, II, frontispiece; Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 62; in Helen Darbishire, The Chronology of Milton's Handwriting, The Library, 4th Ser. 14 (1933), 229-35; and in Carey & Fowler, after p. 234. Discussed in C.F. Stone, III, Milton's Self-Concerns and Manuscript Revisions in Lycidas, MLN, 83 (1968), 867-81; and in Karen A. Young, Lycidas from the Manuscript in the Library of Trinity College Cambridge, together with a Study of the Language of the Poem (unpub. M. Phil. thesis, University of Leeds, 1975). See also John T. Shawcross, Establishment of a Text of Milton's Poems through a Study of Lycidas, PBSA, 56 (1962), 317-31.

c.1630s-[70s?]

Trinity College, Cambridge (MS R. 3. 4 (James 583) pp. 30-4)

*MnJ 12

Autograph

Five autograph corrections and insertions in the margins of the text of Lycidas.

On pages taken from an exemplum of the first printed edition, now re-mounted in an imperfect exemplum of Obsequies to the memorie of Mr. Edward King [a portion of the edition of Justa Edouardo King naufrago, ab amicis moerentibus, amoris] (Cambridge, 1638).

1638

These corrections collated in Columbia (XVIII, 640) and in Darbishire. Facsimile examples in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 98, Plate XIV, No. iii; Hugh C.H. Candy, Milton Autographs Established, The Library, 4th Ser. 13 (1932), 192-200 (Plate II).

The British Library: Rare Books Room (C.21.c.42)

*MnJ 13

Autograph

Fourteen autograph corrections and insertions in the margins of the text of Lycidas.

In an exemplum of Obsequies to the memorie of Mr. Edward King [a portion of the edition of Justa Edouardo King naufrago, ab amicis moerentibus, amoris] (Cambridge, 1638)

1638

Formally MS Add. 154.

Facsimile in Lycidas: 1637-1645 (1970); facsimile examples in A History of the Cambridge University Press, 1521-1921 (Cambridge, 1921), p. 59; Candy, loc. cit., Plate I. Collated in Columbia, I, 459-74; Darbishire, II, 330-6.

Cambridge University Library, shelfmarks M through end (Adv.d.38.5-6.)

MnJ 14

Scrap of proof-sheet of the text of Lycidas.

Scrap of proof-sheet of the text of Lycidas for the edition of Justa Edouardo King naufrago, ab amicis moerentibus, amoris] (Cambridge, 1638), comprising the top of page 21 with lines 23-35 bearing five MS corrections presumably made in the printer's office; pasted inside the lower cover of an exemplum of De literis & lingua getarum, ed. Bon. Vulcanio Burgensi (Antwerp, 1597).

[1638]

Facsimile of this fragment in Illinois, I, 346, and in Lycidas: 1637-1645 (1970). Recorded in Columbia, I, 461.

Cambridge University Library, shelfmarks A through D (Adv. d. 38. 6)

*MnJ 15

Autograph

Allegedly two manuscript corrections in the text of Lycidas which certainly appear to be in the handwriting of Milton, in a large paper printed exemplum of Justa Edouardo King naufrago, ab amicis moerentibus, amoris (Cambridge, 1638).

[1638?]

William H. Robinson's sale catalogues No. 65 (1938), item 80, with a facsimile of an opening (but not showing MS corrections), and No. 73 (1941), item 313, with a facsimile of the title-page.

The MS corrections were compared in 1938 with those in MnJ 12 by A.W. Pollard. Recorded in LR, I, 355.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Corrected Lycidas])

MnJ 16

A single-word MS correction in the text of Lycidas (p. 22, line 9: do altered to use), in a printed exemplum of Justa Edouardo King naufrago, ab amicis moerentibus, amoris (Cambridge, 1638).

[1638?]

Sotheby's, New York, 1 May 1990 (H. Bradley Martin sale), lot 3053. Quaritch's sale catalogue No. 1132 (December 1990), item 68.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Bradley Martin's Lycidas])

MnJ 16.5

Copy of a Latin translation.

A collection of unbound verse, in various hands.

Probably collected by Dr Samuel Knight (1677/8-1746), clergyman and antiquary.

Cambridge University Library, Additional MSS 1 through 4999 (MS Add. 42 ff. 152r-9r)

MnJ 16.8 c.1637

Copy of a Latin translation, in a predominantly italic hand, headed Lycidas Miltoni...1637 and beginning Rursus odoratæ myrti, laurique virentes), on both sides of seven quarto leaves.

Recorded in Shawcross, Bibliography, No. 410.

A quarto composite volume of miscellaneous verse and prose, in various hands, 24 items, unfoliated, in old calf (rebacked).

Among the collections of Thomas Tenison (1636-1715), Archbishop of Canterbury.

Lambeth Palace Library (MS 841 item 8)

On the Lord Gen. Fairfax at the seige of Colchester

See MnJ 39.

On the Morning of Christs Mativity ('This is the Month, and this the happy morn')

First published in Poems (1645). Columbia, 1-11. Darbishire, II, 113-20. Carey & Fowler, pp. 97-113.

MnJ 17

Copy, transcribed from the printed text of 1645, subscribed Jo Miltons. poëms. p. 1..

This MS recorded in LR, II, 212-14.

A composite quarto verse miscellany, 199 leaves, in calf.

Compiled (and ff. 2-39 written) by William Sancroft (1617-93), Archbishop Canterbury; the rest in other hands.

Mid-17th century

Bodleian Library, Tanner Collection (MS Tanner 466 ff. 33v-6v)

On the new forcers of Conscience under the Long Parlament ('Because you have thrown of your Prelate Lord')

First published in Poems &c. upon several Occasions (1673). Columbia, I, 71. Darbishire, II, 157. Carey & Fowler, pp. 295-8.

MnJ 18

Copy, in the hand of an amanuensis, with revisions, headed On the forcers of Conscience, with a deleted side-note, to come in as directed in the leafe before.

This MS collated in Columbia; in Darbishire; and in Carey & Fowler. Facsimile in Poems (1972). Variously dated between 1646 and 1653.

c.1630s-[70s?]

Trinity College, Cambridge (MS R. 3. 4 (James 583) p. 48)

On the University Carrier ('Here lies old Hobson, Death hath broke his girt')

First published in Poems (1645). Columbia, I, 32-3. Darbishire, II, 136-7. Carey & Fowler, p. 124.

MnJ 19

Copy, headed On Hobson who dyed in the vacany of his Carrage by reason of the Sicknes att Cambridge. 1630.

This MS collated in Darbishire; also in G. Blakemore Evans, Two New Manuscript Versions of Milton's Hobson Poems, MLN, 57 (1942), 192-4; and The Complete English Poetry of John Milton, ed. John Shawcross (New York, 1963), p. 550. See also John T. Shawcross, A Note on Milton's Hobson Poems, RES, NS 18 (1967), 433-7; John J. Pollock, On the University Carrier: Comments on the early Drafts, AN & Q, 13 (1974), 36-7.

An octavo verse miscellany, largely in a predominantly secretary hand, another hand on ff. 85r-7v, 95v-6r, xiii pages + 104 leaves (including blanks, but lacking ff. 7-9, 54-5, 95), with a table of contents (pp. 1-6), in modern calf, gilt-edged.

Compiled by University or Inns of Court men.

The extracted fols 7, 8 and 54 are now Chetham's Library Halliwell-Phillipps No. 2757, Chetham's Library Halliwell-Phillipps No. 2216, and Chetham's Library Halliwell-Phillipps No. 2217 respectively. The extracted fol. 9 is now Folger MS V.a.505, p. 27.

c.1630s

Inscribed (f. [104v] Thomas White His Book May y^e 20 Anno Domine 1691. Later owned by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps and in his library at Warwick Castle. Formerly Folger MS 1.21.

The Folger Shakespeare Library, V.a.series, 1 through 99 (MS V.a.96 ff. 79v-80r)

On Time ('Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race')

First published in Poems (1645). Columbia, I, 25-6. Darbishire, II, 131. Carey & Fowler, pp. 165-6.

*MnJ 20

Autograph

Autograph fair copy, original heading [To be] set on a clock case later deleted and retitled On Time.

This MS collated in Columbia, in Darbishire, and in Carey & Fowler. Facsimile in Poems (1972).

c.1630s-[70s?]

Trinity College, Cambridge (MS R. 3. 4 (James 583) p. 8)

MnJ 21 c.1630s

Copy of an early version, headed Vpon a Clocke Case, or Dyall.

This MS collated in Darbishire.

A large folio composite volume of verse, in various largely secretary hands, 327 leaves (plus blanks), in contemporary calf.

Collected, and partly written, by Elias Ashmole (1617-92), astrologer and antiquary.

Betagraph of the watermark in f. 29 in Ted-Larry Pebworth, Towards a Taxonomy of Watermarks, in Puzzles in Paper: Concepts in Historical Watermarks, ed. Daniel W. Mosser, Michael Saffle and Ernest W. Sullivan, II (London, 2000), pp. 229-42 (p. 239).

Bodleian Library, Ashmole Collection (MS Ashmole 36/37 f. 22r)

Paradise Lost ('Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit')

First published in London, 1667. Columbia, II. Darbishire I. Carey & Fowler, pp. 417-1060.

Prose

Character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines

See MnJ 47.

De Doctrina Christiana

First published, in an English translation, as A Treatise on Christian Doctrine compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone, ed. Charles R. Sumner, assisted by William Sydney Walker (London, 1825). Columbia, XIV-XVII. English translation by John Carey in Yale, VI, ed. Maurice Kelley.

Almost certainly by Milton, but doubts about the authorship raised by William B. Hunter have led to considerable controversy. See, inter alia, William B. Hunter, The Provenance of the Christian Doctrine, SEL, 32 (1992), 129-42; Maurice Kelley, Forum II: Milton's Christian Doctrine...A Reply to William B. Hunter, SEL, 34/1 (Winter 1994), 153-63; William B. Hunter, Visitation Unimplor'd: Milton and the Authorship of De Doctrina Christiana (Pittsburgh, PA, 1998); and Gordon Campbell, et al., Milton and the Manuscript of De Doctrina Christiana (Oxford, 2007).

MnJ 46

MS of the complete but probably unfinished work on 380 quarto leaves (pp. 1-182 of larger size than the rest), comprising 745 pages.

MS of the complete but probably unfinished work on 380 quarto leaves (pp. 1-182 of larger size than the rest), comprising 745 pages (erroneously paginated 1-735), some mutilated at edges; pp. 1-196, a fair copy of the first fourteen chapters, in one hand, that of Daniel Skinner (being almost certainly a recopying of an earlier transcript by Jeremie Picard); pp. 197-735, bearing extensive alterations and rewriting, in a second hand, that of Jeremie Picard (evidently the original copier of the whole work), but for pp. 183-96, 308, 571-4, which are entirely in Daniel Skinner's hand, with numerous recopying (of less legible portions of Picard's MS) in Skinner's hand elsewhere, sometimes on pasted-on slips in the margin (most notably on pp. 206, 222, 235, 247, 281-2, 304, 311, 328, 350, 353, 362, 381, 411, 461A, 472, 475, 486-7, 490, 506, 552, 559, 596, 617, 642, 686 [verso], 703), with additions probably in several other hands throughout; Picard's portion probably written earlier (post 1659) and Skinner's after Milton's death; the prologue (pp. 1-6) headed with a dedication to the Christian church throughout the World ([IO]ANNES MILTONVS Anglus Vniversis Christi Eccleijs...); the work headed before the first chapter (p. 7) De Doctrina Christiana ex sacris duntaxat libris petita disquisitionum libri duo posthumi; later pencil markings in the text by Charles Sumner made in the 19th century.

c.1659-75

Daniel Skinner made an abortive attempt to publish this work through Elzevir in 1675, after which his father handed this MS over to Sir Joseph Williamson, Secretary of State (together with the Skinner MS of state papers: see Introduction); it was discovered in 1823 by Robert Lemon, Deputy Keeper of the Public Records.

Edited from this MS (in translation) in Sumner, with a facsimile of the first page of Chapter I as frontispiece; collated in Columbia. Discussed in Sotheby, Ramblings, pp. 153-63, with facsimile examples; in James Holly Hanford, The Date of Milton's De Doctrina Christiana, SP, 17 (1920), 309-19; in Arthur Sewell, Milton's De Doctrina Christiana, E&S, 19 (1933), 40-66; in Maurice Kelley, This Great Argument: A Study of Milton's De Doctrina Christiana as a Gloss upon Paradise Lost (Princeton, 1941), with facsimile examples after p. 218 (illustrating what Kelley takes to be at least seven and perhaps as many as twenty different hands); in Parker, II, 1056-7; in Maurice Kelley, Considerations touching the Right Editing of John Milton's De Doctrina Christiana, with a facsimile example, in Editing Seventeenth Century Prose, ed. D.I.B. Smith (Toronto, 1972), pp. 31-50; and in Gordon Campbell, De Doctrina Christiana: Its Structural Principles and Its Unfinished State, Milton Studies, 9 (1976), 243-60; and see also Maurice Kelley's articles, The Recovery, Printing and Reception of Milton's Christian Doctrine, HLQ, 31 (1967-8), 34-41; The Composition of Milton's De Doctrina Christiana: First Phase, in Th' Upright Heart and Pure, ed. Amadeus P. Fiore (Pittsburgh, 1967), pp. 35-44; and On the State of Milton's De Doctrina Christiana, ELN, 27 (1989), 43-8. Facsimile example also in HLQ, 33 (1969-70), after p. 400. See also Introduction above, Documents Signed on Milton's Behalf, No. ix. For an interesting but unconvincing argument that this work is not by Milton and that the ascriptions in the MS may have been spuriously added later, see William B. Hunter, The Provenance of the Christian Doctrine, SEL, 32 (1992), 129-42, illustrated with facsimile examples (and see also counter-arguments by Barbara K. Lewalski and John T. Shawcross, with Hunter's reply, pp. 143-66).

National Archives, Kew (SP 9/61)

The Digression in The History of Britain

A version of this first published as Mr. John Miltons Character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines in MDCXLI (London 1681). Columbia, X, 317-25. Yale, V, Part 1, 405-67.

MnJ 47

Copy, in a cursive hand, headed The Digression in Miltons History of England. To com in Lib. 3. page 110. after these words. <from one misery to another.>, on twelve quarto pages, in later diced russia gilt.

This MS represents text excluded from Milton's The History of Britain (London, 1670-1) and later edited by Anglesey in 1681, but includes two additional pages of text suppressed in that edition as well.

Late 17th century

Bookplate of Thomas Mostyn 1744 (N^o [98 deleted] 81) and derived from the library of Sir Roger Mostyn, first Baronet (1625?-90), of Mostyn Hall, near Hollywell, Flintshire, Wales. Sotheby's, 13 July 1920 (Mostyn sale), lot 82, and 11 December 1922, lot 129.

Edited from this MS in Columbia and in Yale. Recorded in LR, V, 18-19, 259-60. This MS may conceivably relate to a text in the possession of the Earl of Anglesey, whom, according to Edward Phillips, Milton presented with a Copy of the unlicens'd Papers of his History (see Columbia, XVIII, 378).

Harvard, other MSS (MS Eng 901 (Lobby XI.2.69))

The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce

Eikonoklastes

First published in London, 1649. Columbia, V, 63-309. Yale, III, 335-601.

MnJ 48

Copy, probably transcribed from a printed source.

This MS recorded in LR, II, 264.

A folio partly composite miscellany of verse and prose, chiefly on affairs of state, in a single closely written hand (up to f. 294v) but for a second hand on ff. 220v-31v, a third hand on ff. 315r, 316r-25. 325 leaves (plus blanks), in quarter-vellum.

Early 18th century

The British Library: Stowe MSS (Stowe MS 305 ff. 89v-136v)

MnJ 48.2

Copy, in a neat mixed and italic hand, transcribed from the 1649 edition, 198 small quarto pages, in 19th-century half-calf.

Mid-17th century

Donated by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (1820-89), literary scholar and book collector. Possibly the quarto MS sold by Lewis, 18 July 1851, lot 62, and by Puttick & Simpson, 7 June 1852, lot 203.

Plymouth Proprietary Library (Halliwell-Phillipps No. 103)

The History of Britain

First published in London, 1670-71.

Dramatic Works

Arcades

First published in Poems (1645). Columbia, I, 72-6. Darbishire, II, 159-62. Carey & Fowler, pp. 155-61.

*MnJ 56

Autograph

Autograph draft, perhaps transcribed from an earlier draft, the pages mutilated, headed Part of a maske, a title added by Milton afterwards Arcades / Part of an Entertainement at [lacking rest of title].

This MS collated by editors. Facsimile in Poems (1972). Discussed in John T. Shawcross, The Manuscript of Arcades, N&Q, 204 (October 1959), 359-64, and in Cedric C. Brown, Milton's Arcades in the Trinity Manuscript, RES, NS 37 (1986), 542-9. Variously dated 1629-38 (and the second heading perhaps post-1640).

c.1630s-[70s?]

Trinity College, Cambridge (MS R. 3. 4 (James 583) pp. 1-3)

Comus

First published, as A Maske presented At Ludlow-Castle, 1634, in London, 1637. Poems (1645). Columbia, I, 85-123. Darbishire, II, 171-203. Carey & Fowler, pp. 168-229. John Milton, The Masque of Comus. The Poem, originally called A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634, &c., ed. E.H. Visiak (Bloomsbury, 1937). John Milton, A Maske: The Earlier Versions, ed. S.E. Sprott (Toronto, 1973). Various texts also discussed in A Maske at Ludlow, ed. John S. Diekhoff (Cleveland, Ohio, 1968), [see esp. pp. 251-75].

*MnJ 57

Autograph

Autograph draft, possibly transcribed from an earlier draft, with extensive revisions, headed A maske 1634, a few words added in another hand.

Edited from this MS, with detailed discussion, in Sprott. Collated in Columbia; in Darbishire; and in Carey & Fowler. A complete facsimile in Poems (1972). Facsimile examples in Helen Darbishire, The Chronology of Milton's Handwriting, The Library, 4th Ser. 14 (1933), 229-35; in Greg, English Literary Autographs, Plate LII; in Carey & Fowler, facing p. 235; in Croft, Autograph Poetry, I, 47. Discussed also in C.S. Lewis, A Note on Comus, RES, 8 (1932), 170-6; in John S. Diekhoff, The Punctuation of Comus, PMLA, 51 (1936), 757-68; and in John T. Shawcross, Certain Relationships of the Manuscripts of Comus, PBSA, 54 (1960), 38-56 (and pp. 293-4). The MS generally dated 1634-7.

c.1630s-[70s?]

Trinity College, Cambridge (MS R. 3. 4 (James 583) pp. 13-29)

*MnJ 58 1639

Autograph

An autograph quotation by Milton from Comus, being the last two lines of the masque.

The Liber amicorum of Camillus Cardoinus (i.e. Camillo Cerdagni, 1608-40), of Naples.

Formerly Sumner 84 (Lobby XI.3.43).

Harvard, other MSS (MS Fr 487 p. 110)

MnJ 59

Copy of the original acting version of the masque represented at Ludlow Castle the 29th of September 1634.

In an accomplished scribal hand, adopting a variant style for stage directions, on 37 quarto pages of text: entitled A Maske Represented before the right ho^ble: the Earle of Bridgewater Lord president of Wales and the right ho^ble: the Countesse of Bridgewater. At Ludlow Castle the 29^th of September 1634, the title subscribed in a variant form of the same hand with the names of the chiefe persons in the rep^rsentacon; the text annotated throughout in a lighter-coloured ink, probably in a different hand, with abbreviated names of speakers; the title-page later subscribed in the hand of Thomas Egerton, Lord Brackley (later second Earl of Bridgewater), Author Jo: Milton.

c.1634-7

The MS evidently made for the Earl of Bridgewater (and retained among the Egerton family papers).

Edited from this MS in Henry Todd's edition of Comus (Canterbury, 1798), Appendix II, pp. 167-92; in Milton's Comus, being the Bridgewater Manuscript, with Notes and a short Family Memoir, ed. Lady Alix Egerton (London, 1910), with facsimile examples; in Visiak (1937); and, with detailed discussion, in Sprott (1972).

Collated in The Poetical Works of Milton, ed. Henry Todd, 6 vols (London, 1801), V, 431-8; in Columbia, in Darbishire, and in Carey & Fowler. Complete facsimile (but not generally showing the additions in the lighter ink) in Illinois, I, 300-39, with transcript; the transcript reprinted in A Maske at Ludlow, ed. John S. Diekhoff (Cleveland, Ohio, 1968), pp. 207-40. Complete photocopy in the Huntington (EL 34 B 14). Discussed also in David Harrison Stevens, The Bridgewater Manuscript of Comus, MP, 24 (1927), 315-20; in John T. Shawcross, Certain Relationships of the Manuscripts of Comus, PBSA, 54 (1960), 38-56; and in Barbara Breasted, Comus and the Castlehaven Scandal, Milton Studies, 3 (1971), 201-24.

The British Library: other MSS (Loan MS 76)

MnJ 60

Copy of five songs in the masque (lines 976-99, 230-43, 859-66, 958-75, 1012-23), in musical settings by Henry Lawes, the lyrics in a cursive italic hand, headed Five Songs Set for a Mask presented at Ludlo Castle, before the Earl of Bridgewater Lord President of the Marches. October 1634, on two folio leaves tipped-into the volume. Mid-17th century.

Edited from this MS in Sprott and in Andrew J. Sabol, Songs and Dances for the Stuart Masque (Providence, Rhode Island, 1959), pp. 91-9. Facsimile in Illinois, I, 340-4. Collated in Columbia, I, 474-577. Discussed in John T. Shawcross, Henry Lawes's Settings of Songs for Milton's Comus, Journal of the Rutgers University Library, 28 (1964), 22-8.

A square-shaped folio volume of musical works, in one cursive rounded hand but for ff. 1r-2v, 59r-61v, 107 leaves, in modern halff red morocco.

Late 17th century

According to a note by W. Kitchiner, later owned by Dr Arnold; bought at his sale by Mr Bartleman, and then bought at his sale in February 1822 by Kitchiner. Bookplate of Robert Smith. Bought from Thomas Rodd, bookseller, 18 December 1838.

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 11518 ff. 1-2v)

MnJ 61

Copy of five songs in the masque (lines 976-99, 230-43, 859-66, 958-75, 1012-23) in musical settings by Henry Lawes, headed the 5 songes followinge, were sett for A Maske, presented at Ludlo Castle, before ye Earle of Bridgwater Lord president, of y^e Marches. October. 1634.

Edited from this MS in Visiak (the songs ed. Hubert J. Foss) and in Sprott. Facsimile examples in McClung Evans, p. 103; in Willetts, Plate XXI; and in DLB 126: Seventeenth-Century British Nondramatic Poets, Second Series, ed. M. Thomas Hester (Detroit, 1993), p. 196. Discussed in John T. Shawcross, Henry Lawes's Settings of Songs for Milton's Comus, Journal of the Rutgers University Library, 28 (1964), 22-8.

A large folio volume of autograph vocal music by Henry Lawes (1596-1662), ix + 184 leaves, in modern black morocco gilt.

Comprising over 300 songs and musical dialogues by Lawes, probably written over an extended period (c.1626-62) in preparation for his eventual publications, including settings of 38 poems by Carew, fourteen poems by or attributed to Herrick, and fifteen by Waller.

Mid-17th century

Bookplates of William Gostling (1696-1777), antiquary and topographer; of Robert Smith, of 3 St Paul's Churchyard; and of Stephen Groombridge, FRS (1755-1832), astronomer. Later owned, until 1966, by Miss Naomi D. Church, of Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. Formerly British Library Loan MS 35.

Recorded in IELM, II.i-ii (1987-93), as the Henry Lawes MS: CwT Δ 16; HeR Δ 3; WaE Δ 11. Discussed, with facsimile examples, in Pamela J. Willetts, The Henry Lawes Manuscript (London, 1969). Facsimiles of ff. 42r, 78r, 80r, 84r, 111r and 169r in The Poems and Masques of Aurelian Townshend, ed. Cedric C. Brown (Reading, 1983), pp. 59, 60, 62, 64, 66 and 117. Also discussed in Willa McClung Evans, Henry Lawes: Musician and Friend of Poets (New York and London, 1941), and elsewhere. A complete facsimile of the volume in English Song 1600-1675, ed. Elise Bickford Jorgens, Vol. 3 (New York & London, 1986).

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 53723 ff. 37r-9r)

MnJ 62

Copy, transcribed from a printed source.

An octavo verse miscellany. in old calf.

Late 17th century

Later in the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt (1792-1872), book and manuscript collector: Phillipps MS 22199. Sotheby's, 17 June 1908 (Phillipps sale), lot 543.

McGill University, Montreal, Osler Library (M90. Bd. 84 ff. 2-24)

MnJ 63

An exemplum of the first printed edition (London, 1637), containing nine contemporary manuscript corrections in an unidentified hand, possibly presented to the Earl of Bridgewater by or on behalf of Milton or Henry Lawes.

The MS corrections could conceivably be in Milton's hand (granted an atypical large epsilon e in the word contemptu[ous] on p. 27), but are not substantial enough for certain identification.

c.1637

Once belonging to the Egerton family, Earls of Bridgewater. Formerly in the Pforzheimer Library, New York.

This item discussed, with facsimile examples, in E.V. Unger and W.A. Jackson, The Carl H. Pforzheimer Library: English Literature 1475-1700, 3 vols (New York, 1940), II, 724-5. Recorded in Darbishire.

University of Texas at Austin (Pforzheimer 714)

MnJ 64

Copy, transcribed from the text in Poems (1645), the title-page dated Anno Domi: 1658.

This MS recorded in Shawcross, Bibliography, No. 261.

An octavo miscellany of verse and prose, in English and Latin, in several hands suggesting communal use, paginated 5-309, in mottled calf.

c.1697-1702

Yale, Osborn MS b 50 through Osborn MS b 99 (Osborn MS b 63 pp. 197-240)

Comus, lines 229-42. Song: ('Sweet Echo, sweetest Nymph that liv'st unseen')

MnJ 64.5

Copy of the song Sweet Echo, sweetest Nymph that liv'st unseen, in a musical setting.

A folio music book, compiled by one William Wordsworth, with some later additions, ii + 241 leaves.

c.1771

Hodgson's, 31 March 1967, in lot 512.

The British Library, Music Books and Manuscripts (Add. MS 54194 ff. 18v-19r)

A Mask presented at Ludlow-Castle, 1634

See Comus (MnJ 57-64.5).

Samson Agonistes

First published in London, 1671. Columbia, I, Part 2, 330-99. Darbishire, II, 59-109. Carey & Fowler, pp. 330-402.

MnJ 65

Copy, apparently contemporary, with corrections, embodying a variant version of at least lines 1532-3, alleged improbably to bear corrections in (the blind) Milton's own hand.

Sotheby's, 11-14 December 1865, lot 702.

Late 17th century?

Recorded in Gentleman's Magazine, 3rd Ser. 2 (September 1866), 332, as having been recently discussed in the Pall Mall Gazette and sold at Sotheby's: see Columbia, XVIII, 644.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Corrected Samson Agonistes])

*MnJ 66 c.1632-60s

Autograph

Partly autograph commonplace book compiled by Milton, comprising a series of notes, extracts and quotations, in Latin and English, drawn from about 110 works by some 92 authors, arranged under a series of headings and classified in three main sections (according to the subjects of ethics, economics and politics) and also including many notes on marriage and divorce; the volume originally comprising 126 folio leaves, paginated 1-250 (including 136 blanks), and an unnumbered table, but now lacking (blank) pages 33-6, 83-93, 207-8, 225-8, 231-4, as well as the lower halves of pp. 1-14, which have been excised; 71 pages containing entries in Milton's own hand; the remained in the hands of five or six amanuenses, including Edward Phllips (on p. 197), Jeremie Picard (on pp. 188, 195), the scribe responsible for Book I of Paradise Lost (MnJ 22) (on p. 249), and (on pp. 71, 77, 187 and 242) the amanuensis who transcribed an Italian sonnet in Milton's exemplum of Della Casa's Rime (see Introduction above, Milton's Library, No. iv); a few later entries made by Richard Graham, first Viscount Preston (1648-95); repaired and rebound in the late 19th century.

Complete text edited by Alfred J. Horwood, with unfolding facsimile examples, in A Common-Place Book of John Milton and a Latin Essay and Latin Verses presumed to be by Milton, Camden Society NS. 16 (1876) [reissued with corrections]; by J. H. Hanford and N. G. McCrea in Columbia, XVIII (1938), 128-220; by Ruth Mohl in an English translation in Yale, I (1953), pp. 344-513 (with a facsimile example p. 361); and extensively discussed, with facsimile examples, in Ruth Mohl, John Milton and His Commonplace Book (New York, 1969). Complete collotype facsimile in A Common-place Book Of John Milton, ed. A.J. Horwood (privately printed, 1876). Other facsimile examples in Garnett & Gosse (1903), III, after p. 16; John Milton 1608-1674 Facsimiles of Autographs and Documents in the British Museum (London, 1908); Greg, English Literary Autographs, Plate LIII; Helen Darbishire, The Chronology of Milton's Handwriting, The Library, 4th Ser. 14 (1933), 229-35; Maurice Kelley, Milton and Machiavelli's Discorsi, SB, 4 (1951-2), 123-7 (Plates I, III); Don M. Wolfe, Milton and His England (Princeton, 1971), p. 22; Hilton Kelliher and Sally Brown, English Literary Manuscripts (London, 1986), No. 17, p. 29; and in Chris Fletcher et al., 1000 Years of English Literature: A Treasury of Literary Manuscripts (British Library, 2003), p. 69. Also discussed in LR, I, 275-6 and II, 4-5; James Holly Hanford, The Chronology of Milton's Private Studies, PMLA, 36 (1921), 251-314; Maurice Kelley, Milton's Commonplace Book, Folio 20, MLN, 62 (1947), 192-4; Kelley, Daniel Skinner, Lord Preston, and Milton's Commonplace Book, MLN, 64 (1949), 522-5; and William Riley Parker [and John T. Shawcross], Milton's Commonplace Book: An Index and Notes, Milton Newsletter, 3 (1969), 41-54. See also MnJ 7-8, MnJ 10, MnJ 50.

John Milton's Commonplace Book.

c.1632-60s

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 35000 through 39999 (Add. MS 36354 The MS as a whole)

*MnJ 67

Autograph

Autograph notes on themes for projected tragedies, including Paradise Lost, Abram from Morea, or Isack redeemd, Baptistes, Sodom Burning, Adam Unparadiz'd, Scotch stories, themes from early British history, Christus patiens, and various other Biblical subjects.

Edited from this MS, as Outlines for Tragedies, in Columbia, XVIII, 228-45; and in Yale, VIII, 539-85. The notes relating to Paradise Lost edited in Carey & Fowler, pp. 419-21. Complete facsimiles in Poems (1972), and in Illinois, II, 12-29. Facsimile example in Greg, English Literary Autographs, Plate LII. Discussed in Allan H. Gilbert, The Cambridge Manuscript and Milton's Plans for an Epic, SP, 16 (1919), 172-6; in William R. Parker, The Trinity Manuscript and Milton's Plans for a Tragedy, JEGP, 24 (1935), 225-32; in J. Milton French, Chips from Milton's Workshop, ELH, 10 (1943), 230-42; and in Audrey I. Carlisle, A Study of the Trinity College Manuscript, pages 35-41, and certain authors represented in Milton's Commonplace Book, in their relationship to Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained (unpub. B.Litt. thesis, Oxford, 1952). The MS generally dated 1639-42.

c.1630s-[70s?]

Trinity College, Cambridge (MS R. 3. 4 (James 583) pp. 35-41)

Letters

Letter(s)

*MnJ 68 c.1633

Autograph

Two autograph drafts of a letter by Milton to an unnamed friend (speculatively identified as his tutor Thomas Young), the first including Sonnet VII (MnJ 25).

edited in Columbia, XII, 320-5, and in Yale, I, 318-21.

c.1630s-[70s?]

Trinity College, Cambridge (MS R. 3. 4 (James 583) pp. 6-7)

*MnJ 69

Autograph

Autograph letter signed by Milton, to Lucas Holstenius, 29 March 1639.

1639

Edited, with the date given as 30 March 1639, in Epistolarum familiarium (London, 1674), No. 9. Columbia, XII, 38-45, with an English translation. The discovery of the original letter announced in the New York Times (8 May 1952), p. 50. Discussed and edited, with a complete reduced facsimile, in Joseph McG. Bottkol, The Holograph of Milton's Letter to Holstenius, PMLA, 68 (1953), 617-27. Facsimile example also in Don M. Wolfe, Milton and His England (Princeton, 1971), p. 32B.

Vatican Library (Barb. lat. 2181, ff. 57r-8v)

*MnJ 70

Autograph

Autograph letter signed by Milton, to Carlo Dati, 21 [i.e. 20] April 1647.

1647

Evans's [i.e. Sotheby's] 13 February 1833 (Anderdon sale), lot 369. William Pickering's Catalogue of Biblical, Classical and Historical Manuscripts, 1834, with Milton family papers in lot 24*. Sotheby's, 12 May 1882 (J. F. Marsh sale), lot 2104.

Edited in Epistolarum familiarium (London, 1674), No. 10; Columbia, XII, 44-53, with an English translation; English translation only in Yale, II, 759-65. Facsimile examples in Sotheby, Ramblings, p. 122; in Columbia, XII, after p. 50; in John Fitchett March, Papers connected with the Affairs of Milton and his Family, Chetham Society Publications XXIV (1851), frontispiece; and in John Milton at 400: A Life Beyond Death (New York Public Library exhibition brochure, 2008), on the penultimate page.

New York Public Library, Manuscripts Division ([no shelfmark])

*MnJ 71

Autograph

Autograph revisions and additions by Milton to a scribal draft of a parliamentary letter to the Senate of Hamburg, in Latin, on the first page of a single folio leaf, 2 April 1649.

1649

Recorded, and edited in translation, in Yale, V, Part 2, 478 (State Papers No. 1). Shawcross, Bibliography, No. 79

Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection (Marten/Loder-Symonds MSS, 3rd Series, 11, f. 1r-v)

*MnJ 72

Autograph

Letter by Milton, to Hermann Mylius, in the hand of an amanuensis and signed by Milton, 7 November 1651.

1651

Facsimile in Miller, p. 96. Edited in Columbia, XII, 348-51; LR, III, 100-1; English translation only in Yale, IV, Part 2, 831-2.

Niedersächsische Staatsarchiv Oldenburg (Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73, fasc. 5, No. 3)

*MnJ 73

Autograph

Letter by Milton to Hermann Mylius, in the hand of an amanuensis and signed by Milton, 31 December 1651 (the date changed to 2 January 1652).

1651-2

Facsimile in Miller, p. 122. Edited in Columbia, XII, 352-5, and in LR, III, 116-18; English translation only in Yale, IV, Part 2, 834-6.

Niedersächsische Staatsarchiv Oldenburg (Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73, fasc. 5, No. 4)

*MnJ 74

Autograph

Letter by Milton to Hermann Mylius, in the hand of an amanuensis and signed by Milton, 8 January 1651/2.

Facsimile in Miller, p. 132. Edited in Columbia, XII, 360-1, and in LR, III, 137-8. English translation only in Yale, IV, Part 2, 838-9.

Niedersächsische Staatsarchiv Oldenburg (Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73, fasc. 5, No. 5)

*MnJ 75

Autograph

Letter by Milton to Hermann Mylius, in the hand of an amanuensis and signed by Milton, 20 January 1651/2.

1652

Facsimile in Miller, p. 144. Edited in Columbia, XII, 362-5, and in LR, III, 150-1. English translation only in Yale, IV, Part 2, 841-2. Facsimile example in Maurice Kelley, Milton and Machiavelli's Discorsi, SB, 4 (1951-2), 123-7 (Plate III).

Niedersächsische Staatsarchiv Oldenburg (Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73, fasc. 5, No. 6)

*MnJ 76

Autograph

Letter by Milton to Hermann Mylius, in the hand of an amanuensis and signed by Milton, 10 February 1651/2.

1652

Facsimile in Miller, p. 160. Edited in Columbia, XII, 368-71, and in LR, III, 165-6. English translation only in Yale, IV, Part 2, 844.

Niedersächsische Staatsarchiv Oldenburg (Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73, fasc. 5, No. 7)

MnJ 77

Letter by Milton to Bulstrode Whitelocke, entirely in the hand of an amanuensis, 12 February 1651/2.

1652

Edited in J. Milton French, A New Letter by John Milton, PMLA, 49 (1934), 1069-70; in Columbia, XII, 326-7; in LR, III, 172-3; and in Yale, IV, Part 2, 846-7.

The Marquess of Bath, Longleat House (Whitelocke Papers, Vol. XII, ff. 41r-2v)

*MnJ 78

Autograph

Letter by Milton to Hermann Mylius, in the hand of Edward Phillips and signed by Milton, 13 February 1651/2.

1652

Edited in Columbia, XII, 374-5, and in LR, III, 174-6. English translation only in Yale, IV, Part 2, 847-8. Facsimile examples in Maurice Kelley, Milton and Machiavelli's Discorsi, SB, 4 (1951-2), 123-7 (Plate I), and in Miller, p. 183.

Niedersächsische Staatsarchiv Oldenburg (Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73, fasc. 5, No. 8)

*MnJ 79

Autograph

Letter by Milton to Hermann Mylius, in the hand of an amanuensis and signed by Milton, 21 February 1651/2.

1652

Facsimiles in New York Times (31 December 1927) and in Miller, p. 194. Edited in Columbia, XII, 376-7, and in LR, III, 193-4. English translation only in Yale, IV, Part 2, 849-50.

Niedersächsische Staatsarchiv Oldenburg (Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73, fasc. 5, No. 9)

MnJ 80

Copies of six of the seven letters by Milton to Hermann Mylius, entered in Mylius's Tagebuch.

1651-52

Niedersächsische Staatsarchiv Oldenburg (Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73, fasc. 13)

*MnJ 81

Autograph

Letter by Milton (about Andrew Marvell), to John Bradshaw, in the hand of an amanuensis and signed by Milton, 21 February 1652/3.

1653

Edited in Columbia, XII, 329-30; in LR, III, 322-4; and in Yale, IV, Part 2, 858-60. Facsimile of the signature in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 124 (Plate XVII[bis], No. iii.

National Archives, Kew (SP 18/33/75)

MnJ 82

A folio volume of transcripts of some 71 letters of state sent chiefly by Cromwell to foreign princes and officials, partly composed by Milton, from 10 February 1653/4 to 19 October 1655, in a professional hand, 41 leaves, plus blanks and a 4-page index.

Mid-late 17th century

Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Collection, other shelfmarks (MS Rawl. A. 260)

MnJ 83

A folio volume of transcripts of some 105 letters of state by Cromwell and others, partly composed by Milton, 1653/4-1655, in two or three professional hands, 55 leaves.

Mid-late 17th century

Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Collection, other shelfmarks (MS Rawl. A. 261)

MnJ 84 1649-1659

A series of 156 letters of state probably written by Milton, chiefly in Latin, some in English, dating from 1649 to 1659.

A long narrow ledger-size volume of transcripts of state letters and papers, written from both ends, 156 pages (including blanks), in contemporary limp vellum.

Late 17th century

Columbia University, New York (X823M64/S62 pp. 23-79)

MnJ 85

An unbound quarto letterbook, in three separate sections, 109 pages (plus blanks). In a single hand, that of Daniel Skinner, comprising his transcripts of 139 chronologically arranged state letters from 10 August 1649 to 15 May 1659; the collection entitled by Skinner Epistolae Johannis Miltonii Angli Pro Parlamento Anglicano interregni tempore scriptae (followed by three or four obliterated lines); the MS deposited in the Public Records, along with De Doctrina Christiana (MnJ 46), after the Government prevented him from publishing both with Elzevir in 1675.

c.1674-6

This collection edited in part in Original Papers illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Milton, ed. W. Douglas Hamilton, Camden Society Publications, vol. 75 (1859). Used in Columbia, XIII, and see also LR, V, 237-9 & passim. Discussed in Leo Miller, Milton's Personal Letters and Daniel Skinner, N&Q, 228 (October 1983), 431-2.

National Archives, Kew (SP 9/194)

Documents

Document(s)

*MnJ 88

Autograph

Signature (John Milton Junior) as witness on the post-nuptial settlement of his sister Anne, being a tripartite indenture concerning property to be bequested to Mrs Anne Phillips and her husband Edward Phillips upon the death of the latter's mother Katherine Phillips of Shrewsbury, the signature of the elder John Milton here being in the hand of John Hutton, 27 November 1623.

1623

Sotheby's, 4 June 1908 and 5 June 1918.

Facsimile of the signatures in A.M. Broadley, Chats on Autographs (London, 1910), p. 203. Edited in LR, I, 67-74. Recorded in Columbia, XVIII, 624.

The Pierpont Morgan Library (MA 953)

*MnJ 89 1629

Autograph

Autograph signature (Joannes Milton), when graduating as B.A., in the University Subscription Book, [January 1628/9].

Facsimiles in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 124 (Plate XVII[bis], No. i, item 1), and in Masson, I, after p. 780. Reproduced in J. Milton French, Milton's Supplicats, HLQ, 5 (1942), 349-53 (p. 353). Recorded in Columbia XVIII, 624, and in LR, I, 190.

The University Subscriptions Book, 1613-38.

Cambridge University Archives (Subscriptiones I p. 286)

*MnJ 90 1629

Autograph

Milton's autograph supplicat for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, c.10 January 1629.

Edited, with a facsimile, in J. Milton French, Milton's Supplicats, HLQ, 5 (1942), 349-53 (pp. 349-51

Supplicats volume for 1627-29.

Cambridge University Archives (Supplicats 1627-29 f. 331r)

MnJ 91 1632

Milton's supplicat for the degree of Master of Arts, written on his behalf in an unidentified hand (?Richard Osborne), c.10 January 1632.

Edited, with a facsimile, in J. Milton French, Milton's Supplicats, HLQ, 5 (1942), 349-53 (pp. 350-2).

Supplicats volume of the 1630s.

Cambridge University Archives (Supplicats, 1630s [unspecified page number])

*MnJ 92 1632

Autograph

Autograph signature (Joannes Milton), when graduating as M.A., in the University Subscription Book, [July 1632].

Facsimiles in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 124 (Plate XVII[bis], No. i, item 3), and in Masson, I, after p. 780. Recorded in Columbia XVIII, 624, and in LR, I, 271-2.

The University Subscriptions Book, 1613-38.

Cambridge University Archives (Subscriptiones I p. 377)

*MnJ 93 1639

Autograph

Autograph signature (Joannes Miltonius Anglus), after an autograph quotation from Comus (MnJ 58) and a line in Latin (a paraphrase of Horace), the entry dated in another hand 10 June 1639.

This MS quoted in Darbishire, II, 361. Recorded in Columbia, XVIII, 271, and in LR, I, 419. Facsimiles in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 98, Plate XIV, No. iv; in Illinois, IV, Appendix IX, 344A; in John Milton, Paradise Lost and Other Poems, ed. Maurice Kelley (New York, 1943), p. xvii; in Don M. Wolfe, Milton and His England (Princeton, 1971), p. 40B; and in The Houghton Library 1942-1967 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), p. 51.

The Liber amicorum of Camillus Cardoinus (i.e. Camillo Cerdagni, 1608-40), of Naples.

Formerly Sumner 84 (Lobby XI.3.43).

Harvard, other MSS (MS Fr 487 p. 110)

MnJ 94 c.1646-late 17th century

A formal copy of the will of Richard Powell which was originally witnessed by Milton (John Milton), in a stylish rounded hand, on the rectos of three broadsheets, 30 December 1646.

Recorded in Columbia, XVIII, 624. Edited in LR, II, 164-6.

A folio composite volume of documents, in various hands, 243 leaves (including blanks), in 19th-century calf.

Bodleian Library, other MSS (MS Top. Oxon. c. 289 ff. 49r-51r)

*MnJ 95

Autograph

Milton's autograph corrections to, and completion of, a translation otherwise in the hand of an amanuensis of an intercepted letter in German by the Electress Sophia to Prince Maurice, dated 13 April 1649.

[The original letter by Sophia is SP 18/1/54.

1649

Facsimiles in Colonel Sir Henry James, Facsimiles of National Manuscripts from William the Conqueror to Queen Anne, 4 vols (Southampton, 1865-8), IV, xlvi, and in IELM, II.ii (1993), Facsimile IIIb, after p. xxi. Edited in Columbia XIII, 506-7 (No. 165); in LR, II, 242-4; and in Yale, V, Part 2, 485-7.

National Archives, Kew (SP 18/1/55)

*MnJ 96

Autograph

Milton's autograph signature on a receipt recording payment to him of interest on a debt by Robert Warcupp, 16 February 1649/50.

1650

Facsimile in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 124 (Plate XVII[bis], No. i, item 5). Edited in Columbia XVIII, 394, and in LR, II, 298-9.

Historical Society of Pennsylvania (Ferdinand J. Dreer Autograph Collection, 115:2, British Poets, Vol. II, pp. 102-4)

*MnJ 97

Autograph

Autograph memorandum by Milton, about the release of Mr Chambers from the Gatehouse Prison, in a draft minute book of the Privy Council (from 26 April to 17 May 1650), 30 April 1650.

1650

Facsimile in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 112 (Plate XVI, No. ii). Recorded in Columbia XIII, 507 (No. 166), and in LR, II, 307.

National Archives, Kew (SP 25/6, p. [13])

*MnJ 98

Autograph

A petition to the Commissioners for Sequestration, the main text in the hand of an amanuensis, signed by Milton and with a signed attestation in the left margin also in his hand, 25 February 1650/1.

1651

Facsimile in Ann Morton, Men of Letters, Public Record Office Museum Pamphlets No. 6 (London, 1974), Plate IV. Facsimile examples in The Poetical Works of John Milton, ed. Henry Todd, 3rd edition, 6 vols (London, 1826), I, after p. 84; and in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 112 (Plate XVI, No. iii). Edited, with related documents, in Columbia, XVIII, 394-8.

National Archives, Kew (SP 23/101/925)

*MnJ 99 1651

Autograph

Autograph signature (Joannes Miltonius), after a quotation from the Greek New Testament (2 Cor. xii, 9: meaning in weakness my strength is made perfect) in another hand, 19/29 November 1651.

Facsimiles in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 112 (Plate XVI, No. iv); in John Milton 1608-1674 Facsimiles of Autographs and Documents in the British Museum (London, 1908); in Milton Tercentenary: The Portraits, Prints and Writings of John Milton Exhibited at Christ's College, Cambridge, 1908 (Cambridge, 1908), after p. 110; in Greg, English Literary Autographs, Plate LIII(b); in Don M. Wolfe, Milton and His England (Princeton, 1971), p. 92; and in Hilton Kelliher and Sally Brown, English Literary Manuscripts (London, 1986), No. 18, p. 29. Recorded in Columbia XVIII, 271, and in LR, II, 104-5.

The liber amicorum of Christoph Arnold, Professor of History at Nuremberg, an oblong duodecimo.

The British Library: Egerton MSS (Egerton MS 1324 f. 85v)

*MnJ 100

Autograph

Autograph signature by Milton on each of three versions of a Government safeguard for the Count of Oldenburg, 17 February 1651/2: a Latin attested copy signed Joannes Miltonius; a Latin attested Recreditif signed Joannes Miltonius; and an attested copy in English signed John Milton

1652

Facsimiles in Miller, pp. 247-8, 252-3, 264. Facsimile of the English signature only in Don M. Wolfe, Milton and His England (Princeton, 1971), p. 92. Edited in LR, III, 180-5, and (from an earlier printed text) in Columbia, XIII, 470-6.

Niedersächsische Staatsarchiv Oldenburg (Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73a, Litt. H, Nos. 2, 3 and 5)

MnJ 101 1655

Receipt of salaries of Milton and other Government officers (the Ashburnham Document), signed on Milton's behalf, 13 February 1654/5.

Facsimile examples in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 124 (Plate XVII[bis], No. ii, item 1); in John Milton 1608-1674 Facsimiles of Autographs and Documents in the British Museum (London, 1908); and in Guide to the Exhibited MSS (BM), Part I (1912), No. 80. Recorded in Columbia, XVIII, 625.

A folio composite volume of miscellaneous state papers, in various hands, 166 leaves.

The British Library: Stowe MSS (Stowe MS 142 f. 161r)

*MnJ 102

Autograph

Milton's faltering post-blindness autograph quotation from the Greek New Testament (2 Cor. xii, 9: meaning in weakness my strength is made perfect), and his signature, in the liber amicorum of Johannes Zollikofer, subscribed by Zollikofer Caecus haec apposuit Celeberr:/Milton:, 26 September 1656.

1656

Recorded and discussed (but misread) in W. Fischer, Ein Wenig Bekanntes Autogramm Miltons, Anglia, 57 (1933), 221-4; in Columbia, XVIII, 271; in LR, IV, 118-19; and, with a facsimile in Leo Miller, Milton in the Zollikoffer and Arnold Albums, Milton Quarterly, 24 (1990), 99-105. Reduced facsimile in John Milton, Paradise Lost and Other Poems, ed. Maurice Kelley (New York, 1943), p. xvii. Facsimile in IELM, II.ii (1993), Facsimile IIIc, after p. xxi.

Stadtbibliothek Vadiana, St Gallen, Switzerland (MS 92a)

MnJ 103

An outline of the case concerning the claims made on Milton by his mother-in-law Anne Powell, in the hand of another scrivener and signed John Milton on the poet's behalf, 28 February 1656[/7].

1657

Edited in Columbia, XVIII, 395-7.

National Archives, Kew (SP 23/101/931)

MnJ 104

A submission made by Milton to the Committee for Compositions, concerning claims made on him by his mother-in-law Anne Powell, being A Particular of the Lands late Richard Powells of fforrest Hill in the County of Oxford now under Extent, And for w^ch John Milton Esquire desireth to compound, in the hand of a scrivener and signed John Milton on the poet's behalf, [1656/7].

1657

Edited in Columbia, XVIII, 395-7. Facsimile of the signature in The Poetical Works of John Milton, ed. Henry Todd (1852), I, facing p. 54.

National Archives, Kew (SP 23/101/929)

MnJ 105

Milton's counterpart of a mortgage deed between himself and Thomas Maundy for a lease to Milton of land in Kensington for the sum of £500, signed on Milton's behalf by Jeremie Picard, who also signed the verso as witness, 14 January 1657/8.

1658

Discussed, with facsimiles of the signature, in James Holly Hanford, The Rosenbach Milton Documents, PMLA, 38 (1923), 290-6 [Plate 1]. Edited in LR, IV, 200-7.

The Rosenbach Museum & Library, numbers 240 through 999 (MS 810/25, [item 1])

*MnJ 106

Autograph

Milton's faltering post-blindness autograph signature (John Milton) on a certified affidavit recording payment to him of a £500 debt by Richard Powell, 29 November 1659, written on the verso of Powell's bond to Milton of 11 June 1627.

1659

Discussed, with a complete facsimile, in J. Milton French, The Powell-Milton Bond, HSNPL, 20 (1938), 61-73. Edited in Columbia XVIII, 419-20, and in LR, I, 135-7.

National Archives, Kew (C 152/61)

MnJ 107

A deed of conveyance transferrring to Cyrick Skinner a Treasury Bond for £400, signed by an amanuensis John Milton and with Milton's seal, Westminster, 5 May 1660.

1660

Later owned by Samuel Weller Singer, FSA (1783-1858), of Mickleham, literary scholar. Sotheby's, 3 August 1858 (Singer sale), lot 75. In the collection of Richard Monckton Milnes (1809-85), first Baron Houghton, author and politician, and his descendants. Christie's, 29 June 1995, lot 356, with a facsimile in the sale catalogue (unsold).

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Milton document])

MnJ 107.5

Conveyance of land to Cyriack Skinner, signed on Milton's behalf by Jeremie Picard, with Milton's seal, 5 May 1660.

1660

Sotheby's, 2 August 1820, lot 62 (with other Milton family papers), to Boswell, with a facsimile in the sale catalogue. Sotheby's 3 August 1858 (S. W. Singer sale), lot 75, with a facsimile in the sale catalogue.

Facsimile of the signature in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 124 (Plate XVII[bis], No. ii, item 4). Reprinted in Hanford, PMLA, 38 (1923), 290-6 [Plate 3]. Edited in Columbia, XVIII, 420-1, and in LR, IV, 317-18.

Private owners in the UK ([Milton document])

*MnJ 108

Autograph

Milton's faltering post-blindness autograph signature (John Milton) on his Marriage Licence Allegation declaring his intended third marriage to Elizabeth Minshull, 11 February 1662/3.

1663

Edited, with a facsimile tracing of the signature, in Masson, VI, 475. Edited in Columbia XVIII, 421. Facsimile in IELM, II.ii (1993), Facsimile IIId, after p. xxi.

Lambeth Palace Library (FM1/3B, f. 149r)

MnJ 109

Acquittance to Baldwin Hamey, MD, of London, for the sum of £500, signed on Milton's behalf, with his seal, 7 June 1665.

1665

Formerly Folger MS 960.1.

Edited in Columbia, XVIII, 421-2, and in LR, IV, 415-16.

The Folger Shakespeare Library, Miscellaneous manuscripts (MS X.d.161)

MnJ 110

Tripartite indenture assigning the mortgage of 14 January 1657/8 to Jeremy Hamey in trust for Baldwin Hamey for the sum of £500, signed on Milton's behalf, 7 June 1665.

1665

Discussed, with a facsimile of the signature, in Hanford, PMLA, 38 (1923), 290-6 [Plate 5]. Recorded in Columbia, XVIII, 626. Edited in LR, IV, 402-15.

The Rosenbach Museum & Library, numbers 240 through 999 (MS 810/25, [item 2])

MnJ 111

Agreement between Milton and Samuel Symons for the publication of Paradise Lost, whereby Milton would receive £10, signed on Milton's behalf and with his seal, 27 April 1667.

1667

Facsimiles in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 136 (Plate XVIII, No. i); in Facsimiles of Royal, Historical, and Literary Autographs in the British Museum (1899), No. 98; in Garnett & Gosse (1903), III, after p. 80; in John Milton 1608-1674 Facsimiles of Autographs and Documents in the British Museum (London, 1908); inMilton Tercentenary: The Portraits, Prints and Writings of John Milton Exhibited at Christ's College, Cambridge, 1908 (Cambridge, 1908), after p. 96; and in Illinois, II, 110-13. Edited in Columbia, XVIII, 422-4, and in LR, IV, 429-31. Discussed by Peter Lindenbaum in Milton's Contract, Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal, 10 (1992), 439-54; in The Poet in the Marketplace: Milton and Samuel Simmons, in Of Poetry and Politics: New Essays on Milton and His World, ed. P.G. Stanwood (Binghamton, NY, 1994), 249-62; in Rematerializing Milton, Publishing History, 41 (1997), 5-22; and in Milton's Small Advance, TLS, 16 April 2004, p. 14.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 18000 through 19999 (Add. MS 18861)

MnJ 112

Receipt for payment of £5 from Samuel Simmons for Paradise Lost, signed on Milton's behalf, 26 April 1669.

The hand here is identified by Maurice Kelley as that responsible for an addition on p. 272 of the MS of De Doctrina Christiana (MnJ 46).

1669

Later owned by Dawson Turner, FSA (1775-1858), banker, botanist, and antiquary. Puttick & Simpson's, 6 June 1859 (Turner sale), lot 621, with a facsimile as frontispiece in the sale catalogue.

Facsimiles also in Gentleman's Magazine, 92.ii (1822), 13; in Sotheby, Ramblings, pp. 137-40 (Plate XVIII, No. ii); in Illinois, II, 210; in Maurice Kelley, This Great Argument (1941), p. [226]; and in Elizabeth T. McLaughlin, Milton and Thomas Ellwood, Milton Newsletter, 1 (1967), 17-28 (where, following John Shawcross, it is erroneously suggested that the receipt may be in Ellwood's hand). Edited in Columbia, XVIII, 424, and in LR, IV, 448-9.

Christ's College, Cambridge ([no shelfmark])

Exempla of Printed Works by Milton with his Inscriptions or Additions

Ten Prose Tracts

*MnJ 113

Autograph

A volume comprising ten printed prose tracts by Milton, bearing at the beginning Milton's autograph presentation inscription to the King's Librarian, Patrick Young.

Comprising exempla of: Of Reformation touching Church-Discipline in England (1641); Of Prelatical Episcopacy (1641); The Reason of Church-Government (1641); Animadversions upon the Remonstrants Defence against Smectymnuus (1641); An Apology against…A Modest Confutation (1642); The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1644); The Judgement of Martin Bucer (1644); Colasterion (1645); Tetrachordon (1645); and Areopagitica (1644).

1641-7

Owned in 1693 by Matthew Pilkington, of Stamford.

Facsimile of the inscription in Sotheby, Ramblings, p. 121. The inscription printed in Columbia, XVIII, 269.

Trinity College, Dublin, Early Printed Books (R.dd.39)

Eleven Prose Tracts

*MnJ 114

Autograph

A volume comprising eleven printed prose tracts by Milton, with Milton's autograph presentation inscription to John Rous, Librarian of the Bodleian Library, on a flyleaf, together with Milton's autograph list of contents (originally accompanying MnJ 115).

Comprising exempla of: Of Reformation touching Church-Discipline in England (1641), with possibly autograph corrections of some nine words on pp. 6-7, 44, 70); Of Prelatical Episcopacy (1641); The Reason of Church-Government (1641); Animadversions upon the Remonstrants Defence against Smectymnuus (1641); An Apology against…A Modest Confutation (1642); The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (1644), with possibly autograph corrections on pp. 65 and 73;The Judgement of Martin Bucer (1644); Colasterion (1645); Tetrachordon (1645); Areopagitica (1644); and Of Education [1644].

1641-7

A complete facsimile edition of this volume in John Milton, Prose Works 1641-50, 3 vols (Menston: Scolar Press, 1967-8), Vols I and II. Facsimile examples of the inscription, list and corrections in Sotheby, Ramblings, p. 120; in Greg, English Literary Autographs, Plate LIII(c); in English Literature in the Seventeenth Century: Guide to an Exhibition held in 1957, Bodleian Library (Oxford, 1957), frontispiece; and in Nicholas von Maltzahn, Naming the Author: Some Seventeenth-Century Milton Allusions, Milton Quarterly, 27/1 (March 1993), 1-19 (p. 9). Edited in Columbia, XVIII, 269-70, and in LR, II, 139-42.

Bodleian Library, other MSS (4° F.56.Th. (Arch. G.e.44))

Poems of Mr John Milton, both English and Latin, compos'd at several times (London, 1645)

*MnJ 115

Autograph

An exemplum (originally accompanying MnJ 114), sent by Milton to John Rous as a replacement for one sent earlier and lost en route; this originally containing his poem to Rous in the hand of an amanuensis (MnJ 1), 23 January 1646/7. With probably autograph corrections of one word in At a solemn Musick, line 6 (p. 22); of one word in On the University Carrier, line 2 (p. 28); and of two words in Elegia septima, line 21 (Poemata, p. 36).

1647

Bodleian Library, other MSS (8° M. 168.Art. (Arch. G.f. 17))

MnJ 116

An exemplum with a presentation inscription to Peter Heimbach, in the neat italic hand of an amanuensis, Viro vere Egregio Poetæ Eleganti Florido Oratori Acuto Philosopho P. ab Heimbach, I C. and, in a darker ink, Amico suo I. Milton Auth.

c.1645

Inscribed T. Fanshaw his Book 8^br 7^o 20^th: 1709. Later in the library of Robert Hoe (1839-1909), New York businessman and book collector. Afterwards in the library of the Rev. Dr Roderick Terry. American Art Association, at the Anderson Galleries, New York, 2-3 May 1934, lot 195, with a facsimile of the presentation inscription in the sale catalogue. Christie's, New York, 6 October 2001 (Abel Berland sale, Part I), also with a facsimile in the sale catalogue.

The inscription printed in Columbia, XVIII, 270, and discussed (as genuine) p. 549. Treated with scepticism in Yale, VIII, I. n.2.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Milton/Heimbach])

Books from Milton's Library

Aratus. Phaenomena & Diosemeia (Paris, 1559)

*MnJ 117

Autograph

An exemplum with Milton's autograph inscription, Jo: Milton pre: 2^s.-6^d. 1631, and some autograph annotations in the text (notably on pp. 1, 17, 30, 38, 45, 48 and probably 79 and 81) among various notes in other hands.

Mid-17th century

Later owned by James Bindley, FSA (1737-1818), book collector. Evans's (i.e. Sotheby's), 7 December 1818 (Bindley sale, Part I, 2nd day), lot 540, to Triphook.

The annotations (including some not by Milton) edited in Columbia, XVIII, 325-7, and discussed in Maurice Kelley and Samuel D. Atkins, Milton's Annotations of Aratus, PMLA, 70 (1955), 1090-106. Facsimile examples in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 98, Plate XIV, No. ii; in Frederick G. Netherclift, The Hand-Book to Autographs (London, 1862), No. 6; in Maurice Kelley and Samuel D. Atkins, Milton and the Harvard Pindar, Studies in Bibliography, 17 (1964), 77-82. Recorded in Hanford, No. 5, and in Boswell, No. 61.

The British Library: Rare Books Room (C.60.1.7)

Bible (Authorized Version, London, 1612)

*MnJ 118

Autograph

An exemplum with Milton's autograph entries on a flyleaf facing the first chapter of Genesis, recording family births and deaths down to 16 March 1650/1, an entry for 2 May 1652 entered on Milton's behalf in another hand and additional entries to 3 February 1657/8 made in yet another hand.

Mid-17th century

Facsimiles of the page of memoranda in Facsimiles of Royal, Historical, and Literary Autographs in the British Museum (1899), No. 95; in John Milton 1608-1674 Facsimiles of Autographs and Documents in the British Museum (London, 1908); in Milton Tercentenary: The Portraits, Prints and Writings of John Milton Exhibited at Christ's College, Cambridge, 1908 (Cambridge, 1908), facing p. 1; and in Parker, Vol. II, frontispiece. The memoranda edited in Columbia, XVIII, 274-5. Discussed in J. Milton French, Milton's Family Bible, PMLA, 53 (1938), 363-6; in Maurice Kelley, The Annotations in Milton's Family Bible, MLN, 63 (1948), 539-40; in Hanford, No. 1; and in Boswell, No. 188.

The British Library: Additional MSS, numbers 30000 through 34999 (Add. MS 32310)

Chrysostom, Dio. Orationes LXXX (Paris, 1604)

*MnJ 119

Autograph

An exemplum with Milton's autograph inscription, Pre: 18^s. 1636. J: Milton, and corrections.

c.1636

From Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire.

Facsimile examples in Kelley and Atkins, Studies in Bibliography, 17 (1964), 77-82. Recorded in Columbia, XVIII, 576-7; in LR, I, 206; in Parker, II, 805; and in Boswell, No. 342.

Cambridge University Library, shelfmarks M through end (Ely.a.272)

Della Casa, Giovanni. Rime et prose (Venice, 1563)

*MnJ 120

Autograph

An exemplum with Milton's autograph inscription on the title-page, Jo: Milto[n] pre: 10^d. 1629. Dece[], and with marginal annotations in other hands; bound with exempla of Dante's L'amoroso convivio (Venice, 1529) and of Benedetto Varchi's I sonnetti (Venice, 1555).

1563

Later in the library of Richard Heber (1774-1833), book collector. Sotheby's, 16 March 1857, lot 734, and 18 May 1874 (Sir William Tite sale), lot 2043. Bookplate (dated 1881) of J. Eliot Hodgkin, FSA (1829-1912), of Richmond, Surrey, engineer and book collector.

Discussed, with a facsimile of the inscribed title-page, in Maurice Kelley, Milton's Dante-Della Casa-Varchi Volume, BNYPL, 66 (1962), 499-504, where it is argued that all three parts of the volume belonged to Milton, that some of the marginalia in both the Della Casa and the Varchi are in Milton's hand, and that a transcript of a sonnet on f. 28r of the Della Casa is in the hand of an amanuensis responsible for certain entries in Milton's commonplace book (MnJ 66). Facsimile examples also in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 124 (Plate XVII [bis], No. i, item 2), and in Kelley and Atkins, SB, 17 (1964), 77-82. A note (not by Milton) edited in Columbia, XVIII, 345, and see Thomas Ollive Mabbott, Milton: A marginal note in Varchi, N&Q, 163 (10 September 1932), 189. Recorded in Hanford No. 7; in LR, I, 205; and in Boswell, No. 480.

New York Public Library, Rare Book Collection (*KB 1529)

Euripides. Tragoediae quae extant, 2 vols (Geneva, 1602)

*MnJ 121

Autograph

A printed exemplum with (partly eroded) Milton's autograph inscription on the flyleaf, Jo[:] Milton pre:[12]^s [6]^d 1634, and numerous autograph annotations in the text among notes in other hands.

c.1634

Including notes by Joshua Barnes, fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and editor of Euripides in 1694). The initials D S inscribed twice on a flyleaf apparently by Daniel Skinner.

The annotations edited in Columbia, XVIII, 304-20. Discussed in Maurice Kelley and Samuel D. Atkins, Milton's Annotations of Euripides, JEGP, 60 (1961), 680-7. Facsimile examples in Sotheby, Ramblings, pp. 108-10 (Plate XV); in Friends of the Bodleian: Ninth Annual Report (Oxford, 1933-4), after p. 4 [two full pages]; and in Kelley and Atkins, SB, 17 (1964), 77-82. Recorded in Hanford No. 2; in LR, I, 282; and in Boswell, No. 553.

Bodleian Library, Don. MSS (Don. d. 27, 28)

Heraclides of Pontus. Allegoriae in Homeri fabulas de dijs (Basel, 1544)

*MnJ 122

Autograph

An exemplum with Milton's autograph inscription on the flyleaf, Jo. Milton p^d pre: 5^s 1637.

c.1637

Maggs's sale catalogue Mercurius Britannicus, No. 100 (January 1947), item 71.

Discussed in Harris Fletcher, Milton's Copy of Gesner's Heraclides, 1544, JEGP, 47 (1948), 182-7. Facsimile examples in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 124 (Plate XVII [bis], No. i, item 4), and in Kelley and Atkins, SB, 17 (1964), 77-82. Recorded in Hanford No. 6; in Columbia, XVIII, 577; in LR, I, 304; and in Boswell, No. 746.

University of Illinois (X881 H215 1544)

Lycophron. Lycophronis Alexandra (Geneva, 1601)

*MnJ 123

Autograph

An exemplum with Milton's autograph inscription on the title-page, Sum ex libris Jo: Miltoni, and his copious marginal annotations.

c.1630s

Also inscribed Nunc Josephi Wells & amicorum pre: 13^s. 1634. Once owned by Francis William Caulfield (1775-1863), second Earl of Charlemont. Sotheby's, 11 August 1865, lot 71. Bookplate of Birket Foster (1825-99), painter and illustrator. Sotheby's, 11 June 1894, lot 38, to Quaritch. Later owned by Adrian Van Sinderen of Brooklyn.

The annotations discussed in Sotheby, Ramblings, pp. 110-11, and, in considerable detail, in Harris Francis Fletcher, John Milton's Copy of Lycophron's Alexandra in the Library of the University of Illinois, Milton Quarterly, 23/4 (December 1989), 129-66. Edited in Columbia, XVIII, 320-5. Facsimile examples in Kelley and Atkins, SB, 17 (1964), 77-82. Recorded in Hanford No. 3, and in Boswell, No. 941.

University of Illinois (881 L71601 copy 1)

Books Alleged, Doubtfully or Spuriously, to be from Milton's Library

Ames, William. Conscientia (Amsterdam, 1635)

MnJ 124

An exemplum bearing the inscription, in an unidentified hand, Ex libris Johannis Miltonii.

Possibly owned by Milton the poet, but lacking any sign of his own hand by way of corroboration.

1635

Recorded in LR, I, 292;, and in Boswell, No. 36.

Princeton (Not NjP)

Best, Paul. Mysteries Discovered (1647)

MnJ 125

An exemplum with annotations once attributed to Milton.

The annotations discussed, and attributed to Milton, by R. Brook Aspland in The Christian Reformer; or, Unitarian Magazine and Review, 3rd Ser. 9 (1853), 561-3, with facsimile examples. Discussed, with a facsimile example, and the attribution rejected, in Maurice Kelley, Milton and the Notes on Paul Best, The Library, 5th Ser. 5 (1950), 49-51. The annotations edited in Columbia, XVIII, 341-4. Recorded in LR, II, 170, and in Boswell, No. 178.

Bodleian Library, other MSS (Pamph. 84 (39) (Arch. A. e. 69))

Boiardo, S. Matteo Maria. Orlando Innamorato (Venice, 1608)

MnJ 126

Exemplum inscribed Bought at Venyse by Mr ffrancis Gherard For Daniel Oxenbridge & by hym sent to his good Freynd Mr John Milton in London p. ye Golden Lyon Thomas Whiteing Mr ye 19^th: June 1643 In Lyvorne.

1843

The inscription usually treated with scepticism. An argument in its defence in Leo Miller, Milton's Oxenbridge Boiardo Validated, Milton Quarterly, 23 (1989), 26-8.

University of Illinois (IUA01704)

Browne, William. Britannia's Pastorals (London, 1613-16)

MnJ 127

Allegedly Milton's exemplum.

Mid-17th century

Sotheby's, 23 February 1856, lot 108, to Patrick. In the library of Henry Huth (1815-78), book collector. Sotheby's, 23 November 1911 (Huth sale), lot 1054, with a facsimile example in the sale catalogue. Sotheby's, New York, 11 December 1989, lot 129 (with a detailed account of provenance in the sale catalogue). Also owned by Dr Otto Fisher, of Detroit.

Discussed, with a facsimile example, in Sotheby, Ramblings, pp. 97-104 (and Plate XIV, No. 1). The annotations edited in Columbia, XVIII, 336-40. Recorded in Boswell, No. 252.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Milton/Brown])

Farnaby Thomas. Systema grammaticum (London, 1641)

MnJ 128

Allegedly Milton's exemplum.

Mid-17th century

American Art Association, New York, 26 January 1922, lot 35. with a facsimile example in the sale catalogue.

Discussed in Washington Moon, Milton's Autograph, N&Q, 2nd Ser. 6 (10 July 1858), 39; and in T.O. Mabbott, The Notes on Farnaby ascribed to John Milton, N&Q, 171 (29 August 1936), 152-4. Recorded in Columbia, XVIII, 346; in LR, II, 29; and in Boswell, No. 587.

Harvard, other MSS (STC 14497.100* (Lobby XI.3.40))

Frischlin, Nicodemus. Operum poeticorum (Strasbourg, 1595)

MnJ 129

Allegedly Milton's exemplum.

Mid-17th century

Recorded in Columbia, XVIII, 578; LR, V, 127; and in Boswell, No. 620.

Harvard, other MSS (*EC65.M6427.Zz595t (Lobby XI.3.42))

Gildas. De excidio et conquestu Britanniæ epistola [1587]

MnJ 130

On pp. 113-46 of a larger collection entitled Rerum Britannicarum, ed. Hieronymus Commelinus (Heidelberg, 1587). Allegedly Milton's exemplum with his annotations.

Mid-17th century

Discussed, with facsimile examples, in J. Milton French, Milton's Annotated Copy of Gildas, HSNPL, 20 (1938), 75-80, and, with scepticism about the annotations, in W.H. Davies, A Note on Milton's Annotated Copy of Gildas in Harvard University (Widener) Library, Papers of the British School at Rome, 15 (1939), 49-51. The annotations edited in Columbia, XVIII, 327-30. Recorded in Boswell, No. 434 (and 651).

Harvard, other MSS (Br 98.319F* Lobby XI. 4. 24)

Harington, Sir John. Orlando Furioso, [trans. from Ludovico Ariosto] (London, 1591)

MnJ 131

A printed exemplum with Harington's autograph corrections. Allegedly Milton's exemplum.

c.1591-early 17th century

The annotations edited in Columbia, XVIII, 330-6. Discussed in Ralph A. Haug, Milton and Sir John Harington, MLQ, 4 (1943), 291. Recorded in LR, II, 78-9; in Carey & Fowler, p. 155; in Boswell, No. 64.

Private owners in the UK ([Milton/Harington])

Pindar Olympia (Salmurii, 1620)

MnJ 132

Allegedly Milton's exemplum.

Early-mid-17th century

Sotheby's, 5 August 1871, lot 1588.

The annotations edited in Columbia, XVIII, 276-304. Discussed, with facsimile examples (and the attribution disputed), in Maurice Kelley and Samuel D. Atkins, Milton and the Harvard Pindar, Studies in bibliography, 17 (1964), 77-82. Recorded in LR, I, 204-5, 221-2, and in Boswell, No. 1119.

Harvard, other MSS (*OGC.P653.620 (B) (Lobby XI.3.44))

Rosse, Alexander. Mel Heliconium (1646)

MnJ 133

Allegedly Milton's exemplum.

Mid-17th century

Puttick & Simpson's, 19-20 April 1849, lot 322. Sotheby's, 18 May 1874 (Sir William Tite sale), lot 2044.

Facsimile example in Sotheby, Ramblings, pp. 111-12 (Plate XVI, No. i). Recorded in Columbia, XVIII, 357; in LR, II, 135; and in Boswell, No. 1236.

New York Public Library, Rare Book Collection (*KGF (Milton))

Terence. Comoediæ sex (Leiden, 1635)

MnJ 134

Allegedly Milton's exemplum.

1635

Recorded in Columbia, XVIII, 576; in LR, I, 291; and in Boswell, No. 1383.

Harvard, other MSS (*EC65 M642.7.Zz635t (Lobby XI.3.41))

Thucydides. [Historici gravissimi, historiarum Peloponnensium] Laurentio Valla interprete (Basel, 1564)

MnJ 135

Allegedly Milton's exemplum signed by him.

1564

Formerly in the Rosenbach Museum & Library, 1083/24. Apparently stolen.

Facsimile of the signed title-page in Clive E. Driver, A Selection from Our Shelves: Books, manuscripts and drawings from the Philip H. & A.S.W. Rosenbach Foundation Museum (Philadelphia, 1973), No. 47. The annotations edited in Columbia, XVIII, 572. Recorded in LR, V, 130, and in Boswell, No. 1411.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Milton/Thucydides])

Miscellaneous Extracts from Works by Milton

Extracts

MnJ 136

A small (?sextodecimo) miscellany, entitled (f. 1r) Miscellanea Vol 2 1690, largely in a neat minute hand (up to f. 60v), 85 leaves (plus 37 blanks), in contemporary calf.

c.1690

Inscribed name (f. 2r) Peter Save (who was also responsible for University of Illinois, 821.08/C737/17—). Later owned by Edward Hailstone (1818-90), of Walton Hall, Wakefield, botanist and book collector. Bequeathed in 1894 by Samuel Sandars, of Kensington.

Cambridge University Library, Additional MSS 1 through 4999 (MS Add. 4146 ff. 56r-8r)

MnJ 137

A quarto verse miscellany, largely in one hand, with additions by others, written from both ends, material at the reverse end dated 1708-9, ii + 114 leaves, in 19th-century half-calf.

Inscribed (f. [ii^r]), probably by the compiler, Ex Libris Georgij Wright [b.1685/6] S^ti Johannis Collegis Cantabrigiensis Alumni, Decimo quarto Junij. Annoq. Domini 1703.

c.1703-9

Also inscribed (f.[ii^r]) M^rs Frances Wright 1708. A postal address on f. 95r (rev.) reads: Direct to Marg^tt Borrett att M^rs. Borretts In Kirkby=stephen Westmoorland p brough bag _ These.

Recorded in IELM, II.ii, as the Wright MS: WaE Δ 12.

Edinburgh University Library (MS Dc. 3. 76 passim)

MnJ 138

Extracts, the MS copied or owned by Peter Sterry (1613-72), theologian, Fellow of Emmanuel College from 1636.

Mid-17th century

Emmanuel College, Cambridge (Peter Sterry MSS 4, p. 182)

MnJ 139

Extracts from Milton's dramatic works.

A quarto commonplace book of extracts illustrating specified topics, largely in a single cursive hand, entitled Miscellanea Tragica Theatrical Index of Sentim^ts. & Descriptions Vol. 7, 244 pages (including blanks, plus a seven-page index and further blanks), in quarter crushed morocco on marbled boards.

Inscribed W. Harte 1726: i.e. by Walter Harte (1709-41), compiler of the MS, which also has his bookplate.

c.1726

The Folger Shakespeare Library, Miscellaneous manuscripts (MS M.a.47 pp. 171-4)

MnJ 140

A large untitled folio anthology of quotations chiefly from Elizabethan and Stuart plays, alphabetically arranged under subject headings, in a single mixed hand, in double columns, 900 pages (lacking pp. 1-4, 379-80, 667-8, 715-20 and 785-8), including (pp. 893-7) an alphabetical index of some 351 titles of plays, in modern boards.

This is the longest known extant version of the unpublished anthology Hesperides or The Muses Garden, by John Evans, entered in the Stationers' Register on 16 August 1655 and subsequently advertised c.1660, among works he purposed to print, by Humphrey Moseley. Another version of this work, in the same hand, dissected by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps (1820-89), is now distributed between Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Halliwell-Phillipps, Notes upon the Works of Shakespeare, Folger, MS V.a.75, Folger, MS V.a.79, and Folger, MS V.a.80.

c.1656-66

Formerly MS 469.2.

This MS identified in IELM, II.i (1980), p. 450. Discussed, as the master draft, with a facsimile of p. 7 on p. 381, in Hao Tianhu, Hesperides, or the Muses' Garden and its Manuscript History, The Library, 7th Ser. 10/4 (December 2009), 372-404 (the full index printed as Catalogue A on pp. 385-94).

The Folger Shakespeare Library: V.b. series (MS V.b.93 passim)

MnJ 141

Extracts from Milton's poems.

A set of three quarto verse miscellanies, largely in a single cursive hand, all transcribed from printed books, 276 + 340 + c.350 pages, in contemporary vellum boards.

Volume I with a title-page Scraps of Poetry On Winter, Its Opposites, & Concomitants: and many other agreeable Fragments all Collected Chiefly from borrowed Books Begun April 7^th: 1760. and finished May 20^th: 1760. By me Tho: Austen, Rochester.

Volume II, written from both ends, some pages in a second hand, dated 1765.

Volume III, written from both ends, entitled An Abstract of curious, odd, & comical Passages from old Plays as they came casually to hand, Begun Novemb^r. 1767.

1760-7

Donated by Edgar Huidekoper Wells (class of 1897).

Harvard, other MSS (MS Eng 611 Vol. I, pp. 256-62)

MnJ 142

Leeds University Library, Brotherton Collection (MS Lt q 56 ff. 21r-3r)

MnJ 143

A folio verse miscellany, in possibly two neat rounded hands, 366 pages plus a five-page index, dated at the end Finis August y^e. 6^th 1717.

1715-17

University of Chicago (MS 553 p. 19)

MnJ 144

A quarto account book of George Downing relating to legal matters, subsequently used as a commonplace book by a member of the Willes or Lovell families, 80 pages.

1785-9 [-c.1800]

Wiltshire and Swindon Archives (161/198 [unspecified page numbers])

MnJ 145

A quarto commonplace book of verse extracts, 340 pages (including blanks), in a small neat hand.

Mid-18th century

Yale, Osborn, others (Osborn MS c 144 passim)

MnJ 146

Three quarto volumes of verse, 164, 155 and 145 leaves respectively, in later vellum.

Compiled by Colonel Gabriel Lepipre.

c.1753

Yale, Osborn, others (Osborn MS c 360 Vol. I, [unspecified page numbers])

MnJ 147

A small octavo miscellany, 220 pages.

Late 17th century

Later owned by Reginald L. Hine (1883-1949), Hertfordshire solicitor. Sotheby's, 12 December 1977, lot 110, to Quaritch.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Hine MS] [unspecified pages])

MnJ 148

An unbound collection of unbound manuscripts of verse and other writings, in various hands and paper sizes, upwards of 100 items.

Belonging to the family and descendants of Sir William Temple, Bt (1628-99), diplomat and author.

Sotheby's, 13 December 1994, lot 43, to Figgis Rare Books.

Untraced, miscellaneous ([Temple MSS] [unnumbered item])

John Milton

Introduction

Autograph Manuscripts

Letters

Documents

Milton's State Letters and Papers

Presentation Exempla of Books by Milton

Milton's Library

Milton's Amanuenses

Circulation of Milton's Works in Manuscript

Other Texts

Hobson's Epitaph and Other Dubious Attributions

Miscellaneous

Abbreviations

Verse

Prose

Dramatic Works

Letters

Documents

Exempla of Printed Works by Milton with his Inscriptions or Additions

Books from Milton's Library

Books Alleged, Doubtfully or Spuriously, to be from Milton's Library

Miscellaneous Extracts from Works by Milton

Contents