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.
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 ye Cambridge carrier who died 1630 in ye vacancy of his carriage by reason of ye sicknesse then hott at Cambridge’ and here beginning ‘Here Hobson lies who did most truly prove’.
In: 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.
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.
MnJ 3
Copy, headed ‘Hobson the Carrier’ and here beginning ‘Here Hobson lyes, who did most truely prove’.
In: 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.
This MS discussed in Shawcross, RES, 18 (1967).
MnJ 4
Copy of a 26-line version, headed ‘Vpon old Hobson Cambridge Carrier who dyed 1630 in ye Vacation by reason of ye Sicknesse yn hot at Camb:’ and here beginning ‘Here Hobson Lyes, who did most truly proue’.
In: 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).
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).
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’.
In: 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.
This MS collated in Shawcross, RES, 18 (1967).
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
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.
In: 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.
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.
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.
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
An early autograph academic exercise in Latin verse on the theme of early rising.
In: 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.
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.
[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
An early autograph academic exercise in Latin verse, on the theme of early rising.
In: the MS described under MnJ 7. c.1624-6.
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.
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.’
In: 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.
This MS collated by editors; discussed in William R. Parker, ‘Milton and the Marchioness of Winchester’, MLR, 44 (1949), 547-50.
MnJ 9.5
Copy in: A quarto verse miscellany, 171 leaves, with an index, imperfect at the beginning, in contemporary calf (rebacked). Compiled by Colonel Gabriel Lepipre, being the ‘4th Vol’. of his compilations. c.1748-50s.
Donated in 1938 by F.F. Madan.
[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 of two lines drafted on the back of a letter to Milton by Henry Lawes written probably in April 1638.
In: 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).
Edited from this MS in Horwood, in Columbia, and in Carey & Fowler.
Ignavus satrapam dedecet inclytum
See MnJ 8.
Il Penseroso (‘Hence vain deluding joyes’)
First published in Poems (1645).
MnJ 10.2
Copy or extracts.
In: 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.
L'Allegro (‘Hence loathed Melancholy’)
First published in Poems (1645).
MnJ 10.5
Copy of part of the poem.
In: 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.
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 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’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
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.
Trinity College, Cambridge, MS R. 3. 4 (James 583), pp. 30-4.
*MnJ 12
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).
*MnJ 13
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.
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.
*MnJ 15
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.
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.
MnJ 16.5
Copy of a Latin translation.
In: A collection of unbound verse, in various hands. Probably collected by Dr Samuel Knight (1677/8-1746), clergyman and antiquary.
MnJ 16.8
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. c.1637.
In: 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.
Recorded in Shawcross, Bibliography, No. 410.
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.’.
In: 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.
This MS recorded in LR, II, 212-14.
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’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated in Columbia; in Darbishire; and in Carey & Fowler. Facsimile in Poems (1972). Variously dated between 1646 and 1653.
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’.
In: 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. c.1630s.
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.
Inscribed (f. [104v] ‘Thomas White His Book May ye 20 Anno Domine 1691’. Later owned by James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps and in his library at Warwick Castle. Formerly Folger MS 1.21.
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.
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 fair copy, original heading ‘[To be] set on a clock case’ later deleted and retitled ‘On Time’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated in Columbia, in Darbishire, and in Carey & Fowler. Facsimile in Poems (1972).
MnJ 21
Copy of an early version, headed ‘Vpon a Clocke Case, or Dyall’. c.1630s.
In: 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).
This MS collated in Darbishire.
Paradise Lost (‘Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit’)
First published in London, 1667. Columbia, II. Darbishire I. Carey & Fowler, pp. 417-1060.
See also MnJ 67.
MnJ 22
MS of Book I in the hand of one of Milton's amanuenses (who also made an entry in his Commonplace Book: MnJ 66), with corrections in other hands (principally that of Milton's nephew, Edward Phillips), the MS used as the printer's copy by Samuel Simmons for the first printed edition, on 33 quarto pages. Bearing on the verso of the first leaf the imprimatur of Thomas Tomkyns, a chaplain of Archbishop Sheldon; also signed by Richard Royston, Warden of the Stationers' Company, and by the Clerk of the Company, George Tokefield. c.1665.
Accompanied by (Pierpont Morgan Library, MA 307A) a lengthy autograph letter by Jacob Tonson to his nephew Jacob Tonson, written after 1732, concerning this MS and mentioning Brabazon Aylmer from whom he purchased half the rights to the poem in 1683. The text is printed in full in Darbishire's facsimile edition, pp. xi-xv.
Subsequently owned by the publisher Jacob Tonson (1656?-1736), who purchased the copyright of the poem. Sold by Henry Clinton Baker of Bayfordbury at Sotheby's, 25 January 1904 (separate catalogue), to Baker.
This MS first recorded in T. Newton's edition of Paradise Lost (London, 1749). Collated in Columbia, in Darbishire, and in Carey & Fowler. Complete facsimile edition in The Manuscript of Milton's Paradise Lost Book 1, ed. Helen Darbishire (Oxford, 1931); complete facsimile also in Illinois, II, 31-99. Facsimile examples in Sotheby, Ramblings, after p. 196 (Plate XXV); Carey & Fowler, after p. 1034 (Plates 5 & 6); and British Literary Autographs, Series I (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1981), No. 41.
MnJ 23
Copy of the complete text, transcribed from the edition of 1674, on 186 octavo leaves. Late 17th or early 18th century.
This MS recorded in Shawcross, Bibliography, No. 406.
MnJ 23.2
MS of a translation of Paradise Lost, Book I, into Italian, by Lorenzo Magalotti (1637-1712)
In: MS.
MnJ 23.3
Copy of Eve's speech, Book IV, lines 641-58, beginning ‘Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet’, in a musical setting.
In: 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.
MnJ 23.4
Extracts.
In: A folio composite volume of verse MSS, in various hands and paper sizes, 231 leaves, in 19th-century half black morocco. Including items once owned by Ralph Thoresby (1658-1725), Yorkshire antiquary and topographer. Collected by Thomas Birch (1705-66), biographer and historian.
Presumably from item 47 among the folio MSS recorded in Thoresby's Ducatus Leodiensis, 2nd edition (Leeds, 1816), Appendix, p. 77.
MnJ 23.5
Extracts.
In: A tall folio composite volume of verse and some prose, chiefly translations from Latin, in various hands and paper sizes, 133 leaves, mounted on guards, in half red morocco. Volume XVIII of papers of the families of Browne, Mariett and West, of the manor of Alscot, in Preston-on-Stour, Gloucestershire.
Portions once owned by Henry Jackson (1586-1662), Hooker's first editor; by Anthony Wood (1632-95), Oxford antiquary; by Thomas Coxeter (1689-1747); and probably by James West, FRS, FSA, MP (1703-72), politician and antiquary.
MnJ 23.6
Extracts from Paradise Lost.
In: A folio volume of collections compiled by Dr Basil Kennett (1674-1715), antiquary and translator. Volume VI of the Kennett Papers. c.1700.
MnJ 23.7
Extracts.
In: An octavo verse miscellany, in probably a single neat hand, with a two-page index at the end, 143 pages, in limp vellum. Early 18th century.
Formerly P7455M1 [1712?] Bound.
Psalm 136 (‘Let us with a gladsom mind’)
First published in Poems (1645). Columbia, I, 12-15. Darbishire, II, 121-3. Carey & Fowler, pp. 7-10.
MnJ 24
Copy, transcribed from the printed text of 1645, subscribed ‘Milton. poëms. p. 13. (done at 15 years old’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 17. Mid-17th century.
This MS recorded in LR, II, 212-14.
Sonnet VII (‘How soon hath Time the suttle theef of youth’)
First published in Poems (1645). Columbia, I, 60-1. Darbishire, II, 149-50. Carey & Fowler, pp. 146-8.
*MnJ 25
Autograph fair copy, untitled, contained in Milton's first draft of a letter to a friend (MnJ 68).
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
Edited from this MS in Columbia, XII, 322. Collated in Darbishire and in Carey & Fowler. Facsimiles in Poems (1972); in Sotheby, Ramblings, p. 14 and after p. 52; in Garnett & Gosse (1903), III, 11; in Petti, English Literary Hands, No. 59. N.B. the poem does not appear in the second draft of the letter on p. 7 of the MS.
Sonnet VIII (‘Captain or Colonel, or Knight in Arms’)
First published in Poems (1645). Columbia, I, 60-1. Darbishire, II, 150. Carey & Fowler, pp. 284-5.
*MnJ 26
Copy, in the hand of an amanuensis, the original heading ‘On his dore when ye Citty expected an assault’ deleted by Milton and retitled in his hand ‘When the assault was intended to ye Citty’, the date ‘1642’ also added probably by Milton and deleted.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated by Editors. Facsimile in Poems (1972).
Sonnet IX (‘Lady that in the prime of earliest youth’)
First published in Poems (1645). Columbia, I, 61. Darbishire, II, 150. Carey & Fowler, pp. 287-8.
*MnJ 27
Autograph draft, with revisions, untitled.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated by editors. Facsimile in Poems (1972). Generally dated 1642-5.
Sonnet X (‘Daughter to that good Earl, once President’)
First published in Poems (1645). Columbia, I, 61-2. Darbishire, II, 151. Carey & Fowler, pp. 286-7.
*MnJ 28
Autograph draft, with revisions, headed ‘To ye Lady Margaret Ley’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated by editors. Facsimile in Poems (1972). Generally dated 1641-5.
Sonnet XI (‘A Book was writ of late call'd ‘Tetrachordon’’)
First published in Poems &c. upon several Occasions (1673). Columbia, I, 62. Darbishire, II, 151. Carey & Fowler, pp. 305-6.
*MnJ 29
Autograph rough draft, with extensive revisions, untitled but numbered ‘12’. Variously dated 1645-1653.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated by editors. Facsimile in Poems (1972).
MnJ 30
Copy, in the hand of an amanuensis, untitled but numbered ‘12’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated by editors. Facsimile in Poems (1972).
Sonnet XII. On the same (‘I did but prompt the age to quit their cloggs’)
First published in Poems &c. upon several Occasions (1673). Columbia, I, 62-3. Darbishire, II, 151-2. Carey & Fowler, pp. 293-5.
*MnJ 31
Autograph draft, with revisions, headed ‘11 / On the [detraction crossed out] wch follow'd upon my writing certain treatises’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated by editors. Facsimile in Poems (1972). Variously dated 1645-53.
MnJ 32
Copy, in the hand of an amanuensis, originally untitled but numbered ‘11’, subsequently headed in the hand of Jeremie Picard ‘these sonnets follow ye. 10 in ye. printed booke / On the detraccon which followed upon my writeing certaine treatises / 1 vid. ante’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated in Columbia and in Darbishire. Facsimile in Poems (1972).
Sonnet XIII. To Mr. H. Lawes, on his Aires (‘Harry whose tuneful and well measur'd Song’)
First published, as ‘To my friend Mr. Henry Lawes’, in Henry Lawes and William Lawes, Choice Psalms put into Musick for three voices (1648). Poems &c. upon several Occasions (1673). Columbia, I, 63. Darbishire, II, 152. Carey & Fowler, pp. 292-3.
*MnJ 33
Autograph rough draft, with revisions, crossed out, headed ‘To my freind Mr Hen. Laws Feb. 9. 1645’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated by editors. Facsimile in Poems (1972). Discussed in MacDonald Emslie, ‘Milton on Lawes: The Trinity MS Revisions’, in Music in English Renaissance Drama, ed. John H. Long (Lexington, 1968), pp. 96-102.
*MnJ 34
Autograph fair copy, headed afterwards in the hand of an amanuensis ‘To Mr: Hen: Laws on the publishing of his Aires’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated by editors. Facsimile in Poems (1972). Discussed in Emslie. Generally dated c.1653.
MnJ 35
Copy, in the hand of an amanuensis, headed ‘To Mr: H[en deleted]. Lawes on [the publishing of deleted] his Aires’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated by editors. Facsimile in Poems (1972). Discussed in Emslie. Generally dated c.1653.
Sonnet XIV (‘When Faith and Love which parted from thee never’)
First published in Poems &c. upon several Occasions (1673). Columbia, I, 63-4. Darbishire, II, 152-3. Carey & Fowler, pp. 298-9.
*MnJ 36
Autograph rough draft, extensively revised and crossed out, with the deleted heading ‘On ye religious memorie of Mrs Catharine Thomason my christian freind deceas'd 16 Decem. 1646’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated by editors. Facsimile in Poems (1972).
*MnJ 37
Autograph fair copy, with revisions, untitled but numbered ‘14’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated by editors. Facsimile in Poems (1972).
MnJ 38
Copy, in the hand of an amanuensis, untitled but numbered ‘14’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated by editors. Facsimile in Poems (1972). Generally dated c.1653.
Sonnet XV. On the Lord Gen. Fairfax at the seige of Colchester (‘Fairfax, whose name in armes through Europe rings’)
First published, as ‘To my Lord Fairfax’, at the end of Edward Phillips's life of Milton prefixed to Letters of State, written by Mr. John Milton (London, 1694). Columbia, I, 64. Darbishire, II, 153. Carey & Fowler, pp. 321-3.
*MnJ 39
Autograph draft, numbered ‘15’, with the deleted heading ‘On ye Lord Gen. Fairfax at ye siege of Colchester’ and the marginal note ‘on ye forcers of Conscience to come in heer turn over the leafe’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
Edited from this MS in Columbia; in Darbishire; and in Carey & Fowler. Facsimile in Poems (1972). Generally dated 1648-53.
Sonnet XVI. To the Lord Generall Cromwell May 1652 (‘Cromwell, our cheif of men, who through a cloud’)
First published, as ‘To Oliver Cromwell’, at the end of Edward Phillips's life of Milton prefixed to Letters of State, written by Mr. John Milton (London, 1694). Columbia, I, 65. Darbishire, II, 153-4. Carey & Fowler, pp. 325-7.
*MnJ 40
Copy, in the hand of an amanuensis, with revisions, numbered ‘16’ and with the deleted heading ‘To the Lord Generall Cromwell May 1652 / On the proposalls of certaine ministers at ye Commtee for Propagation of the Gospell’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
Edited from this MS in Columbia; in Darbishire; and in Carey & Fowler. Facsimile in Poems (1972. Facsimile examples in A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, ed. Charles R. Sumner (London, 1825), after p. xviii, and in Miller, p. 292.
Sonnet XVII. To Sr Henry Vane the younger (‘Vane, young in yeares, but in sage counsell old’)
First published, and dated 3 July 1652, in G. Sikes, The Life and Death of Sir Henry Vane (1662). Edited, ss ‘To Sir Henry Vane’, at the end of Edward Phillips's life of Milton prefixed to Letters of State, written by Mr. John Milton (London, 1694). Columbia, I, 65-6. Darbishire, II, 154. Carey & Fowler, pp. 327-9.
MnJ 41
Copy, in the hand of an amanuensis, with revisions, numbered ‘17’ and with the deleted heading ‘To Sr Henry Vane the younger’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
Edited from this MS in Columbia and in Darbishire. Collated in Carey & Fowler. Facsimile in Poems (1972). Facsimile example in Miller, p. 296.
MnJ 41.5
Copy by William Grays.
In: MS copy of John Cotton's ‘An Abstract of the laws of New England’, made by William Grays. 1767.
Massachusetts Historical Society, Ms. S-747, [unspecified page numbers].
Sonnet XXI (‘Cyriack, whose Grandsire on the Royal Bench’)
First published in Poems &c. upon several Occasions (1673). Columbia, I, 67-8. Darbishire, II, 156. Carey & Fowler (as ‘Sonnet XVIII’), pp. 412-14.
MnJ 42
Copy of lines 5-14 (beginning ‘To day deep thoughts resolve with me to drench’), in the hand of an amanuensis (Cyriack Skinner), imperfect, lacking the beginning.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated in Columbia and in Darbishire. Discussed in Carey & Fowler. Facsimiles in Poems (1972), and in Darbishire, Early Lives, after p. xxvi. Generally dated c.1654-5.
Sonnet XXII. To Mr. Cyriack Skinner upon his Blindness (‘Cyriack, this three years day these eys, though clear’)
First published, as ‘To Mr Cyriac Skinner Upon his Blindness’, at the end of Edward Phillips's life of Milton prefixed to Letters of State, written by Mr. John Milton (London, 1694). Columbia, I, 68. Darbishire, II, 156. Carey & Fowler, p. 414.
MnJ 43
Copy, in the hand of an amanuensis (Cyriack Skinner), with revisions, untitled but numbered ‘22’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
Edited from this MS in Columbia; in Darbishire; and in Carey & Fowler. Facsimiles in Poems (1972), and in Darbishire, Early Lives, after p. xxvi. Generally dated c.1654-6.
Sonnet XXIII (‘Methought I saw my late espoused Saint’)
First published in Poems &c. upon several Occasions (1673). Columbia, I, 68-9. Darbishire, II, 156-7. Carey & Fowler (as ‘Sonnet XIX’), pp. 415-16.
MnJ 44
Copy, in the hand of an amanuensis (Jeremie Picard), untitled but numbered ‘23’.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated in Columbia and in Darbishire. Facsimiles in Poems (1972); in Don M. Wolfe, Milton and His England (Princeton, 1971), p. 59; and in A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, ed. Charles R. Sumner (London, 1825), after p. xviii. Discussed in C.R. Dahlberg, ‘Milton's Sonnet 23 on his “Late Espoused Saint”’, N&Q, 194 (23 July 1949), 321. Generally dated c.1655-8.
To Mr. Cyriack Skinner upon his Blindness
See MnJ 43.
To Mr. H. Lawes, on his Aires
See MnJ 33-35.
To Sr Henry Vane the younger
See MnJ 41.
To the Lord Generall Cromwell May 1652
See MnJ 40.
Vpon old Hobson the Carrier of Cambridge (‘Here Hobson lyes, who did most truely prove’)
See MnJ 2-5.
Upon the Circumcision (‘Ye flaming Powers, and winged Warriours bright’)
First published in Poems (1645). Columbia, I, 26-7. Darbishire, II, 132. Carey & Fowler, pp. 166-7.
*MnJ 45
Autograph fair copy.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
This MS collated by editors. Facsimile in Poems (1972).
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).
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 (‘No [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).
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.
In: 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.
This MS recorded in LR, II, 264.
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.
The History of Britain
First published in London, 1670-71.
See also MnJ 47.
MnJ 48.4
Extracts, in French, untitled, subscribed ‘Milton Cronicle of Engl’.
In: A small quarto commonplace book, chiefly in French, compiled by Gedeon Bonniver, 175 leaves. Late 17th-early 18th century.
MnJ 48.6
Extracts, headed ‘Notes taken out of Milton concerning ye History of England’, 41 duodecimo leaves, in modern cloth gilt. Mid-late 17th century.
MnJ 48.8
Extracts, headed ‘Milton, his History of England: Page 953’.
In: A quarto commonplace book, in two or more hands, written from both ends, iv + 200 pages + 168 pages reversed, in contemporary calf. Late 17th century.
Owned, and possibly compiled in part, by John Branthwaite (1643-95), rector of Harrington, Cumberland. (his deleted inscription on p. 1 rev.). Inscribed on a flyleaf ‘A. G. Osaph from C W Corrie 2 Nov. 1904’.
A Letter to a Friend, concerning the Ruptures of the Commonwealth
First published in A Complete Collection of the Historical, Political and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton, ed. John Toland (‘Amsterdam’ [London], 1698). Columbia, VI, 101-6. Yale, VII, 322-33.
MnJ 49
Copy of an early version, untitled, subscribed ‘J. M.’, dated ‘Octob. 20th. 1659’.
In: 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. The first 79 pages in a single mixed hand; pp. 1-19 comprising political tracts; pp. 19-79 devoted to material relating to Milton; pp. ‘150’-144 and 154 containing a few legal notes in Latin and a list of ‘English Phrases derivd from ye Latine tongue. &c:’ in another hand, with other notes chiefly at the reverse end in later hands c.1703. Late 17th century.
Owned by, and with later entries in the hand of, Bernard Gardiner (1668-1726), Warden of All Souls College, Oxford. Later owned and inscribed by Sir Thomas Phillipps, Bt (1792-1872), book and manuscript collector: Phillipps MS 3993. Sotheby's, 27 June 1919, lot 819, and 1 June 1921, lot 1003.
Cited in IELM, II.ii (1993) as the Columbia MS. This MS used in Columbia (Vols. XIII, XVIII). The anonymous essays ‘of Statues & Antiquities’ (pp. 3-4) and ‘A breif description of Genoa’, as well the legal notes and vocabulary, are edited in Columbia (XVIII, 258-62, 221-7) as ‘doubtfully’ by Milton. Iin fact there is no evidence that they have any connection with him unless, perchance, they were among the general state papers to which he had access. The MS also described in LR, IV, 277-9, and, with the text of the legal index, in Yale, I, 954-60.
Edited from this MS in Yale, Collated in Columbia, XVIII, 644-5.
‘Mane citus lectum fuge’
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. 61-2. Columbia, XII, 287-91, with English translation. English translation only in Yale, I, 1034-9, as ‘Theme on Early Rising’.
*MnJ 50
An early autograph academic exercise (sometimes mistakenly referred to as a Prolusio), in Latin prose, on the theme of early rising.
In: the MS described under MnJ 7. c.1624-6.
Edited from this MS in Horwood and (from the British Library photograph of it) in Columbia and in Yale.
Of Prelatical Episcopacy
First published in London, 1641. Columbia, III, Part 1, 81-104. Yale, I, 618-52.
MnJ 51
Copy, in a single mixed hand, transcribed from the printed edition of 1641, on eleven quarto leaves. Mid-late 17th century.
In: A quarto composite volume of tracts and papers on state and ecclesiastical matters, in several largely professional secretary hands, unpaginated, in 19th-century half-calf on marbled boards.
Owned in September 1836 by David Laing.
This MS recorded in Shawcross, Bibliography, No. 405.
Outlines for Tragedies
See MnJ 67.
Pro populo anglicano defensio
First published in London, 1651. Columbia, vol. VII. English translation only in Yale, IV, Part 1, 285-537.
MnJ 52
Copy, neatly transcribed in black and red ink from the first edition, on the first 245 pages.
In: A duodecimo volume of Latin tracts, 165 leaves. Late 17th century.
This MS recorded in Columbia, XVIII, 557; LR, II, 354.
MnJ 53
Copy, neatly transcribed from a printed source.
In: Octavo MS volume containing two works, by Andrew Marvell and by John Donne. Late 17th century.
Once owned by one H. Dixon and, in London on 24 August 1750, by Chr[istopher] Frid[erick] Temler.
This MS recorded in Columbia, XVIII, 557. Shawcross, Bibliography, No. 404.
Royal Library, Copenhagen, Gl. Kgl. Saml. 3579, 8vo, pp. 1-180.
MnJ 53.5
Extracts ‘Ex Ioannis Miltons Angli pro populo Anglicano Defensione secunde Contra infamem libertu anonymum cui tutulus Regii sanguinis clamor ad coelum adversus parricidas Anglicanos, Londini Typis Neucomiami 1654’.
In: A folio miscellany of verse and prose, in English and Latin, largely in one hand, iv + 544 pages (including numerous blanks), in vellum boards. Inscribed, and evidently compiled, by Sir Henry Oxinden (1609-70), of Barham, Kent. c.1642-70.
Inscribed ‘Lee Warly. Canterbury. 1764’. Booklabel of Henry Huth (1815-78), book collector.
Prolusio: ‘Mane citus lectum fuge’
See MnJ 50.
Proposalls of certaine expedients for ye prsenting of a civill war now feard, & ye setting of a firme governmt. by J.M.
First published in Columbia, XVIII (1938), 3-7. Yale, I, 334-9.
MnJ 54
Copy, subscribed ‘J. M.’
In: the MS described under MnJ 49. Late 17th century.
Edited from this MS in Columbia and in Yale.
The Readie and Easie Way to Establish a free Commonwealth
First published in London, 1660. Second (‘revis'd and augmented’) edition published in London 1660, and reprinted in A Complete Collection of the Historical, Political and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton, 3 vols (‘Amsterdam’ [London], 1698). Columbia, VI, 107-49. Yale, VII, 340-463.
MnJ 55
‘Manuscript, very neatly written 12mo. pp. 113...most probably that revised copy [by the Author in the 1698 folio edition of Milton's Prose Tracts], in the hand, it may be, of Elwood (Milton's amanuensis), or of D. Baker, whose name is on the fly-leaf, with the date of 1683’.
Thomas Thorpe's sale catalogue ‘Bibliotheca Anglo-Poetica’ (1844), item 1284. Puttick & Simpson, 4 February 1863 (Dering sale), lot 899, to Willis. Willis & Sotheran's sale catalogue No. 191 (25 February 1863), item 565. Puttick & Simpson's, 31 October 1864, lot 811, to Cole.
Theme on Early Rising
See MnJ 50.
Dramatic Works
Arcades
First published in Poems (1645). Columbia, I, 72-6. Darbishire, II, 159-62. Carey & Fowler, pp. 155-61.
*MnJ 56
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].
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
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).
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 draft, possibly transcribed from an earlier draft, with extensive revisions, headed ‘A maske 1634’, a few words added in another hand.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
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.
Trinity College, Cambridge, MS R. 3. 4 (James 583), pp. 13-29.
*MnJ 58
An autograph quotation by Milton from Comus, being the last two lines of the masque. 1639.
In: The Liber amicorum of Camillus Cardoinus (i.e. Camillo Cerdagni, 1608-40), of Naples.
Formerly Sumner 84 (Lobby XI.3.43).
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 hoble: the Earle of Bridgewater Lord president of Wales and the right hoble: the Countesse of Bridgewater. At Ludlow Castle the 29th of September 1634’, the title subscribed in a variant form of the same hand with the names of the ‘chiefe persons in the reprsentacon’; 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.
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.
In: 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.
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.
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 ye Marches. October. 1634’.
In: 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).
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.
MnJ 62
Copy, transcribed from a printed source.
In: 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.
MnJ 64
Copy, transcribed from the text in Poems (1645), the title-page dated ‘Anno Domi: 1658’.
In: 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.
This MS recorded in Shawcross, Bibliography, No. 261.
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.
In: the MS described under MnJ 23.3. c.1771.
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.
*MnJ 66
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; c.1632-60s.
In: the MS described under MnJ 10. c.1632-60s.
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.
*MnJ 67
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.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
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.
Trinity College, Cambridge, MS R. 3. 4 (James 583), pp. 35-41.
Letters
Letter(s)
*MnJ 68
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). c.1633.
In: the MS described under MnJ 6. c.1630s-[70s?].
edited in Columbia, XII, 320-5, and in Yale, I, 318-21.
Trinity College, Cambridge, MS R. 3. 4 (James 583), pp. 6-7.
*MnJ 69
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.
*MnJ 70
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.
*MnJ 71
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
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, Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73, fasc. 5, No. 3.
*MnJ 73
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, Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73, fasc. 5, No. 4.
*MnJ 74
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, Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73, fasc. 5, No. 5.
*MnJ 75
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, Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73, fasc. 5, No. 6.
*MnJ 76
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, 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
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, Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73, fasc. 5, No. 8.
*MnJ 79
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, 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, Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73, fasc. 13.
*MnJ 81
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.
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.
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.
MnJ 84
A series of 156 letters of state probably written by Milton, chiefly in Latin, some in English, dating from 1649 to 1659. 1649-1659.
In: the MS described under MnJ 49. Late 17th century.
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.
Documents
Document(s)
*MnJ 88
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.
*MnJ 89
Autograph signature (‘Joannes Milton’), when graduating as B.A., in the University Subscription Book, [January 1628/9]. 1629.
In: The University Subscriptions Book, 1613-38.
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.
*MnJ 90
Milton's autograph supplicat for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, c.10 January 1629. 1629.
In: Supplicats volume for 1627-29.
Edited, with a facsimile, in J. Milton French, ‘Milton's Supplicats’, HLQ, 5 (1942), 349-53 (pp. 349-51
Cambridge University Archives, Supplicats 1627-29 , f. 331r.
MnJ 91
Milton's supplicat for the degree of Master of Arts, written on his behalf in an unidentified hand (?Richard Osborne), c.10 January 1632. 1632.
In: Supplicats volume of the 1630s.
Edited, with a facsimile, in J. Milton French, ‘Milton's Supplicats’, HLQ, 5 (1942), 349-53 (pp. 350-2).
Cambridge University Archives, Supplicats, 1630s, [unspecified page number].
*MnJ 92
Autograph signature (‘Joannes Milton’), when graduating as M.A., in the University Subscription Book, [July 1632]. 1632.
In: the MS described under MnJ 89.
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.
*MnJ 93
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. 1639.
In: the MS described under MnJ 58.
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.
MnJ 94
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. c.1646-late 17th century.
In: A folio composite volume of documents, in various hands, 243 leaves (including blanks), in 19th-century calf.
Recorded in Columbia, XVIII, 624. Edited in LR, II, 164-6.
*MnJ 95
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.
*MnJ 96
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.
*MnJ 97
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.
*MnJ 98
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.
*MnJ 99
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. 1651.
In: The liber amicorum of Christoph Arnold, Professor of History at Nuremberg, an oblong duodecimo.
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.
*MnJ 100
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, Best. 20, Tit. 38, No. 73a, Litt. H, Nos. 2, 3 and 5.
MnJ 101
Receipt of salaries of Milton and other Government officers (the ‘Ashburnham Document’), signed on Milton's behalf, 13 February 1654/5. 1655.
In: A folio composite volume of miscellaneous state papers, in various hands, 166 leaves.
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.
*MnJ 102
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.l; and, with a facsimile in Leo Miller, Milton in the ‘Zollikoffer and Arnold Albums’, MQ, 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.
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.
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 wch 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.
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.
*MnJ 106
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.
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).
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.
*MnJ 108
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Exempla of Printed Works by Milton with his Inscriptions or Additions
Ten Prose Tracts
*MnJ 113
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.
Eleven Prose Tracts
*MnJ 114
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.
Poems of Mr John Milton, both English and Latin, compos'd at several times (London, 1645)
*MnJ 115
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.
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 8br 7o 20th: 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.
Books from Milton's Library
Aratus. Phaenomena & Diosemeia (Paris, 1559)
*MnJ 117
An exemplum with Milton's autograph inscription, ‘Jo: Milton pre: 2s.-6d. 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.
Bible (Authorised Version, London, 1612)
*MnJ 118
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.
Chrysostom, Dio. Orationes LXXX (Paris, 1604)
*MnJ 119
An exemplum with Milton's autograph inscription, ‘Pre: 18s. 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.
Della Casa, Giovanni. Rime et prose (Venice, 1563)
*MnJ 120
An exemplum with Milton's autograph inscription on the title-page, ‘Jo: Milto[n] pre: 10d. 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.
Euripides. Tragoediae quae extant, 2 vols (Geneva, 1602)
*MnJ 121
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.
Heraclides of Pontus. Allegoriae in Homeri fabulas de dijs (Basel, 1544)
*MnJ 122
An exemplum with Milton's autograph inscription on the flyleaf, ‘Jo. Milton pd pre: 5s 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.
Lycophron. Lycophronis Alexandra (Geneva, 1601)
*MnJ 123
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: 13s. 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. Ediited 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.
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.
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.
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 19th: 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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Miscellaneous Extracts from Works by Milton
Extracts
MnJ 136
Copy in: 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.
MnJ 137
Copy in: 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. [iir]), probably by the compiler, ‘Ex Libris Georgij Wright [b.1685/6] Sti Johannis Collegis Cantabrigiensis Alumni, Decimo quarto Junij. Annoq. Domini 1703’. c.1703-9.
Also inscribed (f.[iir]) ‘Mrs Frances Wright 1708’. A postal address on f. 95r (rev.) reads: ‘Direct to Margtt Borrett att Mrs. Borretts In Kirkby=stephen Westmoorland p brough bag _ These’.
Recorded in IELM, II.ii, as the Wright MS: WaE Δ 12.
MnJ 138
Extracts, the MS copied or owned by Peter Sterry (1613-72), theologian, Fellow of Emmanuel College from 1636. Mid-17th century.
MnJ 139
Extracts from Milton's dramatic works.
In: A quarto commonplace book of extracts illustrating specified topics, largely in a single cursive hand, entitled Miscellanea Tragica Theatrical Index of Sentimts. & 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.
MnJ 140
Copy in: 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).
MnJ 141
Extracts from Milton's poems.
In: 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 7th: 1760. and finished May 20th: 1760. By me Tho: Austen, Rochester’. 1760-7.
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 Novembr. 1767’.
Donated by Edgar Huidekoper Wells (class of 1897).
MnJ 143
Copy in: A folio verse miscellany, in possibly two neat rounded hands, 366 pages plus a five-page index, dated at the end ‘Finis August ye. 6th 1717’. 1715-17.
MnJ 144
Copy in: A quarto account book of George Downing relating to legal matters, subsequenty 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
Copy in: A quarto commonplace book of verse extracts, 340 pages (including blanks), in a small neat hand. Mid-18th century.
MnJ 146
Copy in: Three quarto volumes of verse, 164, 155 and 145 leaves respectively, in later vellum. Compiled by Colonel Gabriel Lepipre. c.1753.
MnJ 147
Copy in: 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.
MnJ 148
Copy in: 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.