University of Virginia Library

IN MILTON'S COMMONPLACE BOOK APPEAR SEVENTEEN notes on his reading in Machiavelli's Discorsi; [1] but on the date at which Milton dictated these entries, scholars have not agreed. In his classic study of the Commonplace Book, Hanford[2] implied that the notes were entered sometime within the eleven-year period between 1648/9 and 1660, possibly between 1648/9 and 1652. Liljegren,[3] Haller,[4] and Fink,[5] however, have offered the entries as proof that Milton knew Machiavelli in the early 1640's and derived from his writings some of the ideas found in the anti-espiscopal tracts. And Bryant,[6] finally, has argued that Milton's knowledge of the Discorsi came "relatively late" in the poet's career. In their discussions, however, none of these scholars has given close attention to the handwriting found in the entries and in other Milton manuscripts; and preserved at Oldenburg are certain of Milton's private letters in which the handwriting enables us to date the Discorsi notes with some degree of assurance within a fairly limited space of time.

None of these seventeen entries is in Milton's autograph. They are rather all the work of his amanuenses, though the exact number of these scribes I have not been able to determine. Certain of the notes show significant similarities of handwriting which indicate that these entries constitute groups, or blocks of notetaking,

made by a single scribe at a single sitting.[7] But while these groups tend to differ from one another in general appearance, they sometimes show similarities of letter formation and habits of lifting the pen which suggest that in some instances the notes were written by scribes who employed more than one style of handwriting.[8] In this puzzling complex of hands, however, there are two clearly distinguishable groups which would seem to furnish clues as to the date at which Milton dictated the whole corpus of his Discorsi notes.

The first of these is the group listed in footnote 7 as Group 2. In chronological order of entry, it is probably the second set of notes dictated by Milton;[9] and it consists of two notes on p. 197 of the Commonplace Book under the heading "De Religione quatenus ad Rempub: spectat". Both notes derive from Milton's

reading of Book I, chapter 10 of the Discorsi, and both are written in a sharp, angular hand, that of Milton's nephew, Edward Phillips.[10] Likewise in Phillips' hand is the original of Milton's letter to Mylius, numbered in the Columbia edition FE., LXIII,[11] and preserved in the Niedersächsische Staatsarchiv at Oldenburg under the pressmark Bestd. 20 (Grafschaft Oldenburg), Tit. 38, No. 73, Fasc. 5, no. 8. As Plate I reveals, the Commonplace Book note and the letter show the same angularity of script and the same idiosyncrasies of formation in certain individual letters: for instance, the M with the slanted serif in "Machiavel." and "Miltonio" and the t in "mortales" and "postquam", which resembles somewhat the figure 4. The date of the letter, as Plate I also shows, is "Feb: 13tio 1651", that is, 1652.

The second of these two clearly distinguishable groups is that listed in footnote 7 as Group 9. In chronological order, it seems the last of Milton's Discorsi entries; and it consists of a single note on p. 198, deriving from Milton's reading of Book III, chapter 34 of the Discorsi. The scribe of Group 9 has yet to be identified; but as Plate III shows, his hand likewise appears in the original of Milton's letter to Mylius numbered in the Columbia edition FE., LVII,[12] and preserved at Oldenburg as Bestd. 20 (Grafschaft Oldenburg), Tit. 38, No. 73, Fasc. 5, no. 6. This same scribe also wrote at least four other of Milton's letters to Mylius not reproduced here but numbered in the Columbia edition FE., L, LIIa, LV, and LIX,[13] and preserved under the same pressmark at Oldenburg as

nos., 3, 4, 5, and 7. The dates of these five letters run from November 7, 1651, to February 10, 1652.[14]

Such, then, are the similarities that exist between the handwriting found in two groups of the Discorsi notes and in six of the Milton letters preserved in the Oldenburg archives; and these similarities would seem to suggest the following conclusions. Between November 7, 1651, and February 13, 1652, Milton had in his service two amanuenses to whom he dictated six of his letters to Mylius written between those two dates. To these scribes, he also dictated two of the nine groups of his notes from Machiavelli, for their hands are found not only in the six letters but also in Groups 2 and 9 of the Discorsi entries. The hands of these two scribes, furthermore, appear in conjunction only in these two instances[15]— in the Mylius correspondence and in the Discorsi notes. We may assume, therefore, that the letters and the two groups of notes belong to the same period of Milton's intellectual activities. And since the Group 2 and the Group 9 entries seem to represent not only the second but also the ninth and last stage of Milton's recorded reading in Machiavelli's treatise, we may likewise assume that the whole body of Discorsi notes belong close to, if not actually within, this same period. If these two assumptions are justified—and they do not seem contrary to the logic of historical inference—, then the seventeen entries from Machiavelli's Discorsi should be tentatively assigned to the four-month period covered by the letters,

to November and December, 1651, and January and February, 1652. And there these entries should remain until new evidence shows clearly that they belong to a different period of Milton's studies and political evolution.