Milton and Machiavelli's Discorsi
by
Maurice Kelley
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: 13
tio
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.
Notes