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Notes
See, for example, the Columbia editors and Professor Harris Fletcher, both of whom leave the matter an open question: (1) Thomas Ollive Mabbott and J. Milton French (eds.), The State Papers of John Milton, The works of John Milton, XIII (New York: Columbia university Press 1937), 596. (Reprints the Face edition.) (2) Professor Fletcher's notes to the recent University of Illinois Library's exhibition of its Collection of First Editions of Milton's works, items 54 and 55.
The error of signing K4 as K3 and K6 as K5 might have come about in one of two ways. In the method outlined above, the "usual" folio 8 becomes bound as K5, while the usual folio 5 becomes bound as K6. Hence it could happen that K6 was signed according to its customary position in the forme. since the missigning of K4 is not accounted for by this explanation, the more likely argument is that the compositor confused his formes. He signed K4 and K6 (inner forme) as if they were K3 and K5, which have the same relative positions in the outer forme. One copy (#3) is signed correctly-probably a stop-press correction in an effort to prevent faulty binding. (One copy examined (#10) is in fact misbound from this missigning).
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