University of Virginia Library

THE TEXT OF Paradise Lost: A Stemma for the Early Editions
by
R. G. Moyles

In the early eighteenth century, when the English nation was beginning to go 'Milton mad', editions of Paradise Lost rolled off the presses with amazing regularity: between 1678, which saw the first non-authorial text, and 1749, when Thomas Newton produced his definitive text cum notis variorum, more than twenty-five editions of the poem were presented to the English reading public. They ranged all the way from sumptuous (and expensive) subscription Folios to popular pocket-sized duodecimos and they

included such extras as 'sculptures', explanatory notes, eulogistic verses, a "Life of Milton" and Addison's celebrated Critique. By the time the latest (Newton's) became available, the first three had become collectors' items and the fifteenth (Bentley's) had been the subject of one of the most vociferous debates in the history of Milton scholarship.

Many of those 'extras' (the illustrations and the commentaries), the development of a scholarly and popular interest in Milton's poetry and Bentley's contumacious emendations have been examined by scholars.[1] One important area, however, has been entirely neglected: the treatment of the text itself. When did editors of Paradise Lost begin to seek a definitive text? When did they become aware of the state of the original editions—of the variants between them? When did they begin to use what W. W. Greg calls "reasoned editorial judgment"? This paper represents an attempt to remedy that neglect and to answer those questions by examining two aspects of the text: editorial treatment of the Quarto and Octavo variants; and the perpetuation of progressive error.

According to the evidence presented by Helen Darbishire in the textual apparatus to her 1952 edition of The Poetical Works (Vol. I, pp. 282-308), there are, in addition to the few alterations demanded by the re-divisioning of the poem into twelve books, approximately eight hundred variations between the Quarto (1667) and Octavo (1674) texts of Paradise Lost.[2] By far the greatest number of these consist of minor spelling and punctuation changes, the conversion of initial letters from upper to lower case (and vice versa), and the alteration of the ampersand to and. There are, however, approximately thirty-five which can be called 'substantive'—variants which, in Greg's words, "affect the author's meaning or essence of his expression";[3] when these are examined one finds that they fall into three distinct categories:

I. Readings for which the Quarto text proves superior:

• 2.483 thir vertue [1667] her [1674]
• 2.527 his great Chief [1667] this [1674]
• 4.928 The blasting volied Thunder [1667] Thy [1674]
• 8.269 as lively vigour led [1667] and [1674]
• 9.213 Or hear what to my mind [1667] bear [1674]
• 9.1019 savour we apply [1667] me [1674]
• 9.1092 What best may for the present serve to hide The parts of each from other [1667]

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• What best may from the present serve to hide The parts of each for other [1674]
• 10.408 joynt power prevaile [1667] prevailes [1674]
• 10.550 laden with fair fruit [1667] fair omitted [1674]
• 10.558 But on they rould [1667] thy [1674]
• 11.427 yet from that sin derive [1667] sin omitted [1674]
• 12.534 Will deem [1667] Well [1674]

II. Readings for which the Octavo text proves superior:

• 3.594 Which radiant light [1667] With [1674]
• 5.627 Evening approached [1667] Evening now approachd [1674]
• 5.659 no more Heav'n [1667] no more in Heav'n [1674]
• 9.186 Not nocent yet [1667] Nor [1674]
• 10.241 By his Avenger [1667] Avengers [1674]
• 10.827 they acquitted stand [1667] they then acquitted stand [1674]
• 11.870 thou that future things [1667] who [1674]
• 12.191 This River-dragon [1667] The [1674]

III. Readings for which neither text can be proven superior, whose adoption has been a matter of editorial choice:

• 1.530 fainted courage [1667] fainting [1674]
• 1.703 founded the massie ore [1667] found out [1674]
• 2.282 what we are and where [1667] were [1674]
• 2.375 Thir frail Originals [1667] Original [1674]
• 4.451 Under a shade on flours [1667] of [1674]
• 4.627 Our walks at noon [1667] walk [1674]
• 4.705 In shadier bower [1667] shadie [1674]
• 7.322 add the humble shrub [1667] and [1674]
• 7.366 guilds his horns [1667] her [1674]
• 7.563 in thir station [1667] stations [1674]
• 9.394 Likest she seemd [1667] Likliest [1674]
• 9.922 who thus hast dar'd [1667] hath [1674]
• 10.58 it may be seen [1667] might [1674]
• 10.397 those numerous Orbs [1667] these [1674]
• 11.651 tacks a bloody fray [1667] makes [1674]

The obvious superiority of either the Quarto or Octavo text in the first and second categories can be established by textual analysis (some are the result of omission, transposition and misreading) and by resorting to the sense of the reading in its context. In every instance my decision to place a reading in either one or the other category is supported by modern editorial preference, from Henry John Todd (1801) to Alastair Fowler (1976).

An examination of those major editors also reveals that in fifteen instances there is a difference of opinion regarding the choice of variant: one or the other is not obviously superior and, in critical editions at least, editorial judgement must be used. In a few cases it may seem perverse to insist that there is any choice at all; at 4.451, for example ("Under a shade of [on] flours"), the Octavo reading seems to be manifestly inferior. Yet the fact of the matter is that B. A. Wright (1956) and Alastair Fowler (1976) both adopt the Octavo reading. I have therefore placed it in the third category of indifferent

variants and I have done the same with every reading for which there exists a division of opinion among modern editors.

The chief implication of those lists, of course, is that editing Paradise Lost demands a great deal of critical acumen. An editor must not only make a choice of copy-text from two of comparable authority, but must understand the extent and nature of the variants between them, and be prepared to engage in reasoned eclecticism. As far as this present study is concerned, those categories of variants will establish the relationship of any subsequent edition to the originals and help determine the quality of editorial treatment it received. However, since eighteenth-century editors seldom used the originals as copy-texts, relying instead on the more accessible later editions, one other feature, that of 'progressive error', must also be examined. Not only must Text A be collated with Text B in terms of substantive variants, but all fresh readings, newly introduced either as compositorial errors or intentional emendations, must be discovered. When Text C is then collated with B these new readings are examined to see if they have been eliminated or perpetuated; and again the fresh errors of C must be recorded. This painstaking collation is extremely rewarding: it reveals editorial attitudes, indicates choices of copy-text, shows the slow and erratic development of a concern for authorial intention and, through the establishment of a stemma, charts the course towards a definitive text of Paradise Lost.

In the contract between John Milton and Samuel Simmons (dated April 27, 1667), by which the latter obtained the right to publish Paradise Lost, Simmons gave notice that he intended to produce three editions of the poem. The first two, well-known as the Quarto and Octavo texts, were published under Milton's supervision, the second being considerably "Augmented and Revised"; the third was published in 1678, four years after Milton's death, thus becoming the first non-authorial text. As such it is undistinguished and textually insignificant, for Simmons, even though he must have known that there were errors in the Octavo, made no attempt to restore any authoritative readings: the 1678 is a virtual reprint of the 1674, duplicating both its style and format (8°: A4 B-Y8), and preserving its faults.[4]

When the ownership of the rights to publish Paradise Lost changed hands in the 1680's, passing from those of the obscure Simmons to those of the 'prince of publishers', Jacob Tonson, it may have seemed, to a casual observer, that a dramatic change had taken place.[5] It was not Tonson's fashion to simply follow his predecessor—to merely make the poem available. When he decided to publish a fourth edition in 1688 he determined that it would be as distinctively Tonson's as it was Milton's. The large folio

in fours, with its quality paper, its clear 14-point type and wide margins, was unquestionably more impressive and handsome than Simmons' octavo. Its twelve 'sculptures', created by John Baptist Medina, were the first ever to adorn a Milton text. And below the frontispiece portrait of the author was Dryden's now-famous eulogy, written especially at Tonson's request: Tonson had, as he intended, honoured Milton, raised the quality of the book, and gained for the poem new recognition.[6]

It may also have seemed that Tonson took equal care with the text as well, perhaps even to the extent of hiring someone to supervise the preparation and correction of the printer's copy. Not only is the spelling consistently modernized (hee-he, pitie-pity, fatall-fatal, etc.), but seemingly-conscious and judicious emendations (beyond the expertise of a compositor) have been made at 2.568 (obdured becomes obdurate), 11.586 (fast-first) and 1.756 (Capital-Capitol). The last, in fact, is quite perspicacious and has been adopted (often without acknowledgement) almost universally ever since. And finally, the casual observer might have even concluded that, in one signature at least, the supervisor is correcting his copy against a Quarto text, by virtue of the fact that her is corrected to thir (2.483), counsel to council (2.506) and this to his (2.527).

In spite of that evidence, however, close examination would have revealed that the text was not as carefully prepared as it had seemed at first glance. It was, to begin with, not based on the 1674 original but on the 1678 reprint whose few fresh errors at 2.855 (might-wight), 4.148 (of-a), 5.455 (his-this), 9.431 (band-hand), 9.574 (that-and) and 9.1064 (as omitted) are unintentionally preserved. There is no evidence at all to show that the Octavo text was ever consulted. Moreover, though three superior Quarto readings were restored—her-thir (2.483), counsel-council (2.506) and this-his (2.527)—it is doubtful that they were recovered from the Quarto text itself, for at every other instance where the Quarto variant is obviously superior the incorrect Octavo reading (perpetuated through the 1678) is followed. It would be too far-fetched to suggest that the supervisor had access to only Signature F (the variants occur on F1 verso and F2 recto) or that he collated only two pages. It seems more likely, especially in view of his emendatory skill, that those readings were emended intuitively; the supervisor recognized them as errors, corrected them, without knowing that he was restoring authoritative readings.

In the 1688 edition, then, Jacob Tonson produced a text which exhibits

several characteristics typical of the editorial treatment it would receive for many years to come. First, it was based not on an original text but on an immediately-preceding one which, though corrected by someone other than the compositor or proof-corrector (as yet unknown and as yet undeserving of the title 'editor'), was corrected intuitively, not against an authoritative text. Thus a manifest contradiction is its hallmark: a few judicious improvements have been made and some authoritative readings accidentally restored; yet a larger number of Quarto readings remain undiscovered, the errors of the 1674 and 1678 texts are perpetuated, and fresh readings (both compositorial error and intentional emendation) have been introduced, removing the text farther from the authoritative originals than before.

In 1691, when Tonson, capitalizing on the unqualified success of his first venture, published another sumptuous folio in fours (identical in size and format to the previous), the same editorial ambivalence marred the text, this time manifesting itself most noticeably in the different handling of the accidentals and the substantives.[7] Great care was taken to regularize the spelling, reducing such words as conquerour and general to conq'rour and gen'ral when the lines (in his view) demanded it, proving that someone paid close attention even to scansion; and in his treatment of the punctuation he was excessively fond of commas:

The extent and nature of the alterations argues for a very close scrutiny of the text indeed, even though they were intuitively made and not in an attempt to restore an authoritative text.

As far as the substantive text is concerned, however, the 1691 edition is the worst-printed thus far. Not only does the supervisor fail to restore any original correct readings or rid the text of the many 1688 corruptions (from which the 1691 was printed), but he allows the introduction of a number of fresh errors. Many of them are merely typographical (goonness for goodness, sin for sing), but some affect the substantive text: here for hear (3.185), inclin'd for incline (3.402), and omitted (4.749), He for Him (5.298) and first omitted (7.500) are examples. They are all clearly errors and not conscious emendations, indicating that the unknown supervisor's responsibility was restricted to refining the accidentals, leaving the substantive text to the mercy of the compositor.

The sixth edition of Paradise Lost which appeared in 1695, again by Tonson and again a handsome folio, marks a slight turning of the editorial tide: for the first time there is evidence to show that two texts are being used—the 1688 as printer's copy and the 1674 to correct it. More obvious than that, and better known, is the fact that the 1695 edition is accompanied by (though not always bound with) the first set of annotations ever compiled for the poem, Patrick Hume's three hundred and twenty-one pages of "Explanatory

Notes."[8] The key question arising from the contiguity of those facts is: was Patrick Hume the editor of the 1695 edition and thus the first known editor of Paradise Lost?

It has already been established by Ants Oras that Hume's set of "Notes" is not a textual apparatus.[9] It consists primarily of straightforward, often simplistic, explication and "explanation of obsolete words," and contains only four textual notes: at 3.48 and 7.451 he offers two conjectural emendations, blot for blanck and soul for foul; at 9.1092 he corrects from to for (already corrected in 1691); and at 10.989 he emends these faulty lines:

This of itself is enough to show that Hume was more than casually acquainted with his text. It is provable, in fact, that in compiling his notes he eschewed all later editions, taking his quotations directly from the 1674 text and thereby eliminating all later corruptions. The 1695 text, however, follows the 1688 edition and it is this discrepancy, between Hume's "Notes" and the 1695 text which they accompany, which suggests that Hume did not edit the sixth edition.

At 1.404, for example, Hume's note correctly spells Hinnom as it was in the Octavo text whereas the 1695 text follows the incorrect 1688 Hinnon. Similarly, at 2.506 and 2.568, where the 1695 perpetuates the corrupt readings, Council and obdurate, Hume follows the correct 1674 versions, Counsel and obdured. Most significant, at 1.756 Hume retains the 1674 Capital, defining it as "Satan's chief place of residence"; the 1695 text adopts Capitol. Surely if Hume were responsible for preparing the printer's copy, having compiled his own notes from a 1674 edition, he would have caught such obvious errors and have corrected them. It seems quite probable that he would have dispensed with the 1688 text altogether and have used the 1674 as copy. In either event, it is reasonable to assume that under his supervision the spelling of the 1695 would have been closer to the 1674 as well—closer, that is, to the spelling which he preserves in his annotations.

It seems most likely, then, that Tonson purchased the right to publish Hume's commentary but engaged someone else as editor—someone who, perhaps influenced by Hume or his "Notes", sought to improve the text by correcting the 1688 copy against a 1674. But again, though his effort is laudable, his editorial performance is marked by inconsistency and contradiction. He is, for example, astute enough to adopt Hume's emendation at 10.989, but not enough to take advantage of the equally judicious one at 7.451 (now also universally accepted). He manages, by reference to the Octavo text, to rid

the 1695 of several errors transmitted through the 1678 and 1688 editions and recovers authoritative readings at 4.148 (of for a), 9.431 (band for hand), 9.574 (and for that), 9.601 (this for his) and 9.1064 (the omitted as). More impressively, he read his text diligently enough to notice that the lines at 10.550 and 11.427 were metrically deficient. If he had been far-sighted enough to also have used a 1667 text he would have recovered the authoritative readings; not being that advanced in his editorial procedure, he was forced to intuitively emend the lines, removing them even farther from their originals: In the final analysis, the 1695 edition suffers from the same editorial inconsistency as its two previous companions. One can see, however, that progress is being made, erratic but nevertheless valuable: three (now universally-accepted) emendations have been introduced, one of the original texts has been used (the 1674), and editorial expertise is improving. Of course, even without such progress the three Tonson Folios would still remain memorable contributions to literary history—beautiful tributes to Milton and secure rungs in 'Jacob's immortal ladder'.

When Tonson resumed publication of Paradise Lost ten years later he was convinced that, through the success of his three Folios, the poem had become popular enough to warrant a "smaller edition." In 1705 and 1707, therefore, he produced two 'royal' octavos and in 1711 a small, pocket-sized duodecimo—editions which were responsible for bringing Milton to the attention of the so-called 'ordinary' English reader. And now it seems as if the text itself has become the important feature; in the preparation of the 1705 two editions are again used, the 1695 as copy and the 1674 as correcting-text, and to good advantage: cleansed of nearly every previous corruption the seventh is the purest edition thus far. The 1707, being a slavish reprint, reinforces the impression that at last a reverence for textual fidelity is beginning to control editorial treatment. All that remains, one feels, is for some editor to become aware of the 1667 text and restore its authoritative readings; definitiveness will follow fast.

The 1711 edition, however, even though it relies on the 1705 as copy-text, shatters that illusion by being the first to introduce wholesale emendation. The new (unknown) editor throws caution to the wind and on more than twenty-five occasions alters his substantive text: that becomes their (3.678), broider'd becomes border'd (4.702), pleasing becomes pleasant (5.42), hid becomes laid (9.408), oft-stooping becomes half-stooping (9.427), to becomes through (9.641), both becomes but (9.1128) and the following line undergoes this change:

As a result the 1711 edition is the least satisfactory thus far, vastly inferior to the 1705. That other editors were not yet concerned with authoritativeness is evidenced by the fact that the 1711 edition was, according to Henry Todd, "much esteemed" and was used, in preference to the 1705, for many years to come as copy-text;[10] such errors as half-stooping and patience were not finally removed from the text until 1749.

Nevertheless, in the meantime, in spite of that backward step, some advancements continued to be made. In 1719 Tonson engaged John Hughes, who had earlier overseen the 1715 edition of Spenser, to edit the tenth edition of Paradise Lost. In a letter to Tonson, dated August 17, 1719 (BM Add Ms. 28875), Hughes states that he has no desire to have his name "mention'd or any notice taken to the public." The reference is to a former letter in which he had complained of the lack of recognition his editorial work on Paradise Lost had received: to the edition of Spenser his name had been attached but as editor of Paradise Lost he had remained anonymous. Tonson, it seems, must have set the matter straight, perhaps explaining that editorial services limited to the correction of copy (as opposed to writing a commentary) were paid for but not publicly acknowledged, for Hughes professes complete satisfaction.

The letter also seems to indicate that Hughes fully expected to have been asked to work on the deluxe edition of The Poetical Works, planned for publication in 1720. He seems disturbed to learn that Thomas Tickell will be its editor and suggests, rather facetiously, that Tickell should "abundantly oblige [him] in giving a correct edition" of Milton, for whom he had "a more than ordinary zeal." Hughes would, he states, lend Tonson his copy of the first edition of Paradise Lost to get proofs read by, but not to tear to pieces "for his press-copy."

Thus, we not only learn that the tenth edition of 1719 is the first to which we can, with some assurance, attach the name of an editor, but we also learn that John Hughes possessed and advocated the use of the 1667 text. On examining the 1719 edition one finds that Hughes practised what he preached. For the first time the Quarto reading sin (11.427), omitted from the Octavo, has been restored and, for the first time as well, an editor has made eclectic choices between Quarto and Octavo variants. Of the fifteen "indifferent" readings Hughes chose five from the Quarto text (2.282, 4.451, 7.366, 8.269, 10.408), proving conclusively that he used a 1667 copy for correction.

Hughes' chief failing as editor, however, is that, though the original texts were available to him and one of them was used to correct copy, he did not consider the advantage of using an original as printer's copy. Like his predecessors Hughes relied on a recent edition (the 1711) which he attempted

to correct. And even though he was careful in his treatment, relying on collation rather than intuition, too many (more than thirteen) of the 1711 corruptions escaped his notice. One could argue, of course, that these were allowed to remain on the grounds that they were justifiable, for Hughes himself adds a few minor emendations of his own: eye becomes eyes (1.456), thy becomes by (12.83) and him becomes it (12.93). Whatever the reason, whether carelessness or indifference, it is clear that respect for the authoritative texts has not yet reached the point where conjectural emendation is deemed to be unnecessary or irresponsible.

If John Hughes had continued as editor of the 1720 edition of The Poetical Works or if Thomas Tickell (who was paid fifty pounds for the job) had heeded Hughes' advice, more of the progressive errors might have disappeared. At the end of 1719, however, Jacob Tonson retired, leaving his publishing house and rights to his nephew, Jacob Tonson secundus, and John Hughes, who had been ill for much of that year, died in early 1720. This combination of circumstances left the publishing and editing of Paradise Lost in new hands—the publisher concerned with making his own mark by producing another more-handsome two-volume Folio and the editor concerned only with refinement of the accidentals. Tickell, in fact, despite the acclaim he has been accorded as editor of the 1720 edition,[11] merely followed Hughes' 1719 text in almost slavish detail, making no effort to restore authoritative readings and perpetuating every progressive error save three. His only unique contribution is the introduction of eight new emendations of his own: frail becomes fair (2.375), medal becomes metal (3.592), not becomes nor (6.345), last becomes lost (6.797), these becomes the (9.244), bushing becomes blushing (9.426) and one becomes our (10.392). Of these only metal has found any degree of acceptance, the others being, as a later critic termed them, merely "elegant inaccuracies."

It is at this point in time, in fact, that liberal emendation becomes the chief characteristic of editorial treatment; conjectural criticism became the "darling passion" of Milton's editors just as it had of Shakespeare's. Elijah Fenton, the editor of the next three editions (1725, 1727 and 1730), was, like his Shakespearian counterpart, Lewis Theobald, an "avaricious husbandman" of emendations. Entirely ignoring the authoritative editions (though he used the 1719 as copy), careless of correction, he forced on the text his own unpoetic barbarisms: inexorably becomes inexorable (2.90), had becomes and (3.110), or yeanling becomes and weanling (3.434), wreck becomes wreak (4.11), breaded becomes braided (4.349), haply becomes happy (8.200) and so forth ad nauseam. Fenton's editorial licentiousness was, in fact, so blatant that even the reading public for the first time took notice. In The Gentleman's Magazine for 1731 his editions were condemned in these terms: "All the various readings of this edition are either mean or trifling, wherefore he [the writer] laments the privilege that rich booksellers have of putting it in the power of any ignorant editor to murder the finest authors" (I, 55). That

comment also looks forward to a few months later when a similar reception would be accorded the efforts of the most notorious emendator of the century, Dr. Richard Bentley, and his contumacious edition of 1732.[12]

The nature and extent of Bentley's emendations and the angry reception which greeted them have been adequately described by other scholars, among them J. W. Mackail and William Empson.[13] Suffice it to say here that Bentley, the foremost classical scholar of his day, mistakenly treated the text of Paradise Lost as he had those of Horace and Manilius. He assumed that the text was corrupt—indeed, he created a fictitious editor who (Bentley insisted) had corrupted the originals by inserting his own inferior words; it was therefore necessary to purge the text, to undertake a vast programme of emendation "by sagacity and happy conjecture." On more than fifty occasions Bentley rejects whole passages, such as the famous description of the Paradise of Fools in Book III, as non-Miltonic, being the spurious insertions of his fictitious "tamperer"; on more than eight hundred other occasions Bentley emends single words and whole lines, proposing emendations which rid the text of anything his classical mind cannot tolerate: mythological allusions, tautologies and poetic similies. From Book I, line 6, where he alters secret to sacred, to the final lines of the poem,

Bentley wielded his editorial scalpel with great abandon.

It would be decidedly unfair, of course, not to point out that Bentley's emendations, unlike those of Fenton, were not forced silently into the text, but were "cast into the margins, and explain'd in the Notes, so that every Reader has his free choice, whether he will accept or reject what is here offer'd him." They are, therefore, merely proposals and as such are irrelevant to an examination of the text itself—a text which, Bentley claimed, was the "truest and correctest" that had yet appeared. Like many of Bentley's other claims, however, that one too is false: the text is in fact quite badly handled. The 1720 edition which he used as copy was corrected in an extremely haphazard fashion—partly by intuition, partly against the 1667 and, in a few instances, against the manuscript of Book I; but it was corrected so casually that most of the 1720 corruptions (unique to it and perpetuated by it) were followed.[14]

In Book I, for example, the only Book for which a manuscript exists, one finds evidence that Bentley looked at the manuscript (then in Tonson's possession) but did not collate it with the 1667 Quarto text. At 504-05 he offered the manuscript reading as that of the first edition, obviously not knowing there was a difference:

In two instances, by some strange circumstance, Bentley altered correct readings in the 1720 text to accord with faulty 1725 readings (inexorably becomes inexorable and to becomes too); whether he was mistakenly emending them in the belief that the 1725 readings were authoritative or whether he was intuitively emending is difficult to say. And at 10.392 and 11.587 he offered correct original readings as emendations, not knowing that what he offered were in fact already authoritative.

In only two instances did Bentley improve his text: at 1.703 he became the first editor to choose the Quarto founded, ably defending it in a foot-note, and at 10.550 he restored, for the first time as well, the omitted fair. They do not, however, compensate for the careless inconsistency with which the text, as a whole, is handled. It is very confused and, though an improvement over Fenton's, is little superior to the 1719.

Devoid of its marginalia—its hundreds of conjectural emendations—the 1732 edition would have received scant attention. For, quite clearly it was not Bentley's treatment of the actual text which angered such men as Swift and Pope; it was his marginal emendations, his charges of spuriousness, his rigid application of classical principles that roused their ire: "I am so stonish'd, stonied and stunn'd with the Arrogance and Impertinence of the Doctor's Emendations," wrote Swift, "that I have scarce patience to read them."[15] But read them he did and ridiculed them as well in his witty pamphlet, Milton Restor'd and Bentley Depos'd. Others followed that lead and Bentley was derided, lampooned and generally made fun of in such pamphlets as A Friendly Letter to Dr. Bentley and in continuous letters to the Grub-Street Journal. After the smoke of battle had cleared the more sober-minded and scholarly critics, such as Zachary Pearce and Jonathan Richardson, sought out the truth of Bentley's assertions and soundly proved them wrong.

The initial editorial reaction, no doubt influenced by the angry denunciation of Bentley and Bentleian conjectural criticism, was to 'play it safe' by producing several uncontroversial editions of Paradise Lost based on Fenton's of 1725-30. Ignoring Bentley's text altogether, even the valuable restoration of fair (10.550) and the acceptable emendations swelling (7.321) and soul (7.451), Jacob Tonson III (who had taken over on the death of his father in 1735) brought out four insignificant editions in 1737, 1738, 1739 and 1741 which were, by and large, mere reprints of the 1727 and 1730 texts, perpetuating their numerous errors and improbable emendations. In 1735 and

1746 three non-Tonson editions appeared, one from Dublin, one from Glasgow and the other from "A Company of Stationers" in London, but all were again mere slavish reprints of their copy-texts (the 1730 and the 1739 editions) and none added anything new to the authoritativeness of the text. In 1747 John Hawkey, a Dublin "editor of the Latin classics", produced an edition which he claimed had been "freed from the blunders and absurdities that had crept into most of the former editions" by consulting the "two authentic" texts, the Quarto and Octavo. By virtue of that statement and, more particularly, because it contained an extensive critical apparatus, Hawkey's edition enjoyed undue esteem for many years. No one checked closely enough to see that his pronouncements were as unreliable as those of Bentley. He had indeed undertaken a superficial collation and had noted a number of errors and variants, but he also made the mistake of using a recent edition (the 1738) as printer's copy, thereby perpetuating more than a dozen substantive corruptions.

It was that basic procedural error, the use of a recent edition as copy (corrected largely by intuition), which had thus far prevented the achievement of a definitive text for Paradise Lost: the few textual advances made by casual collation, intuitive correction and "happy conjecture" were more than offset by the retention and transmission of hundreds of corruptions, both compositorial and intentional. It was only in 1749, eighty-two years after Paradise Lost had been given to the world, that Dr. Thomas Newton reversed the process: for the first time the 1667 and 1674 texts, eclectically treated, became the basis for a new edition, the second being the copy-text corrected against the first.

As far as the substantive text is concerned, therefore, Newton's magnificent "royal" Quarto edition, cum notis variorum, is as modern-looking as those of Merrett Hughes or Alastair Fowler: every superior 1667 reading has been retrieved, with textual notes being supplied for ten; and of the fifteen "indifferent" readings Newton has chosen eight from the 1667 and seven from the 1674 text, anticipating modern editorial treatment in his reasoned eclecticism. Often his reasons for choosing one or the other are concerned with the "good sense" of the reading, but on occasion they also read like those of a modern textual critic: "shadier / In the second we read In Shadie bower, but with such a space as is not usual between two words, as if the letter r had occupy'd the room, and by some accident had made no impression."

The more-than-eighty years of editorial meandering had, of course, produced, in a haphazard fashion, a little information about the original texts, restored a few authoritative readings and provided some necessary emendations: Newton was comprehensively aware of what preceding editors had done to the text and was careful to acknowledge his debts. And, ironically, the greatest debt was owed to Bentley; not for what he had contributed to textual awareness but for the impetus which his edition provided in spurring other scholars to examine the original editions. The Jonathan Richardsons (father and son), in their Explanatory Notes and Remarks on Milton's Paradise

Lost (1734), and Francis Peck, in his Memoirs of Milton (1740), correctly established the bibliographical history of the first edition and brought attention to the variants between the Quarto and Octavo texts. Newton, in his elaborate critical apparatus, makes frequent mention of their contributions.

Newton was, however, an extremely conservative editor—more so than many later nineteenth-century ones and again approaching a modern editorial

treatment: "we are cautious," he stated, "about admitting any alterations into the text of Milton." The substantive emendations that he did accept were all seen to be admissible on the grounds that the originals obscured the author's meaning: metal (3.592: 1720), soul (7.451: 1695) and too (9.854: 1725). In several other instances, where the original readings are not hopelessly obscured but where emendations would improve the sense (lost, 6.797; swelling, 7.321; thing, 7.452; and held, 6.580), Newton, as every good editor must, relegated his preferred readings to his critical apparatus.

Newton's 1749 edition is, then, in the true sense of the term a "critical edition"; for even though he was primarily concerned with annotative elucidation, he was nevertheless careful to print his text "correctly according to Milton's own editions." He diligently collated the two originals, used only them as the basis for his own, made known the important cruxes, allowed a minimum of emendation, treated the indifferent readings eclectically (as all modern editors do), provided an extensive critical apparatus and, most important, supplied a definitive substantive text: there was no reason why, as Newton himself asserted, any future editor should be "left floating in the wide sea of conjecture." For the next century, therefore, though there were individualistic deviations, Newton's edition remained the standard and accepted one. There were, of course, still some textual and bibliographic discoveries to be made, but the substantive text itself was so securely definitive that twentieth-century editors could concern themselves with the accidentals—with establishing Milton's intentions regarding the spelling and punctuation.

Notes