Poetical Works | Page 6

Regain'd, iii. 414-440;
Samson Agonistes, 880-890, are certainly spelt upon a method, and it is
noticeable that in the choruses the lighter form is universal.
Paradise Regain'd and Samson Agonistes were published in
1671,
and no further edition was called for in the remaining three years of the
poet's lifetime, so that in the case of these poems there are no new
readings to record; and the texts were so carefully revised, that only one
fault (Paradise Regain'd, ii. 309) was left for correction later. In these
and the other poems I have corrected the misprints catalogued in the
tables of Errata, and I have silently corrected any other unless it might
be
mistaken for a various reading, when I have called attention to it in
a note. Thus I have not recorded such blunders as Letbian for Lesbian
in the 1645 text of Lycidas, line 63; or hallow for hollow in Paradise
Lost, vi. 484; but I have noted content for concent, in At a Solemn
Musick, line 6.
In conclusion I have to offer my sincere thanks to all who have
collaborated with me in preparing this Edition; to the Delegates of the
Oxford Press for allowing me to undertake it and
decorate it with so
many facsimiles; to the Controller of the Press for his unfailing
courtesy; to the printers and printer's reader for their care and pains.
Coming nearer home I cannot but acknowledge the help I have received
in looking over proofsheets from my sister, Mrs. P. A. Barnett, who has

ungrudgingly put at the service of this book both time and
eyesight.
In taking leave of it, I may be permitted to say that it has cost more of
both these inestimable treasures than I had anticipated. The last proof
reaches me just a year after the first, and the progress of the work has
not in the interval been
interrupted. In tenui labor et tenuis gloria.
Nevertheless I cannot be sorry it was undertaken.
H. C. B.

YATTENDON RECTORY,
November 8, 1899.
Transcriber's note: Facsimile of Title page of 1645 edition follows:
POEMS
O F
Mr John Milton,
BOTH
ENGLISH and LATIN
Compos'd at several times.
------------------------------
Printed by his true copies.
------------------------------
The SONGS were set in Musick by
Mr. HENRY LAWES Gentleman of
the KINGS Chappel, and one
of His MAIESTIES
Private Musick.

--------Baccare frontem
Cingite, ne vace noceat mala lingua futuro,
Virgil, Eclog. 7.

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Printed, and Publish'd according to