^{page viii note a} In the autumn of last year Mr. Payne Collier announced that a copy of Cooper's Thesaurus (fol. 1573) in his possession contained numerous notes by Milton; and by Mr. Collier's courtesy I have had the pleasure of seeing it. My visit was too short to justify the expression of more than my opinion, that the specimens which I saw differ from what I had previously known as Milton's writing.

^{page ix note a} At p. 221 is a reference to another or the other Index. But, as Papa is the subject, it seems that the Index Theologicus was intended.

^{page x note a} “The leaves are much damp-stained. The volume has been rebonnd by Mr. Zaehnsdorf, and he has strengthened and admirably treated the leaves without in the least affecting the various tints of the inks used by the writers.

^{page xi note a} “These passages are at pp. 67–69 of the present volume, and are referred to by means of the Roman numerals (in brackets) in the text of the volume.

^{page xi note b} There is in the second book of The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty a passage in scorn of “men whose learning and belief lie in the marginal stuffings.”

^{page xii note a} Caroli Sigonii Historiarum de regno Italiæ libb. XX. qui libri historiam ab anno DLXX. usque ad MCCLXXXVI, quo regnnm interiit et libertas Italiæ redempta est continent. Francofurti MDXCI. (This was the edition used by Milton.)

^{page xiii note a} In the print this peculiarity is only shown in a few entries.

^{page xiii note b} Milton was not alone in this practice. It was rather common in the seventeenth century. Lord Anglesey, who was an acquaintance of Milton, spelled in the same way.

^{page xiii note c} I have seen the MS. poem found by Mr. Morley at the end of Milton's Poems (8vo. 1645): the use of the form their is alone, I think, conclusive against its being by Milton's hand; and there are objections in the writing, particularly the form of the small h. The bad grammar and the full stuffing of concetti are strong arguments against it being composed by Milton. The use of the same form their in the poem signed J. M. written on a blank page of Rosse's Mel Heliconium is, I think, fatal to the claim of those verses to be by Milton's hand; and the small e there most frequently used is not that used by Milton. In the initials J. M. appended to that poem the J. is not crossed, a variation from all the undoubted signatures of Milton, and the M. (as Mr. Sotheby admits) is at variance with that used by Milton.

It is remarkable that both poems introduce the Bee, and the alchemical fiction of a flower being reproducible from its calcined ashes.

Among the MSS. of Sir Reginald Graham, Bart, is a volume of poetry containing an epitaph on Madam Elizabeth Swettenham in 14 lines, where the similarity of the 12th and 13th lines to the 3rd and 4th of the disputed poem is. noticeable.

Begins, If chearfull, chast as are the snows.

Ends, No soul can be more blest than this,

Whose sacred reliques in this urn

Are kept until the Soul's return,

To re-unite itself to its known mate,

And raise these reliques to an happier state.

The same volume of poetry contains the following, “Julii Mazarini Cardinalis, Epitaphium. authore Joh. Milton”, The writer then gives the last three lines of the long sarcastic epitaph on Cardinal Mazarin which may be found at length in Charles Gildon's Miscellany Poems, 8vo. Lond: 1692, and in vol. i. part 2 of the State Poems, in both of which collections it is attributed to Milton. These three lines he expands into ten lines of English verse. Then he copies the Latin epigram on Pope Boniface the Vlllth (also to be found in Gildon's Miscellany Poems, and the State Poems) and gives a poetical version of it. The same volume of MS. poetry contains “To a friend upon reading Mr Charles Gildon's Miscellany Poems” (eighteen lines).

Begins. I have, Sir, by a transient look

Travers'd this miscellaneous book:

Pardon the ink which I have spilt on

The two quaint epitaphs by Milton. (Pp. 29, 33.)

The reference to pp. 29 and 33 are evidently to the pages of Gildon's volume; the epitaph on Mazarin being at p. 29, and the epigram on Boniface at p. 33. So that Gildon, who was a cotemporary of Milton, attributed these two Latin productions to him.

Charles Gildon was a friend of Charles Blount, whose Miscellaneous Works were published collectively in 1695, in one volume, in which is a long preface by Gildon to the Oracles of Reason. One of Blount's productions is “A just vindication of Learning and the liberty of the Press,” a tract of not quite twenty-three pages; at p. 4 of which he says, “I cannot but herein agree with Mr. Milton and say that (unless it be effected with great caution) you had almost as good as kill a man as kill a book.” At p. 5 he says, “I shall here demonstrate the unreasonableness of any such license or Imprimatur.” Passages equal to seven pages of this short tract are, with some trifling alterations, afterwards conveyed from Milton's Areopagitica, without the slightest acknowledgment of the source. They are worked up into Blonnt's tract so as to lead a reader to suppose that they are original.

^{page xv note a} Two mistakes in these references are noted in the Corrigenda.

^{page xvi note a} I am enabled to add an interesting item to our scanty knowledge of Milton's doings abroad. In the Travellers' Book of the English College at Eome it is recorded that on the 30th of October, 1638, Milton and his servant, and N. Cary, brother of Lord Falkland, Dr. Holding of Lancaster, and N. Fortescue dined at the college.

The entry, which was sent to Sir T. Duffus Hardy by Mr. Stevenson (now at Eome examining the Vatican MSS. for our Government), is as follows, “Octobris die 30, Pransi sunt in Collegio nostro Illustrissimus D. N. Cary frater baronis de Faukeland, Doctor Holdingus, Lancastrensis, D. N. Fortescuto, et Dominus Miltonns, cum famulo, nobiles Angli, et excepti sunt laute.”

^{page xviii note a} See also Paradise Lost, book iv. lines 623, 641–645; book v. lines 1–6, 20–25.

^{page xviii note b} As this could not be done, I have had a few copies taken, and have deposited one (and also one of the letter by Lawes) at the British Museum.

^{page xix note a} A copy of the sale catalogue of Lord Preston's large library (sold at London in 1696) is at Longleat. Among the books is a copy of Bodin's Treatise on a Commonwealth translated into English (fol. Lond. 1606). All the extracts from this translation are in Lord Preston's writing. The single note by Milton from Bodin, p. 189, seems to be from a Latin edition.

^{page xx note a} See an unsigned letter among the MSS. of the Marquis of Bath. (Appendix t o Fourth Report of the Historical MSS. Commission, p. 231, col. 1.)

^{page xx note a} Among Sir Frederick Graham's MSS.

^{page xx note a} A short unsigned letter of advice is, I think, by Skinner's hand.