concluding that all that so perplexed or offended it could never really have existed or have been intended to exist, and proceeding to eject it from the work examined, and to fill up the gaps with hard contemporary putty.

Take a specimen or two out of the abundance. At B. II., At B. II., 516517, Milton's own editions have

"Toward the four winds four speedy Cherubim

Put to thir mouths the sounding Alchymie."

Bentley attacks the imaginary Editor for his ignorance here, and proposes to restore the true reading thus :

:

"Tow'rds the four winds four sturdy Cherubim

Put to their mouths the sounding Orichalc."

He justifies the changes in two footnotes, as follows:-

V. 516. Four speedy Cherubim.] Not much need of Swiftness to be a good Trumpeter. For Speedy I suspect the Poet gave it,

Four STURDY Cherubim.

Sturdy, stout, robust, able to blow a strong Blast.

V. 517. Put to their mouths the sounding Alchymie.] There is a cheap Kitchin mix'd Metal for Spoons, etc. vulgarly call'd Ockamie, perhaps corruptly from Alchymie; but that is below Heroic Stile, and unworthy of Milton. And the Name, if any such, is silly. For Brass, Pewter, nay the very Silver and Gold Coin are as much Alchymie, as That is; being all mix'd Metals. it thus,

Put to their mouths the sounding ORICHALC.

opelxaλkov, Orichalcum, the most sonorous of Metals for Tubæ and Tibiæ.

He gave

Suidas

And our Spenser led the

in that Word cites from old Poets, Κώδωνας ορειχάλκου, Bells of Orichalc, όρει xáλkov λáλa kúμßaλa, Sounding Cymbals of Orichalc. way for Milton's using it, in his Muiopotmos.

Not Bilboa Steel, nor Brass from Corinth fet,

Nor costly Orichalc from strange Phoenice.

Bear witness to the Editor's boldness; that for Orichalc which he understood not, durst put in Alchymie, from the sound of one Syllable.

Take another example. At VI., 512-520, describing the invention of gunpowder and of artillery by the rebel Angels in Heaven, Milton has :

"Sulphurous and Nitrous Foame

They found, they mingl'd, and with suttle Art,
Concocted and adusted they reduc'd

To blackest grain, and into store conveyd:

Part hidd'n veins diggd up (nor hath this Earth

Entrails unlike) of Mineral and Stone,

Whereof to found their Engins and thir Balls
Of missive ruin; part incentive reed

Provide, pernicious with one touch to fire."

Here Bentley finds a string of errors, arising from the supposed Editor's ignorance of the way in which gunpowder is made, and of the terms used in gunpowder-mills; and he thinks this is the passage "as the Poet certainly gave it ":

"Sulphurous and Nitrous Foam

They pound, they mingle, and with sooty Chark
Concocted and adusted, they reduce

To blackest grain, and into store convey:

Part hidden Veins dig up (nor hath this Earth

Entrails unlike of Mineral and Stone,)
Whereof to found their Engins and their Balls
Of missive ruin: part incentive Reed

Provide obsequious, with one touch to fire."

And so on he goes, leaving not a single page without similar emendations, changing "Not built" into "No butt" (I. 259), "distances" into "discipline" (IV. 935), "embraces" into "branches" (V. 215), "longitude" into "long career" (VII. 373), "loveliest" into "forehead" (VIII. 559), “is judicious" into "unlibidinous" (VIII. 591), “to the ages" into "out of ashes" (X. 647), etc. etc.; besides bracketing passages here and there as pure interpolations. The principle on which Bentley proceeds is, in short, that whatever is un-Bentleian is corrupt; and, apart from the interest of his work as a historical curiosity, as, in fact, an instance of a very "sturdy cherub" blowing an "orichalc,”—it is useful only here and there on account of some acute criticism which Bentley's great classical learning enabled him to supply.

The work, at all events, had no such effect as Bentley intended. His views as to the text of Paradise Lost appeared at once untenable to all who considered the subject, and were, moreover, formally replied to by Dr. Zachary Pearce, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, and by other critics. In the matter of Milton's text, therefore, the course of subsequent editing proceeded as if Bentley's amendments had never been proposed.

1

1 Dr. Pearce's Essay was completed in 1733, under the title "A Review of the Text of the Twelve Books of Paradise Lost, in which the chief of Dr. Bentley's Emendations are consider'd." Among other pamphlets on the question was one in 1732, entitled "Milton Restor'd and Bentley Depos'd."

Bentley's edition included, the editions of Paradise Lost hitherto enumerated bring the trade-history of the poem down to the year 1736. In that trade-history the Tonsons, it will be remarked, had been almost the sole agents. With the exception of an 8vo edition of Paradise Lost by itself, printed in Dublin in 1724, and an edition of the Poetical Works in 2 vols. 12mo, supposed to have been printed in Holland in 1731, there were as yet no other editions in existence than the first three by Simmons, and those which Tonson had published and republished in various sizes, from folio downwards. Of all Tonson's editions, the folio of 1695, with the elaborate annotations by Patrick Hume annexed, remained the most important; but latterly the favourite editions, with those who wanted only the text and the simpler sort of accompaniments, seem to have been the socalled "Fenton" editions of 1725, 1727, and 1730.

That the Tonsons should so long have retained the monopoly of the publication of the poem in England may strike us now as rather strange. Had the present British Copyright Law, as fixed by the Act of 1842, been in existence at the first publication of Paradise Lost, all copyright in the poem would have lapsed forty-two years after the date of that first publication, i.e. in 1709. From that year the poem would have been public property, and any one would have been at liberty to print it. It was in that very year 1709, however, that the first general act of any kind respecting copyright in books was passed in Great Britain. By this act, known as Act 8 Queen Anne c. 19,which affected England and Scotland, but did not include Ireland,it was provided, in respect of books then already in the market, that the authors of such books, or those claiming under them, should have an undisturbed copyright for twenty-one years, counting from the 10th of April 1710. This, though it apparently abrogated the notion, previously entertained in a loose form, that copyright in books was perpetual, was probably a boon at the time to those commercially interested in books. For, as there had been no express legal sanction to the common notion of a perpetual copyright in books, the reprinting of books without consent of the authors, or of those who claimed under them, had become not uncommon; and, since 1694, when the Censorship of the Press virtually ceased, there had not been the special means of redress in such cases previously afforded by the power of calling to account persons who published books without being able to produce the licensed manuscript or the record

VOL. II

D

of it in Stationers' Hall. Twenty-one years of continued monopoly from 1710 was probably, in these circumstances, as much as the Tonsons could have hoped for in the case of a book like Paradise Lost, of which they had already had the profit for twenty years. We have seen that they made good use of the further time allowed them.

That time, according to what would now be the legal interpretation of Queen Anne's Act, should have ended in 1731. We might have expected, accordingly, that, closely following the last-mentioned "Fenton" edition of Milton's Poetical Works in 1730, there should have been editions of Paradise Lost by other publishers than the Tonsons. We do not find, however, any such immediate stepping-in of other publishers. Not only were the numerous Tonson editions then on sale sufficient for the demand for some years, but, when new editions were wanted, they were still supplied by the Tonsons. It was Jacob Tonson tertius that was now the head of the celebrated firm in the Strand,-that Jacob Tonson to whose soft and gentle manners, zeal for literature, and liberality of dealing, Dr. Johnson paid a tribute which one still reads with pleasure.1 Under this Jacob Tonson, who had a less active partner in his brother Richard, the firm lost none of its fame. While continuing, and even extending, those operations in the works of Shakespeare which his father and great-uncle had bequeathed to him, this Jacob Tonson the third did not neglect the traditional interest of his firm in Milton's Poems. In 1737 he published a new edition of Paradise Lost in 8vo; in 1738, a new form of the "Fenton" edition of the same; and in 1746 an edition of the Poetical Works in 4 vols. 12mo, two of the volumes containing Paradise Lost. But why, it may be asked, since the copyright had lapsed in 1731, were there not now editions by other publishers to compete with these of Tonson? The fact seems to be that, notwithstanding the terms of the Act of Queen Anne, there was no idea that the copyright really had lapsed. The old notion of an indefinite copyright in books still existed; and, in

1 In the preface to the re-issue in 1778 of the edition of Shakespeare which he had prepared for Tonson, and which was originally published in 1765.

2 They had not published so many editions of Shakespeare as of Milton, but they had published the chief editions of Shakespeare issued in their time,-to wit, Pope's in 1725 (reprinted by them twice), and Theobald's first edition in 1733.

accordance with this notion, there was a custom among the London publishers of not interfering with each other's supposed copyrights. In Ireland, it was understood, English books might be reprinted; and, accordingly, in addition to the Dublin edition of Paradise Lost in 1724, already mentioned, there were two fresh Dublin editions in 1747 and 1748 respectively, the last on "Irish paper." But, as far as England and Scotland were concerned, it never seems to have occurred to Tonson, or to others for him, that his property in Milton's Poems was at an end. As late as 1761, Bishop Newton1 repeats a statement on this point previously made by himself in 1749,2 and by Birch in 1751.3 Mentioning that second transaction of the first Jacob Tonson by which, in March 1690-1, he became sole proprietor of Paradise Lost after Simmons and Brabazon Aylmer, Bishop Newton, in 1761, adds these words: "Except one-fourth of it, which has been assigned to several persons, his [the eldest Jacob Tonson's] family have enjoyed the right of copy ever since." With the exception, therefore, of a fourth part of the copyright, which, for some trade reason, had been assigned to divers persons jointly before 1749, the Tonsons regarded themselves, even in 1761, as the legal owners of Paradise Lost. 4

Bishop Newton's own edition, in two large quarto volumes, published by subscription in 1749, bears this title: "Paradise Lost. A Poem, in Twelve Books. The Author, John Milton. A New Edition, with Notes of various Authors. By Thomas Newton, D.D. London: Printed for J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper in the Strand. 1749." This edition also, therefore, belongs, in part at least, to the seemingly endless series of editions published by the Tonsons. But

1 Newton's Life of Milton, prefixed to the Poetical Works in his edition of 1761, p. lviii.

"Same, prefixed to Newton's edition of Paradise Lost in 1749, pp. xxxviii. xxxix.

3 Birch's Life of Milton, prefixed to the Prose Works, edition of 1751, p. lviii.

4 What is here stated will account for the fact that so many of what may be called the Paradise Lost relics,-to wit, the licensed manuscript of the first Book of the Poem (see ante, p. 6), Milton's agreement for the copyright with Simmons (see ante, pp. 7-8), his Receipt to Simmons for the second Five Pounds (see ante, p. 15), and the widow's subsequent receipt and discharge to Simmons (see ante, p. 19),—should have come down through the Tonsons. The firm had naturally come into possession of all the business documents relating to the Poem, and had retained them among their papers.