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ILTON'S little play Comus, the first edition of which is herewith reproduced in facsimile, is the author's first book and, after Paradise Lost, is considered his most important work. In this first edition, as will be seen, it is called simply "A Maske presented at Ludlow Castle," etc., and in the two collected editions of Milton's minor Poems published during his lifetime, the first in 1645 and the second in 1673, the title is the same. Comus, the name of one of the principal characters, was, it seems, given to the "Maske" by some later editor.

At the time Comus was written and acted, "1634, on Michaelmasse Night," the 29th of September, Milton was in his twenty-sixth year. Although he had already written a number of pieces both in English and Latin, only one had, apparently, been printed. This was his little poem of sixteen lines, An Epitaph on the Admirable Dramatick Poet, W. Shakespeare, which is found, but without author's name, among the prefatory verses in the Second Folio, printed in 1632.

Even when this little play was printed in 1637 Milton seems to have been diffident about acknowledging the authorship. It was very probably printed with his permission, as the motto on the title, from Virgil, was evidently selected by him. Masson paraphrases this:

The dedication, it will be noticed, is written and signed by H. Lawes, whose reason for printing is said to be "that