Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/46

 both manuscripts were discovered in the State Paper Office by Robert Lemon in 1823. Such of the state letters as had not been already published were edited by W. D. Hamilton for the Camden Society in ‘Original Papers’ (1859). The ‘Christian Doctrine’ gives Milton's theological views. Accepting absolutely the divine authority of the Bible, he works out a scheme of semi-Arianism, and defends the doctrine of free-will against the Calvinist view. He shows little knowledge of ecclesiastical authorities. Sumner published a translation of the ‘Christian Doctrine,’ reprinted in Bohn's edition of the ‘Prose Works.’ In 1658 Milton published Raleigh's ‘Cabinet Council’ from a manuscript in his possession. ‘Original Letters and Papers of State addressed to Oliver Cromwell … found among the Political Collections of Mr. John Milton,’ 1743, contains papers which are stated to have been given by Milton to Ellwood (see, vi. 814).

Milton's ‘Collections for a Latin Dictionary’ are said by Wood to have been used by E. Phillips in his ‘Enchiridion’ and ‘Speculum’ in 1684. ‘Three large folios’ of Milton's collections were used by the editors of the ‘Cambridge Dictionary’ of 1693.

An ‘Argument on the great Question concerning the Militia, by J. M.,’ 1642, which, according to Todd (i. 223), is ascribed to Milton in a copy in the Bridgewater Library by a note of the second Earl of Bridgewater, was really by (1612-1657) [q. v.] (Bodleian Cat.} Two commonplace books of Milton's have been edited by Mr. Alfred J. Horwood, one from a copy belonging to Sir F. W. Graham in 1876 (privately printed), and another for the Camden Society (1876, revised edition, 1877). They contain nothing original. A manuscript poem, dated 1647, discovered by Professor Morley in a blank page of the 1673 volume, was attributed by him to Milton, and became the subject of a warm newspaper controversy in 1868. The British Museum has a collection of the articles which appeared. The weight of authority seems to be against it, and if Milton's, he suppressed it judiciously. It has also been claimed for [q. v.] The Milton MSS. now in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, were left to the college by Sir Henry Newton Puckeridge, bart., a book-collector, who died in 1700. They contain copies of ‘Comus’ and ‘Lycidas,’ the ‘jottings’ mentioned above, some early poems, many of the sonnets in Milton's own hand, besides copies of a few sonnets in other hands.

The first annotated edition of Milton's poems appeared in 1695 by P[atrick] H[ume] [q. v.] [q. v.] was accused of appropriating the notes unfairly in his edition of the first book of ‘Paradise Lost’ in 1750. Bentley's famous edition appeared in 1732, and was attacked by [q. v.] in that year. The edition by Newton of ‘Paradise Lost’ appeared in 1749, 2 vols. 4to, and of the other poems, 1 vol. 4to, in 1750, and has been frequently reprinted. Baskerville's quarto edition of 1758, from Newton's text, is handsome but ‘full of misprints.’ Another of Baskerville's followed in 1759. Boydell's sumptuous edition, with plates, after Westall, and a life by Hayley, appeared in 1794. Cowper's translations of the Latin and Italian poems were published separately by Hayley in 1808, and are in the tenth volume of Cowper's ‘Works’ by Southey (1837). Todd's ‘Variorum’ edition appeared in 6 vols. 8vo in 1801, 7 vols. 8vo in 1808, and in 1826. The ‘Aldine’ edition of 1826 contains the life by Phillips, Cowper's translations of Latin and Italian poems, and an introduction by J[oseph] P[arkes]; that of 1832, a life by J. Mitford. Sir Egerton Brydges edited an edition (6 vols. 8vo) in 1835, and James Montgomery an edition (2 vols. 8vo) in 1843. Professor Masson edited the ‘Cambridge’ Milton, 3 vols. 8vo, in 1877, and again in 1890, and also an edition in the ‘Golden Treasury’ series in 1874, and the ‘Globe’ Milton in 1877. The ‘Aldine’ edition, with life by John Bradshaw, appeared in 1892. An edition of the English ‘Prose Works,’ in 1 vol. folio, 1697, without the name of printer or place of publication, is in the British Museum. The ‘Prose Works’ were collected by Toland in 1698 in 3 vols. folio, Amsterdam (really London). They were republished by Birch in 1738, 2 vols. folio, and again in 1753 (when [q. v.] restored the later editions of tracts printed by Toland from earlier copies). They were edited by Charles Symmons, D.D., in 7 vols. 8vo, in 1806. A selection appeared in 1809. A one-volume edition was edited by J. Fletcher in 1833, and has been reprinted. They are also contained, together with the ‘Christian Doctrine,’ in Bohn's edition, 5 vols. 8vo, edited by J. A. St. John, 1848-53. The ‘Works in Prose and Verse,’ in 8 vols. 8vo, were edited by John Mitford in 1851, but without the ‘Christian Doctrine.’

[Everything knowable about Milton has been given, with careful references to original sources, in Professor Masson's Life of John Milton, narrated in connection with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his Time, 6 vols. 8vo, 1859-80. A new and revised edition of vol. i. (cited above) appeared in 1881. The