Page:The prophetic books of William Blake, Milton.djvu/19

 will be remembered, to be found repeatedly in Jerusalem and the second appears twice in the text, as well as upon the title page, of the same poem. The last and only other occasion on which Milton is alluded to in Blake's writings is that spoken of above, in the Public Address (Gilchrist, 1880, vol. ii, p. 175), where he says in regard to the attack made upon him in The Examiner of 7th August, 1808:—The manner in which I have rooted out the nest of villains will be seen in a poem concerning my three years' Herculean labours at Felpham, which I shall soon publish." It is not easy to point to any passage either in Milton or Jerusalem where this business is definitely dealt with: but there are a good many significant lines, especially in the latter, which may be taken to derive their intention from it. However this may be, we can be sure from these words that the whole labour of producing the earlier volume was not over at any rate before the autumn of 1808. It is likely indeed to have been published not very long after, either at the end of that year or at the beginning of the following one, since in each of the known examples the paper is watermarked with the year 1808, a coincidence which may reasonably be taken to fix the approximate date of its appearance.

Three examples of the original edition of Milton are all that appear to be forthcoming at the present time. One of these, in the Print Room of the British Museum, consists of 45 engraved pages coloured with watercolour, viz:—title page, 35 pages of text and 9 full page illustrations. This example (except for the extra pages) has been followed in the present text. A second was exhibited at the Grolier Club, New York, in 1905. The pages, which correspond to those in the British Museum example, are numbered continuously in ink. It is printed in black and painted with water-colours, chiefly pink, yellow and blue, the effect being heightened with gold. The third, the Beckford copy from the Hamilton Palace Library (sold in 1882), is now in the New York Public Library (the "Lenox" Library). It differs from the two preceding both in the the arrangement and number of its pages. There are 49 plates, in all; the Preface is wanting, but there are five extra pages (absent from the other two) which are printed, (from Mr. Ellis's text, by kind permission,) at the end of this edition. A perfect copy of Milton should,