“Teach the Erring Soul” 1669–1674and one added line in three other places. Also, the Arguments were revised to suit
the new arrangement, several words and phrases throughout were altered or changed,
and most of the errata from the first edition were corrected. Of the nearly nine
hundred other changes in typography, spelling, and punctuation, it is hard to know
whether most are by Milton or by the compositor, and therefore hard to judge how
much revising he actually did.^96 By the change to twelve books he placed his epic
securely in the central Virgilian epic tradition, having decided, it seems, to reclaim
that tradition and contest its appropriation by the likes of Davenant and Dryden and
the courtly heroic. That decision may have been prompted by Dryden’s visit some-
time in this period. As reported by a contemporary,
Mr Dryden... went with Mr. Waller in Company to make a visit to Mr. Milton, and
desire his Leave for putting his Paradise lost into Rhime for the Stage. Well, Mr.
Dryden, says Milton, it seems you have a mind to Tagg my Points, and you have my
Leave to Tagg ’em, but some of ’em are so Awkward and Old Fashion’d that I think
you had as good leave ’em as you found ’em.^97The anecdote displays Milton’s wry humor as he alludes to the rhyme/blank verse
controversy in terms of fashion, rhyme being like the foppish fad of wearing rib-
bons “tagged” with bits of metal at the end. Why did Milton agree to Dryden’s
request? Perhaps because he hoped that those who saw the stage version might be
led back to his original, much as we might be led by a film to read the better book.
Also, Milton valued old friends and acquaintances: Dryden had been his associate in
Cromwell’s Secretariat and at least an occasional visitor according to Milton’s widow
who added the comment that Milton thought him “no poet, but a good rimist.”^98
Dryden also indicates that the two authors had some literary discussions: “Milton
has acknowledg’d to me, that Spencer was his Original.”^99
Dryden seems to have intended his rhymed drama or “opera” to serve as part of
the festivities for the Duke of York’s bride Mary of Modena, but the unpopularity
of that match made grand festivities unwise and it was never produced. In his
preface Dryden claimed that it had been written in a month – it was registered on
April 17, 1674 but published only in 1677^100 – and that “many hundred Copies”
were dispersed in manuscript. He probably gave one of them to Milton as a cour-
tesy. Milton would not have liked it. Not only were his soaring lines “tamed” and
bounded by rhyme, not only do the angelic and the human characters lack psycho-
logical depth, but the politics are very different: Dryden divides Satan’s speeches
among the fallen angels, so that the entire community (called a “senate” or the
“States-General of Hell”) plots the continuing rebellion against heaven and the
seduction of Adam and Eve. In Milton, rebellion is the act of a would-be usurping
monarch, Satan; in Dryden it is the act of a diabolic Long Parliament rising against
a Divine King.
Milton’s new edition of Paradise Lost, published around July 6 by Simmons,