Notes to Chapter 1The application to marriage strains both the literal and cultural terms of this Platonic
myth, as Milton again accommodates a myth to himself by figuring as male both the
initiation of (married) love and the need for reciprocity.
69 James Turner, One Flesh: Paradisal Marriage and Sexual Relations in the Age of Milton
(Oxford, l987), 229.
70 See chapter 2, p. 31.
71 See G. H. Turnbull, Hartlib, Dury, and Comenius: Gleanings from Hartlib’s Papers (Lon-
don, 1947), and Michael Leslie’s description of the retrieval and publication of materials
by and relating to the circle, “The Hartlib Papers Project: Text Retrieval with Large
Datasets,” Literary and Linguistic Computing 5 (1990), 58–69. Charles Webster edited
several tracts by Hartlib and Dury in Samuel Hartlib and the Advancement of Learning
(Cambridge, 1970).
72 Turnbull, Hartlib, Dury, and Comenius, 40.
73 Timothy Raylor, “New Light on Milton and Hartlib,” MQ 27 (1993), 19–30. The lists
containing the name of “Mr Milton” are among the Hartlib Papers, 72 bundles, at the
Sheffield University Library (8/40/9r–10v and 8/40/8v). Raylor argues, plausibly, that
this is not the “Major John Milton” who was also known to be living in London, since
the military title is customarily used for officer contributors.
74 There is, however, no reason to assume with Ernest Sirluck (CPW II, 184–216) that
Hartlib refused to publish Milton’s tract because of disagreements about educational
theory. It is more likely that Milton did not want to be closely identified with that
circle.
75 Hartlib, Ephemerides (Hartlib Papers, 30/4/91a); Turnbull, Hartlib, Dury, and Comenius,
- Culpepper’s letter was dated November 12, 1645. For Dury, see note 82. Later,
Theodore Haak heard and passed on the news that Milton was at work on a history
of Britain and an epitome of Purchas, i.e. the History of Moscovia (see chapter 7,
p. 212).
76 Milton could have met Comenius sometime during his visit to England from Septem-
ber, 1641 to June, 1642, but there is no evidence that he did so.
77 Jan Amos Comenius, Janua linguarum reserata (Leszno, 1631); a Latin–English–French
edition was published by John Anchoran (1631) and by Thomas Horne (1636). By
1644 it had reached its sixth English edition. His Didactica Magna was not published
until 1657, in Amsterdam, but the scheme was summarized in several earlier tracts,
including Hartlib’s Reformation of Schools (London, 1642).
78 Edward Phillips alludes to “some of his Adversaries calling him Paedagogue and School-
master” (EL 57) as a term of reproach.
79 See Lewalski, “Milton and the Hartlib Circle: Educational Projects and Epic Paedeia,”
in Diana Benet and Michael Leib, eds, Literary Milton (Pittsburgh, 1994), 202–19; and
Sirluck, CPW II, 184–216.
80 Milton probably alludes to the Act of June 15, 1641 that calls for use of the confiscated
property of bishops, deans and chapters for the advancement of learning.
81 At St Paul’s School Milton used a revised edition of William Lily’s required Shorte
Introduction of Grammar with the Brevissima Institutio (London, 1574; many editions). See
chapter 1, note 38. “Or any better” may suggest that Milton had already drafted or was
planning his own Latin grammar, Accidence Commenc’t Grammar, published in 1669 (see
chapter 7, pp. 207–8 and chapter 14, p. 490).
Notes to Chapter 6