“Higher Argument”: Paradise Lost 1665–1669new kind of heroic poem based on contemporary events and serving royalist inter-
ests. Terming his poem “Historical, not Epick,” Dryden nonetheless claims the
historical kind as a branch of epic, insisting that his poem’s “Actions and Actors are
as much Heroick, as any Poem can contain.” He also lays explicit claim to the
Virgilian legacy, proclaiming that Virgil is his master and that he has “followed him
every where.”^58 Though he admits that the classical poets have an advantage over
the moderns in not being tied “to the slavery of any Rhyme,” he insists that his
four-line stanzas in alternating rhyme are “more noble, and of greater dignity, both
for the sound and number, then any other verse in use amongst us,” referring to
Davenant’s preface to Gondibert for a better defense.^59 This new claimant to the
modern heroic poem would surely goad Milton to publish his own epic as soon as
possible – one that would break the bondage of modern rhyme and recover the
ancient poets’ liberty. And one that would celebrate, not a debauched king, but the
only true King and kingdom in heaven, not the heroism of war but the “better
fortitude / Of Patience and heroic martyrdom,” not a Virgilian earthly empire but
an earthly paradise tragically lost.
Milton may have been prompted to publish his poem at this juncture by the disar-
ray in the government and the disruption in censorship practices occasioned by all
the disasters.^60 But his opportunities for publishing were severely limited because of
the enormous losses suffered by printers and booksellers in the fire. Richard Baxter
reports that almost all the booksellers in St Paul’s Churchyard – the major venue for
them – lost their stock.^61 Pepys heard on October 5, 1666 that the lost books – stored
in St Faith’s crypt beneath Paul’s and in some other warehouses – were worth more
than £150,000, and that “all the great booksellers [were] almost undone.”^62 Among
the few located outside the destroyed area were Henry Herringman in the Strand,
the fashionable publisher of Dryden, Davenant, and other court poets, and also the
press Milton chose – probably for reasons of proximity as well as earlier associations –
the Simmons press in nearby Aldersgate Street. It was now managed by Samuel
Simmons, who was more a printer than a bookseller; his father Matthew Simmons
had published Milton’s Bucer, Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, and Observations on the
Irish peace.^63 Humphrey Moseley, we recall, claimed to have solicited Milton for his
1645 Poems and sought by his format and apparatus to assimilate Milton’s lyric vol-
ume to his own “series” of courtly poets writing within a patronage model, though
Milton’s self-presentation within the volume militated against that effort.^64 Now,
some twenty years later, Milton probably made the overture to the publisher. With
Paradise Lost Milton presents himself as he had in his prose tracts, as a new kind of
author in a market-oriented system which Peter Lindenbaum aptly terms a “Repub-
lican Mode of Literary Production.”^65 The legal contract Milton signed with Simmons
- the first such formal contract between author and publisher on record – shows
Milton exercising an author’s right to his intellectual property at a time when copy-
right was granted only to stationers through entry in the Stationers Register. Milton
signed the contract by proxy on April 27, 1667, his signature attested by his seal of