“Higher Argument”: Paradise Lost 1665–1669John Evelyn.^77 Richardson heard that Sir John Denham came into the House of
Commons one day with a sheet of the poem wet from the press, and proclaimed it
“Part of the Noblest Poem that ever was Wrote in Any Language or Any Age” (EL
295), but that story has an apocryphal ring to it. The text of the first edition, a
quarto, was well printed, in an attractive format and on good paper – gilt-edged in
some copies. Readers were probably surprised, however, by the stark presentation
of the 1667 issues of the poem: no dedicatory or commendatory verses, no epistle
from author or bookseller, no prefatory matter at all to engage the reader’s interest
or sympathy – not even Simmons’s name as printer and publisher (plate 15). That
Milton’s poem was sent forth into the world bare and unaccommodated suggests
that likely presenters and commenders had qualms about associating themselves
with the rebel Milton’s return to print. Yet he may have been quite willing to see
his poem presented without the usual apparatus and authorizing voices, redolent of
the patronage system, to make its own way by its own merits. It sold for 3s a copy.
Over the next three years the first edition appeared with six different title pages
and was distributed to as many as six different booksellers – a strategy to make it
more widely available, spread the risk, and promote sales.^78 The changing title pages
indicate continued anxiety on Simmons’s part that a poem by the notorious Com-
monwealth polemicist might be shunned by prospective readers as treasonous or
heretical. The first three title pages include, in large type, a message intended to
reassure them: “Licenced, and Entred according to order.” Two title pages dated
1667 bear Milton’s name but the second reduces that name to very small type, as if
to avoid calling attention to it; a third (1668) – which may in fact have been the first
one used – identifies the author only as J. M.^79 With the fourth title page (1668)
Simmons had gained confidence: Milton’s name appears in full, as does, for the first
time, Simmons’s own, and the “Licenced, and Entred” line is omitted. Also, in this
issue Simmons includes a brief note taking credit for soliciting from Milton 14
pages of prefatory matter to help readers better understand the content and form of
the work: “Courteous Reader, There was no Argument at first intended to this Book,
but for the satisfaction of many that have desired it, I have procur’d it, and withall
a reason of that which stumbled many others, why the Poem Rimes not” (sig. A
2).^80 Milton provided a fairly detailed prose argument for each of the ten books, all
published together at the front, as well as a vigorous defense of his use of blank verse
and an errata sheet. The two 1669 issues retain Milton’s and Simmons’s names and
the prefatory matter.^81
By remarkable coincidence Dryden’s essay Of Dramatick Poesie was also regis-
tered with the Stationers in August, 1667 and was probably available soon after, so
this important argument claiming rhyme as the norm for modern poetry of all sorts
greeted the reading public at about the same time as Milton’s blank verse epic.^82 It
is staged as a conversation among four friends who, on June 3, 1665, took a barge
on the Thames to follow the noise of the Dutch and English battleships. After
Crites and Eugenius argue the excellencies, respectively, of the ancient and the