“Higher Argument”: Paradise Lost 1665–1669This language vindicates Milton’s blank verse against the barbarous gothic age and
the vulgar taste of the present, associating it with ancient poetic liberty and also
with the restoration of English liberty from the bondage of Stuart tyranny.^88 The
resonances of this language make Milton’s choice of blank verse a liberating act and
an aesthetic complement to republican politics and culture.
Milton must have offered presentation copies of Paradise Lost to friends, includ-
ing Edward Phillips, Thomas Ellwood, Andrew Marvell, Cyriack Skinner, and Dr
Nathan Paget (whose library contained two copies of the first edition), but none
with dedicatory inscriptions have been found.^89 There are a few early responses to
the poem in private letters, among them several to John Evelyn from John Beale, a
cleric, a former member of the Hartlib circle, and a passionate supporter of the
Royal Society who wanted to persuade Milton to write on subjects like optics or
atmospheric pressure. On November 11, 1667 he commented on the controversy
about rhyme: like Howard and Milton, he describes it as a “Gothish charm” of a
barbarous age, but did not mention Paradise Lost.^90 On November 18, apologizing
for failing to do so sooner, he offers his opinion of Paradise Lost: it is “excellent,”
though less so than the “purer and brighter” inspirations of Milton’s youth – the
decline resulting from the “decay of age.”^91 He cannot, however, forget Milton’s
polemics: “he writes so good verse, that tis pitty he ever wrote in prose.” At some
point he sought an introduction to Milton through Evelyn so as to approach him
about writing scientific poems, but evidently found no encouragement.^92 Over the
next two years, Beale’s letters object to various aspects of Milton’s epic: the repub-
licanism of the Nimrod passage reveals that “Milton holds to his old Principle,”
Milton’s “Plea for our Original right” is he thinks one of the “great faults in his
Paradise Lost,” the “long blasphemies” of the Devils he finds disturbing, and he
mistakenly supposes that the elaborate demonology of the poem shows Milton’s
harsh Calvinism.^93 Another early reader, the Presbyterian John Hobart, thought
many of Milton’s prose works “criminall” but praised the epic for its “extraordi-
nary” matter and its likely moral benefit to a wicked age. In letters dated January 22
and 30, 1668, he comments that the verse is “not very common” but has classical
precedents, that Milton’s epic bears some resemblance to Spenser’s, and that Milton
can be paralleled with Homer in his blindness, his use of archaic words, and “his
raptures & fancy.” He declares categorically that Paradise Lost is “in the opinion of
the impartiall learned, not only above all moderne attempts in verse, but equall to
any of the Ancient Poets,” and that he himself “never read a thing so august.”^94
Clearly, Milton’s poem was read and discussed by some number of readers, fit and
unfit, from early on.^95
On April 26, 1669, about eighteen months after its appearance, Simmons paid
Milton the second £5, due upon the sale of 1,300 copies; the receipt was signed on
his behalf by a friend or scribe.^96 Simmons did not, however, print a second edition
then. Perhaps Milton promised a revision soon, in the twelve-book format. Per-
haps he heard that Milton was at work on Paradise Regained and hoped to print the