The Life of John Milton: A Critical Biography
Notes to Chapter 1
- As Milton always insisted that his eyes remained clear, he cannot have had
cataracts. His own diagnosis was gutta serena, a “drop serene.” For his association of
blindness with food and digestive difficulties, see William Kerrigan, The Sacred Com-
plex: On the Psychogenesis of Paradise Lost (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1983),
passim.
106 Under this Ordinance parliament members (from whose numbers these generals came)
pledged to give over any other office, military or civil, during the war. The Commons
passed it on December 19, the Lords the following April. Cromwell, both MP and
lieutenant-general, fell within the scope of the Ordinance, but parliament voted an
exception for him.
107 Known as the Treaty of Uxbridge.
108 Journal of the House of Lords, VII, 116, 118: Justices Reeve and Bacon were charged on
December 28 “to examine the said Woodward and Milton, and such others as the Mas-
ter and Wardens of the Stationers Company shall give Information of.”
109 Like Milton, Woodward was a schoolmaster, a friend of Hartlib’s, and author of sev-
eral pamphlets. The “Papers” he confessed to may have been As You Were, written in
defense of the radical Independent John Goodwin of Coleman Street and published,
also anonymously and without a license, about November 13, 11 days before Areopagitica.
110 Daniel Featley, The Dippers Dipt (London, 1645, c. February 7); the dedicatory epistle
was dated January 10, when Featley was in prison as a malignant. Three editions
appeared in 1645, and others in 1646, 1647, 1651, and 1660.
111 Both bear the identification “By the former Author J. M” on the title page, and the
preface to Tetrachordon is signed “John Milton.” Some, and perhaps most, of Tetrachordon
was written first, since Colasterion contains two references to that work.
112 Palmer was a principal author of the anonymous Scripture and Reason Pleaded for Defen-
sive Armes (London, 1643, c. April 14). Milton offers to deduce his conclusions regard-
ing divorce from Palmer’s own arguments, “which I shall pardon him, if he can deny,
without shaking his own composition to peeces” (582).
113 Colasterion: A Reply to a Nameles Answer Against The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.
Wherein the trivial Author of that Answer is discover’d, the Licencer conferr’d with, and the
Opinion which they traduce defended (London, n.p., 1645).
114 Phillips indicates that the scheme fell through when the new modeling of the army
forced Waller’s resignation. Milton’s comment in the Second Defense (see note 11) may
suggest that the choice of military service was once offered to him. See Parker, II,
894–5, and Fallon, Captain and Colonel, 60.
115 The timing is indicated by Phillips’s report that their first child was born “within a
year” of Mary’s return; that child’s birthdate is July 29, 1646.
116 Euripides, Medea, ll. 298–301. Trans. Arthur S. Way vol. 4 (London and New York:
Loeb, 1912).
117 Tetrachordon: Expositions upon the foure chief places in Scripture which treat of Mariage, or
nullities in Mariage... Wherin the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, as was lately publish’d,
is confirm’d by explanation of Scripture, by testimony of ancient Fathers, of civill lawes in the
Primitive Church, of famousest Reformed divines, And lastly, by an intended ACT of the
Parlament and Church of England in the last yeare of Edward the sixth (London, n.p., 1645).
118 Page 605. See note 5. Milton also suggests that the phrase “one flesh” intends at the
simplest level to remove any suspicion of pollution in the marriage act (613). After
Notes to Chapter 6
