Notes to Chapter 1(London, 1660).
70 Evident from the entry in the Stationers Registers. See note 76.
71 Eikonoklastes is cited as a “Villanous Book” in Thomas Sprat’s Observations on Monsieur
de Sorbier’s Voyage into England (London, 1665), 58–9; [Pierre Nichole], The Pernicious
Consequence of the New Heresie of the Jesuits against the King and the State (London, 1666),
sig. A 4v, links Milton and other republicans with the Jesuits as advocates of regicide.
David Lloyd attacked Eikonoklastes in Memoires of the Lives, Actions, Sufferings, and
Deaths of those Noble, Reverend, and Excellent Personages that Suffered... in our Late
Intestine Wars (London, 1668), 221. Also, for seven consecutive years beginning in
1664, “Blind Milton” was mentioned as an object of ridicule in Poor Robin, a satiric
almanac.
72 John Gadbury, Vox Solis: or, an Astrological Discourse of the Great Eclipse of the Sun (Lon-
don, 1667), 2. See Nicholas von Maltzahn, “The First Reception of Paradise Lost (1667),”
Review of English Studies 47 (1996), 481–7.
73 “IMPRIMATUR: Tho. Tomkyns, RRmo. in Christo Patri ac Domino, Dño Gilberto,
Divina Providentia Archiepiscopo Cantuariensi, a sacris domesticis. Richard Royston.
Intr. per Geo: Tokefeilde Ck” (Let it be Printed: Thomas Tomkyns, one of the reli-
gious servants of the most reverend father and lord in Christ, Lord Gilbert, by divine
providence Archbishop of Canterbury. Richard Royston. Entered by George Tokefield,
clerk). In LR IV, 433–4. The entry is now barely legible in the manuscript. The con-
tract Milton signed with Simmons on April 27, 1667 describes the poem as “lately
licensed to be printed.”
74 Pepys, Diary, VIII, 286
75 Ibid., 333 (July 12, 1667).
76 The entry reads: “Master Sam. Symons. Entred for his copie under the hands of Master
Thomas Tomkyns and Master Warden Royston, a booke or copie intituled Paradise lost
A Poem in Tenne bookes by J. M.,” SR 1640–1708, II, 381.
77 BL Evelyn Papers JE A 12, fols. 69, 68. See Nicholas von Maltzahn, “Laureate, Repub-
lican, Calvinist: An Early Response to Milton and Paradise Lost (1667),” MS 29 (1992),
181–98. Hugh Amory, “Things Unattempted Yet: A Bibliography of the First Edition
of Paradise Lost,” Book Collector 32 (1983), 41–66, notes that printing did not normally
wait upon registration, and that Simmons likely began soon after signing the contract.
Von Maltzahn, “First Reception,” 487–8, points out that an average rate of about two
sheets a week was usual, and that the next year Simmons registered a work five weeks
before its appearance.
78 Hugh Amory, “Things Unattempted Yet,” 41–66, identifies four separate issues, with
six different title pages (and one variant). See also R. G. Moyles, The Text of Paradise
Lost: A Study in Editorial Procedure (Toronto, 1985), 21–8.
79 The poem may have been first presented for sale with the 1668 title page bearing just
the initials, since that formula corresponds most closely to the entry in the Stationers
Register; and the 1667 title pages, though printed earlier, may have been used later. For
this argument see Amory, “Things Unattempted Yet,” 45–51, and von Maltzhan, “First
Reception,” 488. The first 1667 title page reads: “Paradise lost. A Poem. Written in Ten
Books By John Milton. London: Printed, and are to be sold by Peter Parker under
Creed Church near Aldgate; And by Robert Boulter at the Turks Head in Bishopsgate-
street; And Matthias Walker, under St. Dunstons Church in Fleet-street, 1667.” The
Notes to Chapter 13