To the Right Honourable,

JOHN Lord Vicount BRACLY, fon and heir apparent to the Earl of BRIDGEWATER, &c.*

MY LORD,

HIS poem, which received its first occafion

THI

of birth from yourself and others of your noble family, and much honour from your own perfon in the performance, now returns again to make a final dedication of itself to you. Although -not openly acknowledged by the author, yet it is a legitimate off-fpring, fo lovely, and fo much defired, that the often copying of it hath tired my pen to give my severall friends fatisfaction, and brought me to a neceffity of producing it to the publike view; and now to offer it up in all rightfull devotion to those fair hopes, and rare endowments of your your much promifing youth, which give a full affurance, to all that know you, of a future excellence. Live, fweet Lord, to be the honour of your name, and receive this as your own, from the hands of him, who hath by many favours been long obliged to your most honoured parents, and as in this representation your attendant THYRSIS, fo now in all reall expreffion

Your faithfull and most humble Servant,

H. LAWES§.

The FIRST BROTHER in the MASQUE.

+ See Note on Coм. v. 34.

It never appeared under Milton's name till the year 1645. § This Dedication, from Lawes's edition, does not appear in the edition of Milton's Poems, printed under his own infpection, 1673, when lord Brackly, under the title of earl of Bridgewater, was ftill living. Milton was perhaps unwilling to own his early connections with a family, confpicuous for its unshaken loyalty, and now highly patronifed by king Charles the fecond. See PRELIMIN. NOTES.

The

The Copy of a Letter written by Sir HENRY WOOTTON, to the Author, upon the following

Poem.

SIR,

It

From the Colledge, this 13. of April, 1638.

T was a special favour, when you lately bestowed upon me here, the first taste of your acquaintance, though no longer then to make me know that I wanted more time to value it, and to enjoy it sightly; and in truth, if I could then have imagined your farther stay in these parts, which I understood afterwards by Mr. H., I would have been bold in our vulgar phrase to mend my draught (for you left me with an extreme thirst) and to have begged your converfation again, joyntly with your faid learned friend, at a poor meal or two, that we might have banded together fome good authors of the antient time: among which, I observed you to have been familiar.

Since your going, you have charged me with new obligations, both for a very kinde letter from you dated the fixth of this month, and for a dainty peece of entertainment which came therewith. Wherin I fhould much commend the Tragical part †, if the

"If the lyrical part did not ravish me with a certain Dorique "* delicacy in your fongs and odes."] Sir Henry Wootton, now provoft of Eton college, was himself a writer of English odes, and with fome degree of elegance. He had also written a tragedy, while a young student at Queen's College Oxford, called TANCREDO, acted by his fellow-ftudents. See his LIFE by Walton, p. 11. Cowley wrote an Elegy on his death. Donne has teftified his friendship *Fletcher's paftoral comedy, of which more will be faid hereafter, is characterifed by Cartwright, "Where sorTNESS reigns." Pozмs, p. 269, edit, 1651.

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Lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Dorique delicacy in your fongs and odes, whereunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our language: Ipfa mollities. But I must not omit to tell you, that I now onely owe you thanks for intimating unto me (how modeftly foever) the true artificer. For the work itself, I had viewed fom good while before, with fingular delight ‡, having received it from our common friend Mr. R. in the very clofe of the late Mr. R's. Poems, printed at Oxford, wherunto it was added (as I now fuppofe) that the accef

for Wootton in three copies of verses. p. 61. 77. 104. He is celebrated, both as a scholar and a patron, by Bastard the epigrammatisft. Lib. ii. EPIGR. 4. p. 29. edit. 1598. He was certainly a polite scholar, but on the whole a mixed and defultory character. He was now indulging his ftudious and philofophic propenfities at leisure. Milton, when this letter was written, lived but a few miles from Eton.

"Having received it from our common friend Mr. R. in the very clofe of the late Mr. R.'s Poems, printed at Oxford, whereunto it was added, &c."] I believe " Mr. R." to be John Roufe, Bodley's librarian, of whom I have more to say hereafter. "The late Mr. "R." is unquestionably Thomas Randolph the poet. It appears from his monument, which I have seen, in the church of Blatherwyke in Norhamptonshire, that he died on the feventeenth day of March, in 1634. In which year Coмus was performed at Ludlowcaftle on Michaelmas-night. In the year 1638, Randolph's POEMS were printed at Oxford, viz. " POEMS, with the MUSES LOOK"ING-GLASS and AMYNTAS. By Thomas Randolph, M. A. " and late Fellow of Trinity college Cambridge. Oxford, Printed by L. Litchfield printer to the Vniverfitie for Fr. Bowman, "1638." In quarto. Containing one hundred and fourteen pages. But who has ever feen a copy of this edition of Randolph's Poems with COMUS at the end? Sir Henry fuppofes, that Coмus was added at the close of these poems," that the acceffory might help " out the principal, according to the art of stationers, and to leave "the reader Con la bocca dolce." Randolph's poems were published by his brother, who would not think fuch a recommendation was wanted; and who furely did not mean to include the works of others. It was foreign to his purpose. It marred the integrity of his defign. He was not publishing a mifcellany. Such an extraneous addition would have been mentioned in a preface. Nor

were

fory might help out the principal, according to the art of stationers, and to leave the reader Con la bocca dolce.

Now Sir, concerning your travels, wherin I may chalenge a little more priviledge of difcours with you; I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way; therfore I have been bold to trouble you with a few lines to Mr. M. B. whom you fhall eafily find attending the young Lord S. as his governour, and you may furely receive from him good directions

were Randolph's Poems fo few or fo fmall, as to require any fuch acceffion to make out the volume. A fecond edition of Randolph's Poems, much enlarged, appeared at Oxford in duodecimo, in 1640, and with recommendatory verses prefixed, by the fame printers and publishers. Here we are equally disappointed in seeking for COMUS; which, one might expect, would have been continued from the former edition. I think this perplexity may be thus adjufted. Henry Lawes the musician, who compofed CoмUS, and of whom I fhall fay more in a proper place, being wearied with giving written copies, printed and published this drama, about three years after the presentation, omitting Milton's name, with the following title. "A Mafke prefented at Ludlow caftle, 1634, on "Michaelmaffe night, before the right honorable the Earle of "Bridgewater, Vicount Brackly, Lord Prefident of Wales, and one of his maiefties most honorable privie counsell.”

"Ebeu! quid volui mifero mihi? Floribus auftrum
"Perditus.".

"London. Printed for Hvmphrey Robinfon at the figne of the "three Pidgeons in Pauls church-yard, 1637." In quarto. Now it is very probable, that when Roufe tranfmitted from Oxford, in 1638, the first or quarto edition of Randolph's Poems to Sir Henry Wootton, he very officiously ftitched up at the end Lawes's edition of Comus, a flight quarto of thirty pages only, and ranging, as he thought, not improperly with Randolph's two dramas, the MuSES LOOKING-GLASS and AMYNTAS, the two concluding pieces of the volume. Wootton did not know the name of the author of COMUS, the Mask which he had feen at the end of Randolph, till Milton, as appears by the Letter before us, fent him a copy" intimating the name of the true artificer," on the fixth day of April, 1638. I have before obferved, that Lawes's edition had not the name of the author. This, we may prefume, was therefore the Comus, which Wootton had feen at the end of Randolph.

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