INTRODUCTION A. EDITIONS Milton dictated two editions of The Ready and Easy Way, and original copies of both have been preserved. The first edition is entitled THE READIE & EASIE WAY ΤΟ ESTABLISH A Free Commonwealth, AND The EXCELLENCE therof Compar'd with The inconveniences and dangers of readmitting kingship in this nation. It is a small quarto of eighteen pages. Masson seems to be in error in stating that it was published by Livewell Chapman. The title-page shows that the book was printed by 'T. N.,' who doubtless was Milton's old publisher, Thomas Newcome (see first note). However, the pamphlet was put on sale, about the end of February, 1660, at Chapman's book-store in Pope's-Head Alley. The second edition is a duodecimo volume of 108 pages. It retains the original title, but its title-page shows quite a different make-up in other respects. No hint as to printer or stationer is given. It is simply: 'The second edition revis'd and augmented,' and 'Printed for the Author' at London in 1660. The book appeared toward the end of April. Chapman was then a fugitive (see second note), and doubtless by this time no printer was willing to risk even his initials on a titlepage with Milton's. Certainly Newcome was already trimming his sails to the breeze from Flanders. 'I should have liked very much to know,' says Masson, 'whether Livewell Chapman was nominally publisher of the second edition, . . . or whether Milton was obliged to put forth the second edition without any publisher's name.' The title-page, as we have seen, furnishes answers to both these questions. It contains also the important addition of the following motto (see third note) : et nos consilium dedimus Syllæ, demus populo nunc. This is an adaptation from Juvenal 1. 15-7: et nos ergo manum ferulæ subduximus, et nos dormiret. The treatise is the result of a thorough revision of the first edition. Many passages have been omitted; some have been altered; and much new matter has been incorporated, the additions swelling the volume to nearly twice its original size. No record of the publication of the revised edition is to be found in the Stationers' Registers, or in the Thomason Collection of pamphlets. It was long a matter of speculation whether the second edition actually got into print in 1660. Masson was never able to locate a copy. 'In my perplexity,' he says, 'I began to ask myself whether this was to be explained by supposing that Milton, after he had prepared the second edition for the press, did not succeed in getting it published, and so that it was not until 1698 that it saw the light, and then by the accident that his enlarged presscopy had survived, and come (through Toland or otherwise) into the hands of the printers of the Amsterdam edition of the Prose Works. But, though several pieces in that edition are expressly noted as never before published," ... there is no such editorial note respecting The Ready and Easy Way, but every appearance of mere reprinting from a previously published copy of 1660. On the whole, therefore, I conclude that Milton did publish his second and enlarged edition some time in April 1660; and I account for the rarity of original copies of this second edition by supposing that either the impression was seized before many copies had got about, or the Restoration itself came so rapidly after the publication as to make it all but abortive.'1 Masson was reasoning well. A copy of this 'all but abortive' edition was once owned by the late Dr. Joseph F. Payne, of New Barnet, England, and is now to be found in the library of Mr. W. A. White, of New York City. Through the kindness of Mr. White, the writer has been privileged to examine this rare volume, and to make use of it in the present edition. Masson was not quite correct, however, in the implied assumption that The Ready and Easy Way did not again see the light until 1698, as both first and second editions were reprinted before that date. The first edition appears in the folio Prose Works' of 1697. The second edition was reprinted (if we may trust the titlepage of 'Five Tracts') for the first time in 1694. The sections entitled 'Four Tracts,' 'Five Tracts,' and 'Four Miscellaneous Tracts' all bear the date 1694, and are bound into a single volume, which is stamped with the same date. It is probably true, however, that these 1694 sections did not get into circulation before 1698; for we find them incorporated as an integral part of of Toland's edition of 1698. The title-page of this so-called Amsterdam (really London) edition is, in part, as follows: 'A Complete Collection of the Historical, Political, and Miscellaneous Works of John Milton, Both English and Latin. With som Papers never before Publish'd. In three Volumes. . Amsterdam. Finished in the This last statement may mean year M.D.C.XC.VIII.' . that the publication had been begun at a considerably earlier date, possibly as early as 1694. 1 Life of Milton 5. 678. |