NOT INTRODUCTION OT the least extraordinary fact connected with this new Romance by Milton is that it was not discovered in manuscript in some old library, nor yet unearthed from old and forgotten bundles of documents in the State Paper Office, as was the case with the last find of Milton's De Doctrina Christiana about seventy-five years ago. Although this former find created considerable literary sensation, the treatise, long as it was, contained very little novel or interesting except the new fact that Milton in later life was a pronounced Arian, and held certain other even more unexpected opinions. The singular thing is that this present work-a much more important, varied, and fascinating one-has been in print for over two hundred and fifty years, and no one has ever alluded to it, or, as far as I can at present make out, known of its existence. One reason may be its great rarity; there are very few copies extant, and these nearly all shut up in college or academical libraries. That rarity reason may hold for recent times; but how is it that no notice seems to have been taken of it at the time it was first given to the world, and easily could be obtained? This is a preliminary which I think should be looked into before further considering the contents or authorship. First, then, I think, it may be said that the date of issue (1648) has a great deal to do with this neglect. The year was one full of excitement throughout the country, as the year before the king's execution would be naturally. Probably very few cared just then, or indeed had time, to tackle nearly four hundred pages of closely printed VOL. I. I Latin about such an unpromising and vague subject as Nova Solyma. If any of the Millenarian fanatics, or Apocalyptic Expounders, or Fifth Monarchy men had been perchance taken by the title, a mere glance at almost any page would have made it perfectly clear that this was no book for them. Moreover, the sectaries who swarmed in the army and distinguished themselves as pamphleteers were, as a rule, men of little culture beyond effective use sometimes of the vernacular. The Literae Humaniores were beyond them altogether. In that remarkable series of publications between 1638 and 1660, collected by Thomason, and preserved in so strange a manner, the Latin books are very few and far between. In 1648 Nova Solyma fell flat from the press, because the age was in no humour for such learned diversions of literary leisure. The congenial and appreciative readers of such a work had been scattered far and wide by the great Rebellion, and the exiled court of Henrietta Maria and the small band of literary Royalists who were attracted to it, had other thoughts than about "New Jerusalem," or educational theories, or Latin books at all. There had been, no doubt, a very good audience a decade or so previously for Barclay's somewhat similar style of Latin romance, his Argenis and his Euphormio; but in those days a learned pedant was on the throne, the pupil of the most distinguished Latinist of his time, and Latin plays were the rage with scholars, and Latin romances such as the two above-named were a striking novelty, and the Argenis had, in addition to this, been more than once translated for English readers. The times were indeed unpropitious for Milton's fine attempt. Civil dudgeon is no friend to the scholar or his publisher. Virulent ephemeral politics may spring up and prosper in many a tract and edition, but in 1648, on the very eve of the last act of the great tragedy of the Rebellion, what interest could even such a remarkable literary novelty as Nova Solyma possibly excite? As in 1648, so again in 1848, politics and revolution obscured every other interest, and Chateaubriand's great work, for BORN TO BLUSH UNSEEN 3 which 100,000 francs had been prepared, his Memoires d'outre Tombe, could hardly obtain a reader. And there was yet more against the circulation of our book; it was anonymous, without a licenser, and without even a publisher's name to it. The last was added shortly afterwards, and although this has helped us in the identification of the author, it did not apparently help to increase the demand for it at the time. If perchance a scholar or two in England or on the Continent had glanced through a few pages at random, when it originally appeared, it would seem to many at first sight merely an academical Argenis, smelling strongly of the schools, and as such dismissed for something more interesting. Anyhow, no reader has put forth a word of praise for the many patches of purple both in prose and verse which are so manifestly there. They have become rather dusty and old-fashioned through the neglect of ages; perhaps somewhat moth-eaten by Tempus Edax, who will allow nothing to be fresh unless it is "up to date." Still I am proud to have obtained the privilege of dusting them a little and making them somewhat more presentable and accessible to Milton's co-patriots and my own contemporaries. I am the more pleased because there seems every appearance nowadays that Milton's reputation, like Cromwell's, is distinctly rising, among those who ought to know, both in our own country and America. Only a few days ago I was highly gratified by reading a statement that our acknowledged highest authority on printed books, when asked what books should be packed in a small travelling-trunk for use on a voyage or holiday, began in the following order: 1. The Bible and Shakespeare. 2. Milton's Paradise Lost. Having thus somewhat abated a natural prejudice against accepting a book as Milton's which has been in print for so many generations, and noticed by no one, let us consider what is its literary history, and what its contents and place in literature. 1. Literary History. The book was first presented to the public in small octavo form with this title page: NOVÆ SOLYMÆ Libri Sex. LONDINI Typis JOANNIS LEGATI, MDCXLVIII. The book contained three hundred and ninety-two pages of which the last contained the errata of the printer's short notice to the reader. There was no preface or introduction of any kind, and no notes. The only printed extra was this Latin motto in the middle of the blank page facing the title : Cujus opus, studio cur tantum quaeris inani ? which I turn thus: |