My work has been greatly assisted by a grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. To the Council I extend my sincerest thanks.

Notes

1. John Creaser, ‘Editorial Problems in Milton’, RES 34 (1983) 279–303 and RES 35 (1984) 45–60.

2. William Empson, Some Versions of Pastoral (1935) 163.

3. Hunter’s essay was first published in Essays in Honor of Walter Clyde Curry (1954). It is reprinted in The Descent of Urania: Studies in Milton, 1946–1988 (1989), 224–42.

4. Empson makes the point in all three of his major works on Milton. See Milton’s God (1961) 68, Some Versions of Pastoral (1935) 168, and The Structure of Complex Words (1951) 103,

5. Some Versions of Pastoral (1935) 172.

6. The Iliad of Homer, trans. Richmond Lattimore (1951).

7. Hunter makes his case against Milton’s authorship of the De Doctrina Christiana in SEL 32 (1992), 129–42, SEL 33 (1993), 191–207, and SEL 34 (1994), 195–203

8. For the replies by Lewalski and Shawcross, see SEL 32 (1992), 143–54 and 155–62. For the replies by Hill and Kelley, see SEL 34 (1994), 165–93 and 195–203.

TABLE OF DATES

Unless otherwise stated, Milton’s works are listed by date of publication.

1608   (9 December) M. born in his father’s house, Bread Street, Cheapside, London.

1615   (24 November) Brother Christopher born.

1620 (?)   Enters St Paul’s School. Friendship with Charles Diodati begins. Thomas Young begins to tutor M. at home at about this time.

1625   (12 February) Matriculates at Christ’s College, Cambridge. March: Charles I becomes King.

1626   Probably rusticated (suspended) from Cambridge for part of the Lent term.

1629   (March) BA degree. December: writes On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity.

1632   On Shakespeare published in second Shakespeare folio. July: MA degree.

1632–8   Life of scholarly retirement at family homes in Hammersmith and Horton.

1633   William Laud becomes Archbishop of Canterbury.

1634   (29 September) A Masque performed at Ludlow Castle.

1637   A Masque published. 3 April: mother dies. 30 June: Bastwick, Burton and Prynne lose their ears for writing anti-prelatical pamphlets. They are confined in prison ships on the Irish Sea throughout the autumn. 10 August: M.’s classmate Edward King drowns on the Irish Sea. November: writes Lycidas.

1638   (April)–1639 (August) Continental tour.

1638   Lycidas published in a volume of elegies for Edward King. August: Charles Diodati dies.

1639   (March) War with Scotland (First Bishops’ War).

1639–40   Settles in London where he takes pupils, including his nephews Edward and John Phillips.

1640   (August) Second Bishops’ War. 3 November: Long Parliament convened. Laud and Strafford impeached.

1641   Publication of first anti-prelatical pamphlets: Of Reformation, Of Prelatical Episcopacy, Animadversions upon the Remonstrant’s Defence. Rebellion in Ireland.

1642   More anti-prelatical pamphlets: The Reason of Church Government, An Apology for Smectymnuus.