writing of Milton himself and containing many of his
early poems, is preserved in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge.
The printed copies, of course, begin with those published in his own
lifetime. They contain practically the whole of his poetry. The most
important are the volume containing his early poems issued in 1645,
_Paradise Lost_ which first appeared in 1667, _Paradise Regained_ and
_Samson Agonistes_ which followed in 1671, and a re-issue in 1673, with
additions, of the volume of his minor poems already printed in 1646.
The first complete edition was _The Poetical Works of Mr. John Milton_,
issued by Jacob Tonson in 1695.

So much for the bare text. Annotation naturally soon followed. The
earliest commentator was Patrick Hume who published an edition of the
poems with notes on _Paradise Lost_ in 1695. But the most famous,
though also least important, of Milton's early critics was the greatest
of English scholars, Richard Bentley, who in 1732 issued an edition of
_Paradise Lost_ in which whole passages were relegated to the margin as
the spurious interpolations of an imaginary editor. Such a book is, of
course, merely a curiosity connecting two {251} great names. The real
beginning in the work of editing Milton as a classic should be edited
was made by Thomas Newton, afterwards Bishop of Bristol, who in 1749
brought out an edition of _Paradise Lost_, "with Notes of Various
Authors," and followed it in 1752 with a similar volume including
_Paradise Regained_ and the minor poems. Newton's work was often
reprinted, and remained the standard edition till it was superseded by
that of the Rev. H. J. Todd which first appeared in 1801. The final
issue of Todd is that of 1826 in six volumes which, in spite of many
notes which are defective, many which are antiquated and some which are
superfluous, may still claim to be the best library edition of Milton.
Among the best of those which have appeared since are Thomas
Keightley's, published in 1859, which contains excellent notes, and
Prof. David Masson's, which is the work of the most learned and devoted
of all Milton's editors. Both of these have the advantage of Todd in
some respects; Keightley in acuteness and penetration, Masson in
completeness of knowledge. But no single editor's work can be a
perfect substitute for a _variorum_ edition like that of Todd, giving
the comments and suggestions of many different minds. The most
complete edition of Masson