¹ For the sources of these and subsequent facts cited in this essay, see under the dates mentioned in Vol. iii of J. Milton French's The Life Records of John Milton (New Brunswick, N. J., 1954). The exact statements of the early biographers may also be found in French or in Helen Darbishire's The Early Lives of Milton (London, 1932), pp. 4, 15, 44–45, 71–72, 28–29, and 33. Edward Phillips' obviously exaggerated chronology, contradicted by Milton's own account, is probably to be explained as a defense of his uncle against the familiar charge that blindness was a divine punishment for advocacy of regicide.

² The fact that Milton's licensing of Mercurius Politicus ceases with the entry of 22 Jan. 1652 is probably irrelevant as evidence; he could have continued indefinitely by having the contents read to him. There may, however, be relevance in a Council record of 27 Oct. 1651, in which Milton is ordered to “peruse” what a Mr. White had proposed; this word is canceled and “informe himselfe” is substituted.

Although my identification of the “anonymous biographer” with Cyriack Skinner (TLS, 13 Sept. 1957, p. 547) has been challenged by R. W. Hunt (TLS, 11 Oct., p. 609) and but cautiously corroborated by Maurice Kelley (27 Dec, p. 787), I have here stated it positively because I am positive. It does not, however, affect my argument; indeed, this essay was written and accepted before I made the identification. I hope soon to publish the relevant documents in facsimile so that interested students can easily judge for themselves.

³ Since Milton's eyes after blindness retained their normal appearance—were “clear to outward view, of blemish or of spot”—presumably he had to explain to his visitor that the “augenwehe” he had vaguely mentioned through a messenger on 24 Nov. and the “inflammation of the eyes” which Mylius had mentioned in a letter of 1 Jan. 1652 were actually “suffusion” or overspreading of the surface with consequent loss of vision. In P.L. iii.25–26 he said of his eyes: “So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs, / Or dim suffusion veiled.” This was the “Gutta Serena” noted by Cyriack Skinner.

⁴ Mylius wrote: “und hat in mea præsentia die nota ta ad marginem selbst gesetzet.” The “selbst” may be significant: the man recently noted to be suffering from “suffusion” actually made some notes in a margin. But the passage is puzzling because in the letter sent to Milton earlier the same day (8 Jan.) Mylius explained that he had made marginal notes on this very document and wanted Milton to “observe” them. Worried, he soon afterward visited Milton to make sure that his suggested revisions were not “overlooked”—with the result remarked. It was clearly unnecessary for Milton to write any additional words in the margin by way of agreeing to revisions already written in the margin by Mylius, but he evidently made some sort of notations to signify approval while Mylius was present. That he could not actually see the paper, or could barely do so, is strongly suggested by Mylius' thereupon urging him to have a fair copy of the document made and to take his amanuensis along when it was shown to the Council of State.

⁵ “The Date of Milton's Blindness,” PQ, xv (1936), 93–95 Life Records, iii, 197.

⁶ Milton was to sign his name again as late as 1659 and 1663 (Life Records, iv, 282, 381); he even started to record the birth of his daughter Deborah in the family Bible, on or soon after 2 May 1652.

⁷ In view of the significance of this Scriptural passage for Milton, readers may want to be reminded of the context: “... lest I should be exalted above measure ... there was given to me a thorn in the flesh ... For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. ... Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.”

⁸ It would place it, by fascinating coincidence, at almost the time when he first noticed his sight failing. For an ingenious but unconvincing attempt to assign the sonnet this early date see Lysander Kemp, “On a Sonnet by Milton,” Hopkins Rev., VI, i (1952), 80–83. Although “light” may connote spiritual or poetic illumination or both, its denotation is plainly physical. I had the pleasure of anticipating Kemp's conjecture in some speculations on Milton's sonnets addressed to the English Department at Cornell University in December 1945. See also D. C. Dorian's argument (Explicatif, x, Dec. 1951, Item 16) that “half my days” refers to working days (cf. “day-labour, light deny'd”).

⁹ The poem might appropriately have been sent to Skinner with a copy of the Defensio Secunda, which Milton is known to have presented before 2 June 1654 to Bradshaw, Marvell, Oldenburg, Oxenbridge, and doubtless others (Life Records, iii, 380, 386). Eventually Skinner himself copied (and corrected) the sonnet in the Cambridge MS. It is highly unlikely that Milton put into Skinner's mouth the admiring question to which this sonnet is a reply (“What supports me dost thou ask?”). Placing the sonnet in 1654 instead of 1655 results, therefore, in Skinner's asking his question a short time, instead of more than a year, after coming to live near his blind friend.

¹⁰ Although “When I consider” is absent from the Cambridge MS., Maurice Kelley in a recent study of “Milton's Later Sonnets and the Cambridge Manuscript,” MP, liv (Aug. 1956), 20–25, tries to strengthen the case for assigning this sonnet to 1655 (“not earlier than late April”). However, his argument consists of little more than reaffirming the presumed chronological order of the sonnets in the 1673 edition, where “When I consider” immediately follows the Piedmont Massacre sonnet of, probably, May 1655. Kelley retains the 1673 order in a hypothetical reconstruction of the contents of 4 missing pages (perhaps torn out by Edward Phillips for use in 1694 and seen by Aubrey in 1684?). His reconstruction assumes, crucially, that “On the Forcers'of Conscience” went on hypothetical p. 6 instead of on hypothetical p. 4, where its actual position in the extant MS. and certain canceled instructions would seem to place it (as Kelley himself acknowledges, pp. 22–23, n. 12). This assumption allows the inference that “Hand 5” rather than “Hand 6” (Cyriack Skinner's, which was certainly on at least one of the missing pages) was responsible for transcribing both the Piedmont Massacre sonnet of 1655 and “When I consider.” And this leads to the further deduction that Hand 5 did not begin work until 1655, although Hand 6 (Skinner) is copying (and correcting) a sonnet composed in 1655 or 1654.

The argument will not stand up. Since it would be more reasonable to assume that Hand 5 (which wrote Milton's letter to Bradshaw of 21 Feb. 1653) transcribed Sonnets 11–17 in 1653 instead of 1655, putting “On the Forcers of Conscience” at the end and changing the title of the sonnet to Lawes to make it recognize the newly published Ayres of 1653, such hypotheses can tell us nothing at all about the date of “When I consider” unless the 1673 order is the order of composition. This presupposition is all-important, whether Hand 6 or Hand 5 (or some other) transcribed Sonnets 18–20.

We need therefore to look more critically at the supposed chronological order of the twenty-three sonnets as numbered. Unquestionably one third of the total, Sonnets 7–8 and 13–18, are in the order in which they were composed. Sonnets 1–6 and 9–10 may be, but we do not know; I have long had doubts about 10, addressed in the MS. to the Lady Margaret Ley but always assumed to be composed after her marriage (30 Dec. 1641) to John Hobson. Sonnets 11–12, as numbered in the 1673 edition, are almost certainly not in the order of their composition. The 1673 edition, following the MS., places the Lawes sonnet before the Thomason sonnet (1646) but gives it a title inviting the reader to assign it instead to 1653. The sonnet to Lawrence, though its contents clearly point to composition in late autumn or winter, follows the sonnet on the Massacre (after April 1655) but precedes “Cyriack, this three years day,” which must have been written about 3 years after total blindness in late 1651 (as here argued) or very early 1652 (as hitherto supposed). In this essay I have cast doubt on the date usually assigned to Sonnet 22 and have earlier attempted to cast doubt on the supposed date of “Methought I saw,” which, if Picard worked for Milton as an amanuensis only in 1658–60—a matter far from settled—may have been copied by Picard from an earlier transcript (as Kelley, I think rightly, assumes Sonnets 15–17 to have been copied).

Note, finally, that Sonnets 15–18 form an artistic group, all dealing with public matters, whereas Sonnets 19–23 are not only personal but begin and end with reflections on the experience of blindness.

¹¹ Another recent article professes to strengthen the case for assigning “When I consider” to 1655 by offering a bold, new reading (anticipated, however, by Grierson in 1912) of the sonnet's last 3 lines. But we may agree fully with Harry F. Robins—“Milton's First Sonnet on His Blindness,” RES, vii (Oct. 1956), 360–366—that these lines “constitute Milton's triumphant re-dedication of himself to the calling of poetry” (since the poet therein identifies his state with that of the highest order of angels), and then, for illustration, go on to cite the sonnets to Cromwell and Vane in 1652—-perhaps even, as I have argued elsewhere, the writing of Samson Agonistes in 1653—or, if we need something nearer at hand, the writing of the very poem in which the rededication is expressed. Robins' interpretation assumes the 1655 dating, diminishes the contrast in tone between “When I consider” and “Cyriack, this three years day,” but does not produce any new evidence for assigning “When I consider” to 1655 rather than 1652 or 1651.