As the Great Plague was then [1665] raging in London,
Milton had removed from his house in Artillery Walk to a
cottage at Chalfont-St.-Giles, in Buckinghamshire, which had
been taken for him, at his request, by Thomas Ellwood, a
young Quaker, whose acquaintance with him had begun a
year or two before in Jewin Street. Visiting Milton here as
soon as circumstances would permit, Ellwood was. received in
a manner of which he has left an account in his Autobiog-
raphy. < After some common discourses,' he says, < had passed
between us, he called for a manuscript of his ; which, being
brought, he delivered to me, bidding me take it home with
me and read it at my leisure, and, when I had so done, return
it to him with my judgment thereupon. When I came home,
and had set myself to read it, I found it was that excellent
poem which he entituled Paradise Lost.'

The anecdote proves the existence of at least one, and most
probably of more than one, complete copy in the autumn of
1665 — which may, accordingly, be taken as the date when
the poem was considered ready for press. The delay of publi-
cation till two years after that date is easily accounted for.
It was not, says Ellwood, till * the sickness was over, and the
city well cleansed, and become safely habitable again,' that
Milton returned to his house in Artillery Walk ; then, still



INTRODUCTION. 25

farther paralyzing business of all sorts, came the Great Fire
of September, 1666 ; and there were difficulties, as we have
seen, about the licensing of a poem by a person of Milton's
political antecedents and principles.
