SOURCE: Freedman, Morris. “Milton's ‘On Shakespeare’ and Henry Lawes.” Shakespeare Quarterly 14, no. 3 (summer 1963): 279-81.

In the following essay, Freedman provides evidence to show that Lawes may have been responsible for Miton's poem “On Shakespeare” appearing as a preface to the playwright's works in the Second Folio.

Milton's first published work, “On Shakespeare”, appeared as one of the prefatory poems to the Second Folio, in 1632. At the time, Milton, twenty-four, was unknown as a poet; only his family, friends, classmates, and perhaps some of his teachers knew of his interest in writing. How did it happen that his lines came to preface the Second Folio?

It is not likely that the publishers of F₂, engaged in a commercial venture, asked Milton for them, assuming that they knew him; the addition of a work by an unknown writer, however good the text itself, would not have had much promotional value...