“Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole,
    More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged
    To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days,
    On evil days though fallen and evil tongues;
    In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,
    And solitude; yet not alone, while thou
    Visitest my slumbers nightly, or when morn
    Purples the east.  Still govern thou my song,
    Urania, and fit audience find, though few. 
    But drive far off the barbarous dissonance
    Of Bacchus and his revellers, the race
    Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard.”

This allusion to the licentiousness of the Restoration literature could hardly have been made until its tendencies had been plainly developed.  At this time “Paradise Lost” was half finished. ("Half yet remains unsung.”) The remark permits us to conclude that Milton conceived and executed his poem as a whole, going steadily through it, and not leaving gaps to be supplied at higher or lower levels of inspiration.  There is no evidence of any resort to older material, except in the case of Satan’s address to the Sun.

The publication of “Paradise Lost” was impeded like the birth of Hercules.  In 1665 London was a city of the dying and the dead; in 1666 the better part of it was laid in ashes.  One remarkable incident of the calamity was the destruction of the stocks of the booksellers, which had been brought into the vaults of St. Paul’s for safety, and perished with the cathedral.  “Paradise Lost” might have easily, like its hero—­

        “In the singing smoke
    Uplifted spurned the ground.”

but the negotiations for its publication were not complete until April 27, 1667, on which day John Milton, “in consideration of five pounds to him now paid by Samuel Symmons, and other the considerations herein mentioned,” assigned to the said Symmons, “all that book, copy, or manuscript of a poem intituled ‘Paradise Lost,’ or by whatsoever ether title or name the same is or shall be called or distinguished, now lately licensed to be printed.”  The other considerations were the payment of the like sum of five pounds upon the entire sale of each of the first three impressions, each impression to consist of thirteen hundred copies.  “According to the present value of money,” says Professor Masson, “it was as if Milton had received L17 10s. down, and was to expect L70 in all.  That was on the supposition of a sale of 3,900 copies.”  He lived to receive ten pounds altogether; and his widow in 1680 parted with all her interest in the copyright for eight pounds, Symmons shortly afterwards reselling it for twenty-five.  He is not, therefore, to be enumerated among those publishers who have fattened upon their authors, and when the size of the book and the unfashionableness of the writer are considered, his enterprise may perhaps appear the most remarkable feature of the transaction.  As for Milton, we may almost rejoice that he should have reaped no meaner reward than immortality.