Such passages, however, as Paradise Regain'd, iii.
414-440; Samson Agonistes, 880-890, are certainly spelt upon a method, and it is noticeable that in the choruses the lighter form is universal.
Paradise Regain'd and Samson Agonistes were published in 1671, and no further edition was called for in the remaining three years of the poet's lifetime, so that in the case of these poems there are no new readings to record; and the texts were so carefully revised, that only one fault (Paradise Regain'd, ii.

309) was left for correction later.
In these and the other poems I have corrected the misprints catalogued in the tables of Errata, and I have silently corrected any other unless it might be mistaken for a various reading, when I have called attention to it in a note.

Thus I have not recorded such blunders as Lethian for Lesbian in the 1645 text of Lycidas, line 63; or hallow for hollow in Paradise Lost, vi.

484; but I have noted content for concent, in At a Solemn Musick, line 6.
In conclusion I have to offer my sincere thanks to all who have collaborated with me in preparing this Edition; to the Delegates of the Oxford Press for allowing me to undertake it and decorate it with so many facsimiles; to the Controller of the Press for his unfailing courtesy; to the printers and printer's reader for their care and pains.
Coming nearer home I cannot but acknowledge the help I have received in looking over proof-sheets from my sister, Mrs.P.A.Barnett, who has ungrudgingly put at the service of this book both time and eyesight.

In taking leave of it, I may be permitted to say that it has cost more of both these inestimable treasures than I had anticipated.