where the two editions differ, the later spelling is that now in
use. Thus words like goddess, darkness, usually written in the
first edition with one final s, have two, while on the other hand
words like vernall, youthfull, and monosyllables like hugg, farr,
lose their double letter. Many monosyllables, e.g. som, cours,
glimps, wher, vers, aw, els, don, ey, ly, so written in 1645, take
on in 1673 an e mute, while words like harpe, windes, onely,
lose it. By a reciprocal change ayr and cipress become air and
cypress; and the vowels in daign, vail, neer, beleeve, sheild,
boosom, eeven, battail, travailer, and many other words are
similarly modernized. On the other hand there are a few cases
where the 1645 edition exhibits the spelling which has
succeeded in fixing itself, as travail (1673, travel) in the sense of
labour; and rob'd, profane, human, flood and bloody, forest,
triple, alas, huddling, are found where the 1673 edition has
roab'd, prophane, humane, floud and bloudy, forrest, tripple,
alass and hudling. Indeed the spelling in this later edition is not
untouched by seventeenth century inconsistency. It retains here
and there forms like shameles, cateres, (where 1645 reads
cateress), and occasionally reverts to the older-fashioned
spelling of monosyllables without the mute e. In the Epitaph on
the Marchioness of Winchester, it reads --' And som flowers
and some bays.' But undoubtedly the impression on the whole
is of a much more modern text.

In the matter of small or capital letters I have followed the old
copy, except in one or two places where a personification
seemed not plainly enough marked to a modern reader without
a capital. Thus in Il Penseroso, l. 49, I print Leasure, although
both editions read leasure; and in the Vacation Exercise, l. 71,