Note 1 — Chapter II · (continued 3)

: More detailed reasons for the dating of Sonnets 1, 3, and 4 (for Sonnet 2 dates itself) will be found in the Introductions to those Sonnets in the Cambridge Edition of Milton. In line 12 of No. 2 I have substituted the word "talks" for the word "rings," now always printed in that place. "Of which all Europe rings from side to side," is the reading in the copy of the Sonnet as first printed by Phillips in 1694 at the end of his memoir of Milton; but that copy is corrupt in several places. The original dictated draft of the Sonnet among the Milton MSS. at Cambridge is to be taken as the true text; and there the word is "talks." Phillips had doubtless the echo of "rings" in his ear from the Sonnet to Fairfax. The more sonorous reading, however, has found such general acceptance that an editor hardly dares to revert to "talks."