O R T H O G R A P H Y A N D T H E T E X T O F P A R A D I S E L O S T : A F I N A L , F I N A L W O R D R. G. MOYLES University of Alberta Throughout the pages of seventeenth-century texts, in the original works of such poets as Donne, Drummond, Herbert, and Davies, one finds the personal pronouns — he, she, we and ye — indiscriminately spelt, with either a single or a double e. They have not attracted much attention. What has occasioned more interest in Milton’s spelling of personal pronouns is the fact that the Errata, prefixed to the 1668 issue of Paradise Lost, corrects we of 11.414 to wee. Despite the equally significant fact that the printer of the second edition does not comply with the erratum correction, a number of editors and com mentators have made a great deal of it. The first to do so were the Jonathan Richardsons (father and son) in their Explanatory Notes on Milton’s Paradise Lost (1734). On no more evidence than the erratum correction they concluded that “he, we, me, ye, are with a double or a single e, as the emphasis lies upon them, or does not.” 1 The Richardsons left it at that and the theory solicited no further comment until Capel Lofft’s edition of 1792.2 Lofft set out to restore the “original system of orthography” and in his preface states that “one leading circumstance per vades [Milton’s] whole plan, and characterizes his method of Orthography in both editions: the spelling of the personal pronouns with a double e where emphatic, and with a single where non-emphatic. One of these instances, where the emphasis had not been expressed by the observation of this mode of spelling constitutes an article in the Errata, which were added the year subsequent to the publication of the poem.” 3 He then proceeds to apply his principle which, he felt, the printers of the originals had not consistently observed.4 For the next sixty years the issue of emphatic-unemphatic spelling lay dor mant. But in 1873 the Pickering Press brought out a facsimile edition of Paradise Lost in which the editor, R. H. Shepherd, though he could not reform his text, nevertheless unquestionably accepted the principle: “ [Milton ] practised a regular unvarying system [of spelling] formed by himself, and adopted upon choice and afore-thought. Besides, it is evident that, to some at least, if not all, he . . . attached considerable importance [Shepherd then E n g l is h St u d ie s in C anada, vi, i , Spring 1980 quotes the erratum for 11.414]. The explanation is simply this, that although in ordinary cases he is accustomed to spell pronouns we, me, he, ye, with a single e, wherever special emphasis is intended to be put upon them he makes a point of writing wee, mee, hee, yee.” 5 In the following year (1874) the first attempt to validate the theory was made by David Masson. After what was the most exhaustive study of Milton’s spelling made up to that time, Masson concluded that the texts were so inconsistent that no discernible principle could be discovered. The claim that Milton attempted to preserve a distinc tion between emphatic and unemphatic pronouns by a system of orthography was, for Masson, unprovable. He maintained, moreover, that such a practice was “needless” and he placed the double-e pronoun in his list of spellings “which need not be preserved.” 6 The reason so many editors were unwilling to discuss the theory or com mit themselves to it is obvious. There was no choice but to either adopt Masson’s view and print single-e pronouns or be prepared to undertake a programme of liberal emendation. H. J. C. Grierson, for example, claims to have preserved Milton’s distinction, using as his copy-text the 1674 edition of Paradise Lost. The first book of the 1674 text has only three emphatic spellings; Grierson’s edition has five (two emended to accord with the 1667 version...