Not that the place by any means was full,
But since the Gallic era Eighty-eight
The devils had ta'en a longer, stronger pull,
And a pull all together, as they say
At sea, which drew most souls the other way.
The angels all were singing out of tune,
And hoarse with having little else to do,
Excepting to wind up the sun and moon,
And curb a runaway young sta[r or two, &c.]
To this passage, before examining it, let us add some others from Milton, printed in the same manner; and let us imagine, for reasons which will appear presently, that we have an edition of Milton in which certain passages, and certain passages only—those which we shall quote being among them—are printed in these two characters, and are consequently at once distinguishable from the rest of the text.