John Milton (1608–1674) Poems of Mr. John Milton, both English and Latin, compos’d at several times ... (London: Humphrey Moseley, 1645). Ee.3.22, frontispiece and title page.
In 1645/6, Milton published a collection gathering many of his early poems, including ‘On the morning of Christ’s nativity’, various sonnets (in English and Italian), ‘L’allegro’ and ‘Il penseroso’, and also reprinting Lycidas and Comus. Milton’s poems in Latin and Greek are published at the end of the volume with a separate title page. Below the portrait by William Marshall is a Greek epigram thought to have been written by a disgruntled Milton. It translates:
Looking at the form of its original, you might say perhaps that this likeness had been drawn by the hand of a novice artist. But, friends, since you do not recognize what is depicted here, have a laugh at this caricature by an inept, talentless scribbler.
Since Marshall couldn’t read Greek, he unwittingly copied out Milton’s insult against himself.