On Milton's use of the noun wind-egg. (John Milton)

SCHOLARS have had little or nothing to say about the unusual noun |wind-egg' which occurs but twice in Milton's works. Concerning its first appearance in the Colasterion, |rom such a wind-egg of definiton as this, they who expect any of his other arguments to bee well hatcht, let them enjoy the vertu of thir worthy Champion', we have Lowell W. Coolidge's brief definition, an imperfect or unproductive egg', and his remark that OED |quotes Milton's figurative use here'.(1) In regard to its second appearance in the Eikonoklastes, |So that Parliament, it seems, is but a Female, and without his [the king's] procreative reason, the laws which they can produce are but wind-eggs', there is Merritt Y. Hughes's reference to Kester Svendsen who …