the monuments still to be seen in Milton church; till one of the family having taken the wrong side, in the contest between the Houses of York and Lancaster, was sequestered of all his estate, but what he held by his wife. However, certain it is, that this vocation he followed for many years, at his said house in Bread Street, with success suitable to his industry and prudent conduct of his affairs. Yet he did not so far quit his own generous and ingenious inclinations, as to make himself wholly a slave to the world; for he sometimes found vacant hours to the study (which he made his recreation) of the noble science of music, in which he advanced to that perfection, that as I have been told, and as I take it by our author himself, he composed an In Nomine of forty parts; for which he was rewarded with a gold medal and chain by a Polish prince, to whom he presented it. However, this is a truth not to be denied, that for several songs of his composition, after the way of these times, (three or four of which are still to be seen in old Wilby's set of Airs, besides some compositions of his in Ravencroft's Psalms), he gained the reputation of a considerable master in this most charming of all the liberal sciences. Yet all this while, he managed his grand affair of this world with such prudence and diligence, that by the assistance of divine Providence favoring his honest endeavors, he gained a competent estate, whereby he was enabled to make a handsome provision both for the education and maintenance of his children; for three he had, and no more, all by one wife, Sarah, of the family of the Castons, derived originally from Wales, a woman of incomparable virtue and goodness: John the eldest, the sub

ject of our present work; Christopher; and an only daughter Ann.

...

But to hasten back to our matter in hand. John, our author, who was destined to be the ornament and glory of his country, was sent, together with his brother, to Paul's school, whereof Dr. Gill the elder was then chief master; where he was entered into the first rudiments of learning, and advanced therein with that admirable success, not more by the discipline of the school and good instructions of his masters (for that he had another master, possibly at his father's house, appears by the Fourth Elegy of his Latin poems written in his 18th year to Thomas Young, pastor of the English Company of Merchants at Hamburg, wherein he owns and styles him his master), than by his own happy genius, prompt wit and apprehension, and insuperable industry: for he generally sat up half the night, as well in voluntary improvements of his own choice, as the exact perfecting of his school exercises.

So that at the age of 15 he was full ripe for academic learning, and accordingly was sent to the University of Cambridge.-Life of Milton.

CAMBRIDGE (1625–1632)

MILTON'S STATEMENT. Here I passed seven years in the usual course of instruction and study, with the approbation of the good, and without any stain upon my character, till I took the degree of Master of Arts. After this I did not, as this miscreant feigns, run away into Italy, but of my own accord retired to my father's house, whither I was accompanied by the regrets of most of

the fellows of the college, who showed me uncommon marks of friendship and esteem.-Second Defence of the English People.

ITEMS FROM AUBREY. Was a very hard student in the university, and performed all his exercises there with very good applause. His first tutor there was Mr. Chapell, from whom receiving some unkindness [whipped him], he was afterwards (though it seemed opposite to the rules of the college), transferred to the tuition of one Mr. Tovell [Tovey], who died parson of Lutterworth. . .

He was scarce so tall as I am—quaere, quot feet I am high: resp. of middle stature-He had auburn hair. His complexion exceeding fair-he was so fair that they called him the Lady of Christ College. Oval face, his eye a dark gray. . . . His widow has his picture drawn very well and like when a Cambridge scholar. She has his picture when a Cambridge scholar, which ought to be engraven; for the pictures before his books are not at all like him.-Collections for the Life of Milton.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF MILTON'S RELATIONS TO THE UNIVERSITY. . . . Me at present that city contains which the Thames washes with its ebbing wave; and me, not unwilling, my father's house now possesses. At present it is not my care to revisit the reedy Cam; nor does the love of my forbidden rooms yet cause me grief. Nor do naked fields please me, where soft shades are not to be had. How ill that place suits the votaries of Apollo! Nor am I in the humor still to bear the threats of a harsh master, and other things not to be submitted to by my genius.Elegy I. Masson's translation.

Among us, as far as I know, there are only two

or three who without any acquaintance with criticism or philosophy, do not instantly engage with raw and untutored judgments in the study of theology; and of this they acquire only a slender smattering, not more than sufficient to enable them to patch together a sermon with scraps pilfered, with little discrimination, from this author and from that. Hence I fear lest our clergy should relapse into the sacerdotal ignorance of a former age. Since I find so few associates in study here, I should instantly direct my steps to London, if I had not determined to spend the summer vacation in the depths of literary solitude, and, as it were, hide myself in the chamber of the Muses.-Letter to Alexander Gill, July 2, 1628.

HORTON (1632-1638)

MILTON'S STATEMENT. On my father's estate, where he had determined to pass the remainder of his days, I enjoyed an interval of uninterrupted leisure, which I entirely devoted to the perusal of Greek and Latin authors; though I occasionally visited the metropolis, either for the sake of purchasing books, or of learning something new in mathematics or in music, in which I, at that time, found a source of pleasure and amusement. In this manner I spent five years till my mother's death.-Second Defence of the English People.

FROM A LETTER TO AN UNKNOWN FRIEND." Sir,-Be

5 This letter, which was evidently written not long after Milton's retirement to Horton in 1632, was not published in the poet's lifetime, but two drafts of it exist in his handwriting in the Cambridge manuscript. It shows him taking the occasion of some older friend's remonstrance at his apparent idleness to search his own motives and satisfy himself and others that his course

sides that in sundry respects I must acknowledge me to profit by you whenever we meet, you are often to me, and were yesterday especially, as a good watchman to admonish that the hours of the night pass on (for so I call my life, as yet obscure and unserviceable to mankind), and that the day with me is at hand, wherein Christ commands us to labor while there is yet light. Which, because I am persuaded you do for no other purpose than out of a desire that God should be honored in every one, I therefore think myself bound, though unasked, to give you an account, as often as occasion is, of this my tardy moving, according to the precept of my conscience, which I firmly trust is not without God. Yet now I will not strain for any set apology, but only refer myself to what my mind shall have at any time to declare herself at her best ease.

But if you think, as you said, that too much love of learning is at fault, and that I have given up myself to dream away my years in the arms of studious retirement, like Endymion with the moon, as the tale of Latmus goes, yet consider that, if it were no more but the mere love of learning, whether it proceed from a principle bad, good, or natural, it could not have held out thus long against so strong opposition on the other side of every kind. For, if it be bad, why should not all the fond hopes that forward youth and vanity are fledge with, together with gain, pride, and ambition, call me forward more powerfully than a poor, regardless, and unprofitable sin of curiosity should be able to withhold me; whereby a

of life is not a violation of his serious sense of responsibility. The conclusion, which contains the Sonnet on His Being Arrived to the Age of Twenty-Three and seems to imply that Milton is hesitating regarding his earlier intention to enter the Church, is here omitted.