Lady "* of his college, he asks,-"Is it because I never was able to quaff huge tankards lustily, or because my hands never grew hard by holding the plough, or because I never, like a seven-years' herdsman, laid myself down and snored at mid-day; in fine, perchance, because I never proved my manhood in the same way as these debauched blackguards? See how absurdly and unreflectingly they have upbraided me with that which I, on the best of grounds, will turn to my glory." Freedom of speech, difference of studies, and a direct antagonism of tastes, are quite sufficient to account for his unpopularity in the college. It seems, too, that he at one period of his course came under the censure of the authorities, and was rusticated for a term. It is difficult to interpret his language to Diodati in any other sense than this. But it is equally clear, from his own repeated statements, supported by those of Aubrey, Wood, and Philips, that this cloud was but temporary, and that before the conclusion of his course his genius was recognised and honoured, not only by his own college but by the university at large. Philips says that he displayed such "extraordinary wit and reading," that "he was loved and admired by the whole university, particularly by the fellows and most ingenious persons of his house." There is no doubt that Wood exactly hits the mark, when he says that "he performed the collegiate and academical exercises to the admiration of all, and was esteemed a sober and virtuous person, yet not to be ignorant of his own parts."

Aubrey and Wood, speaking of this nickname of "The Lady of Christ's College," by which he was known in the university, explain it by his exquisite and delicate beauty.

с

Milton went to Cambridge with the design of entering the church, for which he seems to have been destined by his father from his earliest years. Whilst at the university, however, his views gradually changed. A very interesting letter, written in 1631-2, about a year before he took his degree of Master of Arts, gives us the first intimation of his altered plans. It was addressed to a friend who had remonstrated with him on the aimless character of his studies, and urged him to make choice of some profession, or enter upon some definite course of life without further delay.* He replied by thanking his Mentor for his faithful remonstrances, in that he had "yesterday especially, as a good watchman, admonished me 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 all to labour while there is light. Which because I am persuaded that you do to no other purpose than out of a true desire that God should be honoured in every one, I think myself bound, though unasked, to give you an account of this my tardy moving, according to the precept of my conscience, which I firmly trust is not without God." He disavows, with great earnestness, the suspicion that he was yielding to the temptation of a mere studious leisure and literary ease; and emphatically declares that he abstained from entering

* We are not to suppose that Milton was idle, or that his genius was unproductive, at this period. In addition to diligence in the studies of the university, he produced several college exercises which were thought worthy of publication. Here, too, he wrote his fine Sonnet on Shakspeare, his magnificent Hymn on Christ's Nativity, in which are passages which he never surpassed, and several more of his minor poems.

upon active duties, not out of disregard to the "solid good flowing from due and timely obedience to that command in the Gospel, set out by the terrible judgment of him that hid the talent;" but that "he keeps off, with a sacred reverence and religious advisement how best to obey, not taking thought of being late, so it give advantage to be more fit." In further explanation and justification of his course, he encloses the noble sonnet, which, however familiar, we must here reproduce.

ON BEING ARRIVED AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE.

"How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.
Perhaps my semblance may deceive the truth,
That I to manhood am arrived so near;
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
Than some more timely-happy spirits endu'th.
Yet, be it less, or more, or soon, or slow,
It shall be still, in strictest measure, even
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven;
All is, if I have grace to use it so,

As ever in my great Task-master's eye."

He concludes with the jocular suggestion that, as he had wearied his correspondent by the tediousness of his letter, "I should deal worse with a whole congregation, and spoil all the patience of a parish." Some years later, in his Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty, he reverts to this topic, explains himself more fully, and assigns the true reason of his reluctance to enter the church. The passage deserves special attention at the present time, when we are celebrating the Bicentenary of that noble act of allegiance to conscience, in which 2,000 confessors

withdrew from the Establishment from the same reason which prevented his entering it. He says:

"The church to whose service, by the intentions of my parents and friends, I was destined of a child, and in mine own resolutions; till coming to some maturity of years, and perceiving what tyranny had invaded the church, that he who would take orders must subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which unless he took it with a conscience that would retch, he must either straight perjure or split his faith I thought it better to prefer a blameless silence, before the sacred office of speaking bought and begun with servitude and forswearing."*

We cannot but express surprise that Johnson, who, with all his faults, was an honest and conscientious man, should have seen nothing to admire in this steadfast adherence to principle, and that he should have allowed his prejudices so to blind his judgment as to speak of it only with a derisive sneer.

Though it is a fruitless and unprofitable task to speculate upon what might have been, yet one can hardly resist the temptation to do so, in remembering how nearly Milton came to entering the church. If he had taken orders, and engaged in the responsibilities and duties of a clergyman, how different the subsequent history of the Anglican Establishment might have been! His learning, his eloquence, his lofty and aspiring spirit, must have given him an immense power anywhere. Who can tell what influence his genius and piety might have had, in encouraging the good and repressing the evil which were then struggling for mastery in her bosom. The disastrous victory which was gained by the prelatical party, and which cul

* Page 52.

minated in the Act of Uniformity and the Black Bartholomew, might, in that case, have inclined to the other side, and the Establishment have been, not the church of a sect but of the nation. In the words of his most recent biographer :

:

"And so the Church of England lost John Milton. Had it been otherwise had that pure and courageous youth, who two hundred and thirty years ago stood dubious by the threshold, but crossed the black marble line, and advanced into the sacred vestibule and the aisles beyond, what might the result not have been! Milton as an ecclesiastic would have been Milton still; such an archbishop, mitred or unmitred, as England never had. The tread of such a foot across the sacred floor, what it might have trampled into extinction! the magnanimity of such a soul, breathed into the counsels of the church through that approaching revolution, when Church as well as State was to be riven asunder for repair, how it might have affected those counsels, while yet the future model was in doubt, and only the site and the material solicited the architect! But it was not to be. Ten years hence, indeed, Milton will throw his soul into the question of Church Reform; will, of all Englishmen, make the question his own; but then it will be as a layman, not as a churchman! For the present, he but moves to the church door; glances from that station into the interior, as far as he can; sees through the glass the back of a little man,* gesticulating briskly at the further end, does not like the look of him, or his occupation, and so turns sadly but decidedly away."

Whilst Milton was at Cambridge, his father had wholly or partially + retired from business; left the

+ It is commonly assumed that the elder Milton had entirely left London, but an entry in the books of the Temple says,-"Christopher Milton, second son of John Milton, of London, gentleman, admitted of the Inner Temple, 22nd September, 1632."

.