Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/31

Milton paid his respects to the place, drinking, for once, till he was ‘dizzy’ (see the Prelude, bk. iii.) Milton kept every term at Cambridge until he graduated as M.A. 3 July 1632. He took his B.A. degree 26 March 1629. Rumours of some disgrace in his university career were spread by some of his opponents in later years. Aubrey says that Chappell showed him ‘some unkindness,’ above which in the original manuscript is the interlineation ‘whipt him.’ This ‘whipping’ was accepted by Johnson, and the practice of flogging, though declining, was not yet obsolete. In a Latin epistle to Diodati, probably (see, i. 161) of the spring of 1626, Milton speaks of the harsh threats of a master:— Cæteraque ingenio non subeunda meo.

Milton clearly had some quarrel with Chappell, and had to leave Cambridge for a time, though without losing his term. He was then transferred from the tutorship of Chappell to that of Nathaniel Tovey.

In replying to the attacks upon him Milton was able to assert that he had been esteemed above his equals by the fellows of the college, and that they had been anxious that he should continue in residence after he had taken his M.A. degree. His biographers, Aubrey and Wood, speak of the respect paid to his abilities. Milton while at college corresponded with Diodati, Gill, and his old preceptor, Young, in Latin prose and verse. He wrote some Latin poems upon events at the university and on the Gunpowder plot, and seven ‘Prolusiones Oratoriæ’ (published in 1674) were originally pronounced as exercises in the schools and in college. One of them, given in the college hall in 1628, was originally concluded by the address to his native language in English. Milton wrote the copy of Latin verses distributed, according to custom, at the commencement of 1628. He had also written some English poems, the sonnet to Shakespeare (1630, first published in the second folio, 1632, of Shakespeare), that ‘On having arrived at the Age of Twenty-three’ (1631), the clumsy attempt at humour upon the death of the carrier Thomas Hobson [q. v.], and the noble ‘Ode on the Nativity’ (Christmas, 1629), in which his characteristic majesty of style first appears, although marred by occasional conceits. Milton (Apology for Smectymnuus) speaks with great contempt of dramatic performances which he had heard at the university, and (letter to Gill, 2 July 1628) expresses his scorn for the narrow theological studies of his companions, and their ignorance of philosophy.

Milton was nicknamed the ‘lady’ at college, from his delicate complexion and slight make. He was, however, a good fencer, and thought himself a ‘match for any one.’ Although respected by the authorities, his proud and austere character probably kept him aloof from much of the coarser society of the place. He shared the growing aversion to the scholasticism against which one of his exercises is directed. Like Henry More, who entered Christ's in Milton's last year, he was strongly attracted by Plato, although he was never so much a philosopher as a poet. He already considered himself as dedicated to the utterance of great thoughts, and to the strictest chastity and self-respect, on the ground that he who would ‘write well here-after in laudable things ought himself to be a true poem’ (Apology for Smectymnuus). Milton's father had retired by 1632 from an active share in his business. He had handed this over to a partner, John Bower, and retired to a house at Horton, Buckinghamshire, a village near Colnbrook. Milton had been educated with a view to taking orders, and a letter (now in Trinity College Library), ending with the sonnet upon completing his twenty-third year, gives reasons for postponing but not for abandoning his intention. He was, however, alienated by the church policy which became dominant under Laud, and says, in 1641 (Reasons of Church Government), that he was unwilling to take the necessary oaths, and was (in this sense) ‘church-outed by the prelates.’ There are slight indications that he thought of studying law (, i. 327), but he soon abandoned this and resolved to devote himself exclusively to literature. His style, ‘by certain vital signs it had, was likely to live,’ he says, and in the Latin epistle ‘Ad Patrem,’ probably written about this time, he thanks his father for consenting to his plans. Milton therefore settled with his father at Horton for nearly six years—July 1632toApril 1638. The house is said by Todd to have been pulled down about 1795. Tradition says that it was on the site of Byrken manor-house, near the church. Milton frequently visited London, eighteen miles distant, to take lessons in mathematics and music. He read the classical writers, and studied Greek and Italian history (to C. Diodati, 23 Sept. 1637), and he wrote poems already displaying his full powers. The ‘Allegro’ and ‘Penseroso,’ the most perfect record in the language of the impression made by natural scenery upon a thorough scholar, were probably (, i. 589) written in 1632. The Countess-dowager of Derby, who had been the wife of Ferdinando, fifth earl of Derby, and afterwards of Thomas Egerton, lord Ellesmere [q. v.]