friend, once regarded as a very great poet, is so regarded no longer, and Bunyan belongs to another generation. Milton was John born in Bread Street, London, in the year 1608. He came, he tells us, "of an honest (i. e., honorable) family;" his father was a scrivener. His university educa The six 1608-1674. tion was obtained at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he became M. A. in his twenty-fourth year, years following he spent at his father's country place in Buckinghamshire, pursuing his favorite classical, mathematical, and musical studies. In 1638 he set out for two years of foreign travel, passing through Paris and Nice to Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Rome, and Naples, making by the way friends of various celebrated men. The remainder of his life was passed in London. He was a.Puritan, like his father, and a republican of an unbendingly stern moral temper softened only by his literary and artistic tastes. He wrote constantly in behalf of the Puritan cause; he defended the execution of Charles; he was Latin Secretary under the Commonwealth and under Cromwell, engaged in carrying on diplomatic correspondence. Thus the middle portion of his active life was spent in the service of the state, and, as we shall see, not without lasting results in the service of universal freedom. The Restoration naturally forced him into retirement, but fortunately left him unmolested for the still higher service of the Heavenly Muse. The other events of main importance in the chronicle of his life are his three marriages, one before and two after his blindness, and the blindness itself, which, brought on by arduous midnight studies pursued “from twelve years of age," overtook him in the year 1652. The periods of Milton's literary work are pretty sharply definable. There were an early and a late period of poetry, and between them a period of political and polemic prose. His Prose. It will be as well to consider this middle period first, since it had not so much his love as the mere devotion of a mind steadfast to its principles. He had cut short his travels in 1639, denying himself a visit to Greece, because, he friend, once regarded as a very great poet, is so regarded no longer, and Bunyan belongs to another generation. Milton was John born in Bread Street, London, in the year 1608. He came, he tells us, "of an honest (i. e., honorable) family;" his father was a scrivener. His university educa 1608-1674. tion was obtained at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he became M. A. in his twenty-fourth year, The six years following he spent at his father's country place in Buckinghamshire, pursuing his favorite classical, mathematical, and musical studies. In 1638 he set out for two years of foreign travel, passing through Paris and Nice to Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Rome, and Naples, making by the way friends of various celebrated men. The remainder of his life was passed in London. He was a.Puritan, like his father, and a republican of an unbendingly stern moral temper softened only by his literary and artistic tastes. He wrote constantly in behalf of the Puritan cause; he defended the execution of Charles; he was Latin Secretary under the Commonwealth and under Cromwell, engaged in carrying on diplomatic correspondence. Thus the middle portion of his active life was spent in the service of the state, and, as we shall see, not without lasting results in the service of universal freedom. The Restoration naturally forced him into retirement, but fortunately left him unmolested for the still higher service of the Heavenly Muse. The other events of main importance in the chronicle of his life are his three marriages, one before and two after his blindness, and the blindness itself, which, brought on by arduous midnight studies pursued “from twelve years of age," overtook him in the year 1652. The periods of Milton's literary work are pretty sharply definable. There were an early and a late period of poetry, and between them a period of political and polemic prose. His Prose. It will be as well to consider this middle period first, since it had not so much his love as the mere devotion of a mind steadfast to its principles. He had cut short his travels in 1639, denying himself a visit to Greece, because, he |