II. Period lC-_>9-lGo9.— On'the 8th of December, 1629, Milton was twenty-one years of age. On the Christmas- day ensuing he produced that maguitiuent choral song, The Ode on the Xdtirity. Admirable and exquisite as it is in itself, it is amazing as the composition of a young man who liad just assumed the toga virilis. and was in the midst of l.is college career. Its remarkable merit may be best appreciated by comparing it with the near- ly contemporaneous poems of George Herbert, Ben Jouson, and Vaughan on the same subject. The ode is equally remarkable for its startling indication at so early a period of the characteristics of his grandest works. The lyric movement of thought and expression, the intricate melody and skill of the metre, the strength and propriety of the epithets, the concentration and point of the language, the harniiniics nfMnnid, the dex- terous accumulation of suggested ii.iinr-. ilic solemnity and reverential awe of the wliolc uiiciancf, arc antici- pations of his final glories. (Irand as is this choral hymn, Milton felt that his powers of song were not sufficiently matured to sustain the yet vague splendor of his conceptions. The Ode on the Passion — the com- panion-piece to the Ode on the Nativity — was never completed. "Tliis subject the author finding to be above the years he had when he wrote it, and noth- ing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished." These two odes are the first outlines of the Paradise Lost and Paradise Peyaincd. The self-censure, patience, diligence, and humility of ]Milton arc as notable as his lordly tone and conscious power. Three years later, just before leaving Cambridge, he laments that "my late spring no bud nor blossom shew'th ;" but adds,
"It shall be still in strictest measure even
To thiit same lot, however nienn or liigh
To which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven."
Milton was designed for the Church, and had been trained in all secular and theological learning for that holy oflice. The depression of the Puritans under the stern domination of Laud closed the |irospe<t to the young candidate. He waited long and iiaticnily, in doubt and hope ; but in 1032 withdrew from ( 'ambridge, having taken both his degrees. He left the univcrsitv with credit and honor, and retired to the gratefid se- clusion of his father's villa at Horton — not far from Eton and Windsor. Here he remained for five years, spend- ing the sunny summer-time of his life in multifarious study. He plunged into the mysteries of Hebrew lore,
familiarized himself with the best lessons of historj-, and carefully perused the whole series of the Greek and Latin authors, from Homer to Ducas and Phranza.
It was during the earlier half of his residence at Hor- ton that IMilton produced \\\s L' A lleyro &nA 1 1 Penscroso, and his two masques, the .1 rcadcs and Comus. These poems were not composed for the noisy public, but as relaxations from study, which embodied the shifting lights and shadows of his life at Horton. Tliey are Ithotographs of the scenery that surrounded his retrc«t, lighted up by the bright glow of his changing moods. j They reveal also the character and ingredients of the I ambrosia on which his mind had feastcil from boyhood, j and betray the fiowers from which the honey was dis- tilled. The subjects, the contrasts, the metre, and I many of the thought.s, phrases, and rhymes, are iniita- I ted from the poetical '-Abstract of Melanchoiy" prefixed I by Burton to his quaint Anatomy of Melancholy. Other obligations are due to the exquisite "Song on ^lelan- choly" in Beaumont and Fletcher's Nice Valor. The same royal seizure, which ennobles what it apiiropri- ates, and which is declared by Longinus to be no theft, signalizes all of Milton's compositions. It is his man- ner. It is his genius. He claims the spoils of learning as his own. He made the triumphs of others the step- ping-stones of his fame. To the year KJS-l we proba- j bly owe the A rcude.t ; to it we certainly owe the more splendid Comus. Both were written under circumstan- ces which are curiously illustrative of the social, politi- cal, and theological condition of tlie times, and of the ' great controversy in respect to dramatic performances. I The A rcades is a much slenderer performance than the ! Comus, but possesses the same general characteristics: j purity, grace, fancy, meh)dy, learning, and gorgeous ex- I pression. Tlic Comus is an almost ])erfect gem. It is as distinctly unicpic in its charms as Shakesjjeare's J//(7- ! summer Niylifs Dream. Its authorship was not avowed. It was published by Henry Lawcs, in 1C37, to escape the constant importunities for copies of the manuscript. In this year the plague raged with great violence, and many notable deaths occurred. On the 3d of Ajiril Mil- ton's mother died ; on the Gth of August Ben Jouson ex- pired; on the 10th Edward King, of Christ Church, was lost at sea on his way to Ireland.
The death of ;Mrs. ^Milton broke up the family retreat at Horton, and ^Milton made preparations for foreign travel. He was meditating a great poem — an epic on the Kound Table, or on the story of tlie Trojan Brutus. " Do you a.sk what I am meditating'?" says he, in a let- ter to Dcodati. " By the help of Heaven, an immor- tality of fame ! But what am I doing? I am letting my wings grow, and preparing to fly , but my Pegasus has not yet feathers enough to soar aloft in the fielils of air."