could accomplish it, in the exuberant style of the East. Yet, to declare how much I owe you, is far beyond my abilities, even were I to appropriate all the 'topics' that Aristotle, or the logician of Paris3 has furnished, and exhaust the fountains of eloquence. You complain with truth, that my letters to you are very rare and short; but my deficiency in this agreeable and welcome duty does not grieve me, so much as the consciousness gratifies mealmost to exultation, that I occupy such a place in your friendship as requires to hear from me, frequently. I beg you not to put a bad construction on the fact, that I have not written to you for more than three years, but in your great kindness and

3 Peter Ramus; whose exploded system of logic Milton attempted to revive with some modification, in his Artis Logica Plenior Institutio,' published in 1672. Ramus early distinguished himself by undertaking to prove that all the rhetorical principles of Aristotle were false ; in consequence of which he suffered much persecution, but ultimately became a royal professor of philosophy and eloquence in Paris. He was one of the victims of St Bartholomew's day, 1572.

In the Elegy to Young, Milton says that since he had met his tutor, Æthon had thrice seen Aries; that Chloris

good nature, put a milder interpretation on my neglect. For I call God to witness, that I honour you as a father; that I have a particular veneration for you, but fear to disturb you with my scribblings; and since they have nothing else to recommend them, I am resolved that they shall be rare. And as the strong affection I have for you enables me at any time to bring you before me, and see you and address you as if you were present, I can console my sorrow (as is usual in love) with the bare imagination of your company, though indeed I fear that as soon as I should think of sending you a letter, it would suddenly occur to me how distant you are, and my regret for your absence, just as it was alleviated, would be renewed, and the vision vanish.

I received some time ago your very acceptable present of a Hebrew bible". I write this in Lon

had twice sprinkled the earth with new grass, and Auster had robbed it of its wealth;' i. e. three vernal equinoxes, two springs, and two summers had elapsed. Either the complication of metaphors confused him out of his meaning, or Milton was separated from Young for some months before he left England for the continent.

5 Not a neglected gift; as in a subsequent period of his

don, in the midst of city distractions, and not surrounded by books as I am accustomed to be; and if this letter should disappoint, instead of gratifying you, it shall be compensated in a more elaborate attempt as soon as I return to the walks of the Muses.

life at least, he daily read a portion of the original scriptures.

6 He was at this time a student in the University of Cambridge.

TO ALEXANDER GILL.

[Usher of St Paul's school whilst Milton was a pupil, and afterwards Master in succession to his father, of the He wrote several Latin Triumphal poems. same names. That which is the subject of the following eulogy was in commemoration of some recent success of the Stadtholder Frederick Henry. In 1632 Gill published a Pæan in honour of the victories of Gustavus Adolphus in Germany, and a collection of his performances under the title of ПАРEРгА, seu Poetici Conatus.']

LONDON, MAY 20, 1628.

I have received your letter, and, with peculiar pleasure, your Poems, which are truly grand, replete with the majesty of genuine poetry, and redolent with the genius of a Virgil. I knew that it was impossible for a man, with such talents as you possess, to withdraw your mind and its inspired ardour

from such attempts, and extinguish the sacred ethereal flame; since (as Claudian says of himself)' all your soul is poetry'. If you have broken the promise you made to yourself, I praise your inconstancy, as you call it, and commend whatever dishonesty you may be guilty of in so doing. For I do not feel less honoured in being constituted the judge of so excellent a performance, than if the contending deities of music had made me their umpire -which, as the Lydians pretend, happened to Tmolus, the favourite mountain God. Indeed I know not on which to compliment Henry of Nassau the more-his taking the city or your poem, for

1 'Totum spirent præcordia Phoebum.' Imitated by Milton in his sixth elegy:

'Irruet in totos lapsa Thalia sinus.'

'And all the Muse shall rush into thy breast.'

Cowper's Trans.

2 In the contest between Pan and Apollo. See Ovid's Metamor. lib. xi.

3 The town of Groll was taken by the Stadtholder in 1627, and Bois-le-duc in April 1628; one of these victories must have been the topic of Gill's performance.