ns to bed before midnight." But to the Greek, Latin,
and Hebrew he learned at school, the scrivener advised him to add
Italian and French. Nor were English letters neglected. Spenser gave the
earliest turn to the boy's poetic genius. In spite of the war between
playwright and precisian, a Puritan youth could still in Milton's days
avow his love of the stage, "if Jonson's learned sock be on, or sweetest
Shakspere, Fancy's child, warble his native woodnotes wild," and gather
from the "masques and antique pageantry" of the court-revel hints for
his own "Comus" and "Arcades." Nor does any shadow of the coming
struggle with the Church disturb the young scholar's reverie, as he
wanders beneath "the high embowed roof, with antique pillars massy
proof, and storied windows richly dight, casting a dim religious light,"
or as he hears "the pealing organ blow to the full-voiced choir below,
in service high and anthem clear."

Milton's enjoyment of the gaiety of life stands in bright contrast with
the gloom and sternness which strife and persecution fostered in
Puritanism at a later time. In spite of a "certain reservedness of
natural disposition," which shrank from "festivities and jests, in which
I acknowledge my faculty to be very slight," the young singer could
still enjoy the "jest and youthful jollity" of the world around him, its
"quips and cranks and wanton wiles"; he could join the crew of Mirth,
and look pleasantly on at the village fair, where "the jocund rebecks
sound to many a youth and many a maid, dancing in the chequered shade."
There was nothing ascetic in Milton's look, in his slender, vigorous
frame, his face full of a delicate yet serious beauty, the rich brown
hair which clustered over his brow; and the words we have quoted show
his sensitive enjoyment of all that was beautiful. But his pleasures
were "unreproved." From coarse or sensual self-indulgence the young
Puritan turned with disgust: "A certain reservedness of nature, an
honest haughtiness and self-esteem, kept me still above those low
descents of mind." He drank in an ideal chivalry from Spenser, though
his religion and purity disdained the outer pledge on which chivalry
built up its fabric of honour. "Every free and gentle spirit," said
Milton, "without that oath, ought to be born a knight." It was with this
temper that he passed from his London school, St. Paul's, to Christ's
College at Cambridge, and it was this temper that he preserved
throughout hi