ecessor Mulcaster (Spenser's schoolmaster
when he presided over Merchant Taylors'), of whom Fuller approvingly
records: "Atropos might be persuaded to pity as soon as he to pardon
where he found just fault. The prayers of cockering mothers prevailed
with him as much as the requests of indulgent fathers, rather increasing
than mitigating his severity on their offending children." Milton's
father, though by no means "cockering," would not have tolerated such
discipline, and the passionate ardour with which Milton threw himself
into the studious life of the school is the best proof that he was
exempt from tyranny. "From the twelfth year of my age," he says, "I
scarcely ever went from my lessons to bed before midnight." The ordinary
school tasks cannot have exacted so much time from so gifted a boy: he
must have read largely outside the regular curriculum, and probably he
practised himself diligently in Latin verse. For this he would have the
prompting, and perhaps the aid, of the younger Gill, assistant to his
father, who, while at the University, had especially distinguished
himself by his skill in versification. Gill must also have been a man of
letters, affable and communicative, for Milton in after-years reminds
him of their "almost constant conversations," and declares that he had
never left his company without a manifest accession of literary
knowledge. The Latin school exercises have perished, but two English
productions of the period, paraphrases of Psalms executed at fifteen,
remain to attest the boy's proficiency in contemporary English
literature. Some of the unconscious borrowings attributed to him are
probably mere coincidences, but there is still enough to evince
acquaintance with "Sylvester, Spenser, Drummond, Drayton, Chaucer,
Fairfax, and Buchanan." The literary merit of these versions seems to us
to have been underrated. There may be no individual phrase beyond the
compass of an apt and sensitive boy with a turn for verse-making; but
the general tone is masculine and emphatic. There is not much to say,
but what is said is delivered with a "large utterance," prophetic of the
"os magna soniturum," and justifying his own report of his youthful
promise:--"It was found that whether aught was imposed me by them that
had the overlooking, or betaken to of mine own choice, in English or
other tongue, prosing or versing, but chiefly by this latter, the style,
by certain vital signs it had, was likely to live."

Amo