ng been
vouched for to me by a dear friend, a clergyman of East Aurora, who, the
past year, perused the entire work, from A to Z, reading five hours a day:
and therefore is competent to speak.

JOHN MILTON

Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me; from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, Celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
--_Paradise Lost: Book III_

[Illustration: JOHN MILTON]

Shakespeare and Milton lived at the same time, though the difference in
their ages was such that we may not speak of them as contemporaries. John
Milton was eight years old when William Shakespeare died. The Miltons
lived in Bread Street, and out of the back garret-window of their house
could catch a glimpse of the Globe Theater.

The father of John Milton might have known Shakespeare--might have dined
with him at the "Mermaid," played skittles with him on Hampstead Heath,
fished with him from the same boat in the river at Richmond; and then John
Milton, the lawyer, might have discreetly schemed for passes to the
"Globe" and gone with his boy John, Junior, to see "As You Like It"
played, with the Master himself in the role of old Adam.

Bread Street was just off Cheapside, where the Mermaid Tavern stood, and
where Beaumont, Fletcher, Ben Jonson and other roysterers often lingered
and made the midnight echo with their mirth. In all probability, John
Milton, Senior, father of John Milton, Junior, knew Shakespeare well. But
the Miltons owned their home; were rich, influential, eminently
respectable; attended Saint Giles' Church, and really didn't care to
cultivate the society of play-actors who kept bad hours, slept in the
theater, and had meal-tickets at half a dozen taverns.

There were six children born into the Milton family, three of whom died in
infancy. Of the survivors, the eldest