The Easter season of 1630 evidently found Milton preparing to emulate his success of the preceding Christmas. He began with eight introductory stanzas of the same modified rhyme-royal form; but at the end of the eighth, before he reached the "Hymn proper, he broke off, appending to the fragment years later the following note:

"This subject the author, finding to be above the years he had when he wrote it, and nothing satisfied with what was begun, left it unfinished."

With this judgment it is easy to agree. The stanzas, while not lacking in beauty, are not worthy of the transcendent subject. They show more markedly than his preceding poems the influence of his favorite Spenser, and they do not show to the full the splendid original powers of which Milton had already given such evidence. They mark also the limit of his yielding to the fantastic absurdities of Marinism, for there is little in the poetry of Quarles or Sylvester that is more extravagant than the monumental "conceit," in the seventh stanza, of "that sad sepulchral rock," upon

whose "softened quarry'

quarry" the poet "would score" his "plaining verse as lively as before."

If the little "Song on May Morning" dates from 1630, it more than atones by its beauty for the failure of the poem on the "Passion.” But, as we shall see later, there is a tendency among critics to assign the undated early poems to the period of retirement at Horton; hence the ten beautiful lines may not represent the emotions of the college student at all. They are full of an exquisite feeling for spring, especially for its pulsing energy, which is well symbolized by the sudden change at the fifth verse from long iambic lines to shorter trochaic ones. Why a student like Milton, who had celebrated the return of spring in Latin elegiacs, might not have written this song after a walk in the beautiful gardens of Trinity is hard to see; but the critics seem to write as if Milton's love of nature was brought out at Horton alone. Of this we shall speak hereafter; it is sufficient now to emphasize the beauty of the lines, which is more elaborate, however, than befits a genuine song.

CHAPTER II

THE LATIN POEMS

As we have seen, the Latin poems formed a separate portion of the volume of 1645-46. They filled eighty-eight pages, divided by their author into two books, one of elegies ("Elegiarum Liber"), and one of miscellanies ("Sylvarum Liber"). In the poem last written, the Epitaphium Damonis," Milton announced his intention of writing thenceforward in English,

promise which was practically kept, since nothing but the "Ode to Rous" and a few epigrams were subsequently added to the collection. Of the seven elegies, eight epigrams, and nine miscellaneous pieces (excluding the three Greek poems) printed in 1645, twelve were written at Cambridge, one apparently at Horton, and the rest during or shortly after the Italian journey. The whole is therefore the work of a young man, and a considerable

portion that of a mere youth. Judged from this point of view, it is a wonderful achieve

ment.

With regard to the intrinsic merits of the verses, there is almost complete unanimity among the most qualified critics.. With the exception of Landor, who wrote more as a Roman, to whom Latin seemed, in the words of Dr. Garnett, to come "like the language of some prior state of existence, rather remembered than learned," Milton is the greatest English writer of Latin verse. This may seem to be a dubious compliment in an age when even the veritable classics are often disparaged; but it would not have been such to Milton and his contemporaries, and it must mean something in any careful estimate of his work. He is the greater man and poet for having succeeded so well in his Latin verses, even if we believe with Dr. Garnett that he won his success by the sweat of his brow a point that does not seem to be irrevocably settled.

Authorities are agreed that Milton always attained scholarly elegance, and that he did

not lose his own individuality as is so often the case with writers who attempt to use a language not native to them. That he succeeded in writing great poems is hardly asserted, save with regard to the "Epitaphium Damonis," of the nobility and beauty of which there has been no serious doubt. Difference of opinion has revealed itself as to what author Milton followed most closely, Warton, a good judge, believing that he imitated Ovid with consistency, Hallam maintaining that his hexameters at least are more Virgilian. It is safer, perhaps, to side with Warton. It is safe, too, to agree with Dr. Johnson and with Dr. Garnett that, in the words of the former, neither "power of invention " nor "vigor of sentiment" are so conspicuous as "the purity of the diction and the harmony of the numbers"; but on this point something needs to be said by way of explanation.

Milton's diction is pure on the whole, but it is easy to establish the fact that he uses quite a number of ante- and post-classical words; more, seemingly, of the former than of the latter. His excessive and sometimes inaccu