Wilbur Lucius Cross

“ Whether or not the work belongs to Milton, it undoubtedly shows strongly many of his characteristics in thought and style. The romance is written in prose and in verse, and is wholly in Latin. It shows advanced theories on education, it considers love philosophically, and deals with the philosophy of religion, with conversion, salvation, the brotherhood of man, with almsgiving, self-control, angels, the fall of man, and man's eternal fate. ”

“ He retired to his father's estate at Horton, Buckinghamshire, where he passed nearly six years (1632-38) in reading the classics and writing at intervals his choicest poems. Believing that he had it in him to write something that would live, he set out for Italy in April, 1638, wishing to fit himself still more for his future work. Probably at Bologna, which he visited in 1639, Milton wrote in excellent Italian five sonnets and a canzone wherein he expresses love for a beautiful lady of Bologna. For some time he stayed in Florence, where he visited in prison the blind Galileo. ”

“ The student will find of much value: Osgood, The Classical Mythology of Milton's English Poems (New York, 1900) ; and Lockwood, Lexicon to the Poetical Works of John Milton (ib., 1902) . A contemporary biography of Milton, discovered in 1889 in a volume of Anthony Wood's papers in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, was edited and published by E. B. Parsons in 1903, under the title, “The Earliest Life of Milton,” in the Colorado College Studies (Colorado Springs, March, 1903) . ”