The reader will now, I think, agree with me that these Academic exercises of Milton possess a singular autobiographic value. They throw light upon much connected with Milton's career at Cambridge- the extent and nature of his reading; his habits and tastes as a student; the relation in which he stood to the University system of his time, and to the new intellectual tendencies which were gradually affecting that system. They also settle in the most conclusive manner the fact, independently ascertained, that Milton passed through two stages in his career at the University-a stage of decided unpopularity, in his own College at least, which lasted till about 1628; and a final stage of triumph, when his powers were recognized, and he was treated, as he himself states, with quite unusual respect by the authorities of the House and by all who knew him. These same essays, however, taken along with the materials previously exhibited, afford us the means of now attempting, by way of summary, some more exact sketch of Milton's character as a whole, at the point of his life to which we have brought him. When Milton left Cambridge in July, 1632, he was twenty-three years and eight months old. In stature, therefore, at least, he was already whatever he was to be. "In stature," he says himself at a later period when driven to speak on the subject, "I confess I am not tall, but still of what is nearer to middle height than to little; and what if I were of little; of which stature have often been very great men both in peace and war-though why should that be called little which is great enough for virtue? ("Staturâ, fateor, non sum procerâ, sed quæ mediocri tamen quàm parvæ propior sit ; sed quid si parvâ, quâ et summi sæpe tum pace tum bello viri fuere —quanquam parva cur dicitur, quæ ad virtutem satis magna est?") This is precise enough; but we have Aubrey's words to the same effect. "He was scarce so tall as I am," says Aubrey; to which, to make it more intelligible, he appends this marginal note: "Qu. Quot feet I am high? Resp. of middle stature."- i. e. Milton was a little under middle height. "He had light brown hair," continues Aubrey, - putting the word "abrown" (" auburn ") in the margin by way of synonym for "light brown;"-"his complexion exceeding fair; oval face; his eye a dark gray." As Milton himself says that his complexion, even in later life, was so much "the reverse of bloodless or pallid," that, on this ground alone, he was generally taken for ten years younger than he really was, Au 1 Defensio Secunda (written 1654): Works, VI. 266. |