Early Years : London; Cambridge and Horton

Viewing the Renaissance City: the Osman Collection of Braun & Hogenberg
Georg Braun, 1541-1622, and Franz Hogenberg, c.1536-1588,
title-page from Civitates Orbis Terrarum, Liber Primus
Frankfurt: Braun and Hogenberg, [1572]. John Osman Collection of Braun & Hogenberg.

Most of the illustrative items in the upright cases are drawn from Thomas Cooper Library's John Osman Collection. The Osman Collection, donated by to the University by Mrs. Mary C. Osman, includes more than four hundred copperplate engraved maps and views of European cities, issued by the Dutch engravers Braun and Hogenberg in six volumes over the years 1572 to 1618.

Milton's London
Georg Braun, 1541-1622, and Franz Hogenberg, c.1536-1588,
"Londinum Feracissimi Angliae Regni Metropolis,"
from Civitates Orbis Terrarum, Liber I
Frankfurt: Braun and Hogenberg, [1572]. John Osman Collection of Braun & Hogenberg.

"I was born," Milton wrote, "at London, of an honest family; my father was distinguished by the undeviating integrity of his life; my mother, by the esteem in which she was held, and the alms which she bestowed." His actual birth day was December 9th, 1608, at the sign of the Spread Eagle, Bread Street, London.

Milton's autobiography
John Milton,1608-1674,
from "The Second Defence of the People of England against an Anomymous Libel [1654]," translated from the Latin by Robert Fellowes
in Charles Symmons., ed., The Prose Works of John Milton.
7 vols. London: for J. Johnson et al., 1806. Vol. VII.

Milton was among the first English authors to leave an extended first-person account of his own early life, in Latin, defending his moral character against pro-monarchist attacks in the fierce disputes of the Commonwealth period. This passage from Milton's Defensio Secunda (1654) gives a gripping and coherent account of Milton's young adulthood and developing commitments in the 1630s and 1640s. Many of the annotations to later items in this exhibition are taken from this source. The translator, Robert Fellowes (1771-1847), an Oxford-educated clergyman who became editor of the Critical Review, was an active advocate of political reform and devoted a substantial inheritance to progressive causes such as the Benthamite non-sectarian University College, London. Though this is the longest and best-known of Milton's autobiographical accounts, there are also shorter passages in other prose works and in his poem Ad Patrem.

A London school in the early seventeenth century
Samuel Knight, 1675-1746.
The life of Dr. John Colet, dean of St. Paul's in the reigns of K. Henry VII and K. Henry VIII and founder of St. Paul's school: with an appendix, containing some account of the masters and more eminent scholars of the foundation, and several original papers.
New ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1823.

Milton's father, also John Milton, a scrivener (a legal agent and often financial agent as well), was alert to the education of his son. "I had," Milton wrote, " from my first yeeres . . . bin exercis'd to the tongues and some sciences, as my age would suffer, by sundry masters," and from the age of seven or so he attended the nearby St. Paul's School. Shown here is the brief entry on him as one of the "more eminent scholars," from the biography of the school's founder.

A center of Renaissance humanism
"To the Reader,"
in William Lily, 1468?-1522; John Colet, 1467?-1519; Thomas Robertson, 1521-1561.
[Latin grammar]
London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1821. Contemporary sheep.

St. Paul's had a pivotal role in the development and dissemination of Renaissance classicism in Britain. The standard school texts in both Greek and Latin originated with Colet's St. Paul's, the Greek by the Dutch exile Desiderius Erasmus and the Latin (shown here in one of its innumerable later reprints) by the English scholar William Lily. When Milton came to write his own Latin grammar-book (published in 1669 as Accedence Commenc't Grammar, but probably written in the 1640s), he borrowed some 330 of his 530 illustrative quotations from Lily.

Alexander Gill: the political perils of Puritan pedagogy
William Douglas Hamilton, d. 1894, ed.
Original papers illustrative of the life and writings of John Milton including sixteen letters of state written by him, now first published from mss. in the State paper office. With an appendix of documents relating to his connection with the Powell family. . . with the permission of the Master of the Rolls.
Works of the Camden Society; no. 75. [Westminster]: Printed for the Camden Society, 1859.

Milton's headmaster at St. Paul's was Alexander Gill (1564-1635), and his son Alexander Gill the younger (1597-1644), already a published poet, taught at the school. As these documents from official papers show, the younger Gill was an outspoken political critic, and in 1628 he ran into serious trouble with the authorities for criticism of the King's favorite, the Duke of Buckingham.

Milton, Spenser, and the British epic
Edmund Spenser, 1552?-1599.
The faerie queene, disposed into XII. bookes. fashioning twelue morall vertues.
London: Printed by H.L. For Mathew Lownes, 1609. Speckled calf binding with banded spine.

"My father," Milton stated, "destined me from a child to the pursuits of literature," and his schoolmaster Alexander Gill the elder described Edmund Spenser as the Homer of the English language. In the preface to his Poems (1645), Milton's publisher asserted he had "brought into the Light as true a birth, as the Muses have brought forth since the famous Spencer wrote." Certainly, Spenser's great Protestant epic The Faerie Queene was among the continuing influences in Milton's poetic ambition. Shown here is the opening of Spenser's Book II, Canto X, where Spenser invokes the difficulty of his chosen task of chronicling the history of the British kings from Arthur to Gloriana.

Milton's reading of Shakespeare
John Milton,
"On the Admirable Dramatick Poet, William Shakespear,"
in William Shakespeare, 1564-1616. Mr. William Shakespear's comedies, histories, and tragedies. Published according to the true original copies. Unto which is added, seven plays, never before printed in folio. The fourth edition.
London: Printed for H. Herringman, E. Brewster, and R. Bentley. . ., 1685.
Diced calf binding. Gold decorated spine with red label lettered in gold.

--Milton's tribute to Shakespeare's influence, first published anonymously in 1630 in the second folio alongside verses by Ben Jonson and others, was his first published poem, written while he was still a student at Cambridge:


. . . each heart
Hath, from the leaves of thy unvalued book,
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took.


The poem is shown here from the fourth folio, because in Thomas Cooper Library's second folio, the prelims pages with Milton's epitaph are damaged.

Metrical psalms, I
"Psalm 101"
in George Buchanan, 1506-1582.
Ecphrasis paraphraseos Georgij Buchanani in Psalmos Davidis: ab Alexandro Iulio Edinburgeno, in adoloescentiae studiosae gratiam elaborata.
Londini: Excusum apud G. Eld, 1620. Contemporary vellum.

--As the subtitle of this volume shows, a Renaissance education moved easily between poetry of the classical and Christian traditions. The Scottish humanist George Buchanan, a fierce protestant who in 1570-78 was tutor to the future King James the VI and I, was recognized by contemporaries as facile princeps among Renaissance Scottish poets; indeed J.C.Scaliger judged Buchanan the greatest European Latin poet of the age. Alongside his original Latin poetry and (Latin) Biblical dramas, Baptistes and Jeptha (a model for Milton's own Samson Agonistes), Bucahanan translated Euripides from Greek to Latin. His Latin version of the psalms (first published in the 1560s) was widely used as a school text.

Metrical psalms, II
The Psalmes of David in prose and meeter. With their whole tunes in foure or mo parts, and some psalmes in reports. Whereunto is added many godly prayers, and an exact kalendar for XXV. yeeres to come.
Edinburgh: Heires of Andrevv Hart, 1635. Modern brown morocco, gilt. Bookplate of Allan D. Macdonald.

--In both England and Scotland, as also in Geneva, the congregational singing of metrical psalms became central to protestant church services. From the Reformation till the 19th century, Calvinists sang only the metrical psalms or scriptural paraphrases, not man-made hymns, and sang them unaccompanied, being opposed to instrumental church music. By the time this Scottish psalter was published, the repertory included over 200 pieces. The title-page reference to "Psalmes in reports" indicates that the tune was arranged in three, four or five parts in "imitative counterpoint.

Metrical psalms, III
John Milton,
"Psalm 114," and "Psalm 136 ['Let us with a gladsome mind'],"
in Paradise regain'd : a poem in four books: to which is added, Samson Agonistes and Poems upon several occasions.
Edinburgh: Printed by A. Donaldson and J. Reid for Alexander Donaldson, 1762.
Signature of Charles Pinckney. Contemporary mottled calf.

--At St. Paul's, alongside verse-translations from Horace, Milton also produced these metrical psalms. The defects of the established English metrical version by Sternhold and Hopkins, from the Prayer Book, were widely recognized, and many Renaissance writers tried their hand at psalm-versification. When he included these efforts in his 1645 Poems, he noted that they had been written when he was only fifteen years old.

Milton's Cambridge
Georg Braun, 1541-1622, and Franz Hogenberg, c.1536-1588, "Cantebrigia,"
from Civitates Orbis Terrarum, Liber II
Frankfurt: Braun and Hogenberg, [1575]. John Osman Collection of Braun & Hogenberg.

--From 1625-1632, with one brief interval, Milton was a student at Christ's College, Cambridge. In retrospect, in his poem Lycidas, he would idealize the tranquility of academic life:


. . . we were nurst upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill. . . .
Look homeward, angel, now, and melt with ruth.


Milton graduated B.A. in March 1629 and M.A. in July 1632.

Milton at Christ's College
John Le Keux, 1783-1846,
"Christ's College,"
in Thomas Wright, 1810-1877; H.L. Jones, 1806-1870, Memorials of Cambridge: a series of views of the colleges, halls, and public buildings, with historical and descriptive accounts.
London: David Bogue, 1845.

--The main front of Christ's remained essentially unchanged between Milton's time and this early Victorian engraving.

Cambridge and Milton's early poetry
John Milton,
on Thomas Hobson the University Carrier, and "L'Allegro,"
in The poetical works of Milton : with prefatory characters of the several pieces, the life of Milton, a glossary, and an index.
2 vols. Edinburgh: Printed by A. Donaldson, 1767. Signature of Charles Pinckney, junior, in each
volume. Contemporary calf.

--Milton's elegy on Thomas Hobson illustrates the playfulness of his Cambridge verse, while the more substantial "L'Allegro" and its pair "Il Penseroso" show the continuing influence on Milton of the formal debate structure used in the Cambridge public exercises or disputations. Thomas Hobson (from whose monopoly of Cambridge transport comes the phrase "Hobson's Choice") had died in 1631, leaving a substantial endowment to maintain the Cambridge water-conduit which still bears his name.

Country retreat: Middlesex in the early 17th century
William Camden, 1551-1623.
Britain : or, A chorographicall description of the most flourishing kingdomes, England, Scotland written first in Latine by W. Camden; translated newly into English by Philemon Holland.
London: Georgii Bishop & Ioannis Norton, 1610. Early nineteenth century tree calf.

--Milton spent the six years following his graduation from Cambridge living in the country outside London, first at Hammersmith, and then at Horton, about a mile from Colnbroke, on the west side of Middlesex. He looked back on the period with gratitude: "I enjoyed," he wrote, "an interval of uninterrupted leisure, which I entirely devoted to the perusal of the Greek and Latin classics." The great British antiquarian William Camden had, like Milton himself, been educated at St. Paul's School.

Milton's Oxford
Georg Braun, 1541-1622, and Franz Hogenberg, c.1536-1588,
"Oxonium," and "Windsorium,"
from Civitates Orbis Terrarum, Liber II
Frankfurt: Braun and Hogenberg, [1575]. John Osman Collection of Braun & Hogenberg.

--The Braun and Hogenberg series include not only city maps, but also external views that show the close interrelation of the urban and the rural in the seventeenth-century. One of Milton's epic similes drew on just this contrast:

As one who long in populous city pent,
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,
Forth issuing on a summer's morn to breathe
Among the pleasant villages and farms
Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight,
The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine,
Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound.
Paradise Lost, Book IX

Though Oxford would later be a Royalist stronghold, in contrast to the Puritan leanings of its rival Cambridge, Milton's father had received his musical education in the choir at Christ Church, Oxford, and Milton himself incorporated as an Oxford M.A. in 1634, perhaps to get access to the Bodleian library.

From Milton's poetic notebook: the Trinity Manuscript
John Milton,
"Arcades," and "Sonnet VII: How soon hath time,"
from the Trinity manuscript,
in Samuel Leigh Sotheby, 1805-1861, Ramblings in the elucidation of the autograph of Milton.
London: Printed for the author by T. Richards, 1861.

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stolen on his wing my three-and twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career
But my late spring no bud or blossom show'th.


Milton's growth as a poet during the 1630s is documented in two extraordinary surviving manuscripts, his poetic notebook (the Trinity manuscript, from which this page has been engraved) and his notes from extensive reading (the Commonplace Book). The lines headed "Arcades" were from a masque performed at Harefield House, in honor of the Dowager Countess of Derby; soon after leaving Cambridge, Milton was asked to contribute verses for the masque (probably by the musician Henry Lawes, 1596-1662, a friend of Milton's father). The well-known sonnet on the passing of time, and of his youth, gives a more personal glimpse of him as he determined to spend further years of study in pursuit of his poetic ambitions.

Renaissance patronage: Milton and the masque
John Milton, adapted by George Colman, 1732-1794.
Comus: a masque, in two acts by John Milton.
London: J. Cumberland, [ca. 1834]

--in 1634, Milton was again asked by Lawes to collaborate on a masque, for the same aristocratic patrons. Milton was the junior partner in this collaboration, and in a sonnet to Lawes expressed great regard for the musician

. . . whose tuneful and well-measured song
First taught our English music how to span
Words with just note and accent . . .
Thou honour'st verse, and verse must lend her wing
To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire


The new masque was Comus, an allegory of the struggle between chaste temperance and riotous intemperance, written for the installation of the Countess's stepson, the Earl of Bridgwater, as Lord President of the Council of Wales, and first performed with his children in the leading roles at Ludlow Castle on September 29th 1634. Colman's 18th century stage adaptation of Comus incorporated music by Dr. Thomas Arne, who also composed the tune of "Rule Britannia."

Poetic ambition and the deferral of fame
John Milton,
"Lycidas,"
in The poetical works of John Milton.
Aldine edition of the British poets.
3 vols. London: William Pickering, 1851. Original blue-green cloth with paper label.

--Milton's Lycidas, an elegy for his Cambridge contemporary Edward King first published in 1638, allowed Milton to mark the increasing contrast between the pastoral idyl of student life and the growing political tensions of the 1630s; it also incorporated reflections on his own situation in deferring a career through his twenties while he pursued his poetic ambitions, asking


Alas, what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely, slighted, shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse!


Though he rebutted his doubts firmly enough in this poem, the question is significant in pointing ahead to his non-poetic activity in the next two decades.