poetry before he went to Cambridge, for his paraphrases of the Hundred and fourteenth and Hundred and thirty-sixth Psalms were made at fifteen. His magnificent "Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity," which displays so much grandeur of conception, so much wealth of language, and so much piety, was written when he was twenty-one. His "Sonnet to the Nightingale," and the two exquisite companion poems of "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," were composed shortly after. "Arcades," "Lycidas," and "Comus" were achievements of his youth. "These," says Mark Pattison, "had 'Paradise Lost' never been written, would have sufficed to place their author in a class apart and above all those who had used the English language for poetical purposes before him." "Comus" is a great creation. The plot is slight, but "Milton worked out of it a strain of poetry such as had never been heard in England before." "Comus" is the poem for youth. Himself so virtuous, Milton in this work has shown what young men need specially to know— how virtue can be kept inviolable amidst all the wiles and influences of ensnaring circumstances. "I argued to myself," he said, "that if unchastity in a woman, whom St. Paul terms the glory of man, be such a scandal and dishonour, then certainly in a man, who is both the image and glory of God, it must, though commonly not so thought, be much more deflowering and dishonourable." His pure mind was kept in a pure body. Thus he refers to the principles which animated him in his twenty-third year:

"How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,

Stoln on his wing my three and twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom sheweth.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,
That I to manhood am arrived so near;
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,

That some more timely-happy spirits indueth.
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,

It shall be still in strictest measure even,

To that same lot, however mean or high,

Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven;
All is, if I have grace to use it so,

As ever in my great Task-Master's eye."

EDMUND WALLER (1605-1687) was both a poet and a member of the House of Commons before he was eighteen. He was descended from an old family in Kent, and one of his ancestors, Sir Richard Waller, fought at Agincourt, and took the Duke of Orleans, a French prince, prisoner; for which he was allowed to add to his crest the Orleans coatof-arms. Waller was heir to the family estates, and early possessed of opulence. His first poem was written to celebrate an escape of the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles I., when a storm overtook his ship on his return from Spain. He did not publish his works until he had carefully revised and polished them. The Duke of Buckingham told a friend that Waller was so fastidious that he spent the greater part of a summer in composing and correcting ten lines, to be written in a copy of Tasso belonging to the Duchess of York! “He laboured at his poetic conceptions," says one of his biographers, "as artists of old did in cutting and polishing a cameo, and even at the last there were few without some flaw in the execution." Yet with all his care "there are not perhaps two hundred good lines in all his poetry." He continued, however, during a long life to cultivate the Muses. In politics he veered from king to parliament, and being accused of a conspiracy, was expelled from the House of Commons, committed to the Tower, and finally, on payment of a fine of £10,000, allowed to go into exile. He spent eight years on the continent of Europe, and solaced his soul with poetry, which he published in

1648. He was allowed by Cromwell to return to England, and in gratitude wrote a "Panegyric to my Lord Protector," one of the best of his poems. He was equally ready to congratulate the return of Charles II., and in a strain of fulsome adulation. Charles said that it was not equal to the panegyric on Cromwell, but the flatterer had the ready wit to reply "Poets, sire, succeed best in fiction." The king was pleased, and wished to make Waller provost of Eton; but it was decided that the office could be held only by a clergyman. Waller was elected again to the House of Commons, and Bishop Burnet says that he was the delight of the House. Though only a water-drinker, his lively conversation and wit made him a general favourite.

ABRAHAM COWLEY (1618-1667) was a posthumous child of his father, left with a legacy of £140 and a good mother. He was born in London, and sent to Westminster school. A copy of Spenser's poems was in his mother's parlour, and its perusal kindled in his soul the desire to become a poet. He began to write, and in the tenth year of his age composed a poem called "The Tragical History of Pyramus and Thisbe." It was actually published in his fifteenth year, along with other products of his youthful pen, under the title of "Poetical Blossoms." He then went to Trinity College, Cambridge, and there he elaborated his exercises with great care, and prepared his "Davideis," an epic poem in four books, designed to illustrate the life and character of the great Hebrew king and psalmist. It is somewhat tedious and unfinished, and written in the heroic couplet. He graduated in 1643, and was shortly afterwards ejected from his college on account of his royalist opinions. He then went to Oxford, where he was employed to decipher the correspondence of the king and queen. He published an edition of his poems in his twenty-eighth year. He afterwards

studied medicine, took his degree of M.D. at Oxford, and published a Latin poem on Plants. When he died in 1667, he was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey.

JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700) wrote his first poem in his eighteenth year, but it gives no indication of his genius or power, and it is not necessary here to sketch his career. Illustrious and varied as it was, his fame belongs to full age.

RACINE (1630-1699), in like manner, composed poetry while he was a pupil at Port Royal, and is said to have planned some of his future works; but his poetry was the product of riper years.

CORNEILLE (1606-1684), however, developed his talent early in life, and his first comedy, "Mélite," was rapturously received in Paris. By the time he was thirty he had attained such fame and popularity, that when Cardinal Richelieu attempted to persecute him, he found it impossible to do so. "The Cid" of Corneille inaugurated a new era of French literature. Its author was then only thirtyone, but he was the true father of dramatic art in France. He was a man of devout mind, and specially fond of À A Kempis's "Imitation of Christ," of which he prepared a translation. His diction was remarkably chaste, and his versification harmonious. His brother, THOMAS CORNEILLE (1625-1709), was even more early in life a poet, but his fame has not endured.

THOMAS CHATTERTON (1752–1770) was a "marvellous boy." He was the posthumous child of a sexton at Bristol, and was educated at a charity school. He had quite a passion for poetry in his boyhood. When only eleven years of age, he composed a hymn to the Almighty, of which the following is the first verse :—

"Almighty Framer of the skies,
O let our pure devotion rise
Like incense in thy sight.
Wrapt in impenetrable shade,
The texture of our souls was made,
Till thy command gave light."

When only sixteen he produced a series of poems which he professed to have found in a chest in the old Church of St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, and to be the work of a priest some three hundred years before. The antique phraseology and spelling were cleverly imitated, and the citizens of Bristol never doubted the authorship. The learned, however, detected a modern hand; but the most sceptical admired the genius of the author who could thus transport himself into all the modes of thought and expression of centuries behind him. Archbishop Trench says the use of the word “its” was sufficient to prove the imposture in the poems of Rowley, as that word did not come into use in the English language for two hundred years after the alleged date of Rowley's manuscripts. The word is only once found in the Authorized Version of the English Bible, issued in 1611. Chatterton was thought a dunce in his childhood; but when he conquered the alphabet, "he awoke like a giant," says Wilmott, "devouring books with unsatisfied hunger." His temptation grew with his intellect. A manufacturer requested him to choose a device or inscription for a cup. "Paint me," answered the boy, "an angel with wings and a trumpet, to trumpet my name over the world." It was Milton's daring without his prayer. The tempter of Chatterton was pride. One of his latest letters is still preserved, in which the terrible working of an ungoverned spirit is shown by the emphasis of his pen. "It's my PRIDE, my native, unconquerable pride, that plunges me into distraction. You must