mechanical arts, and also of liberal sciences, and also of practices which are not brought into arts. These we call Mystery

men.

"We have three that try new experiments such as themselves think good. These we call Pioneers or Miners.

"We have three that draw the experiments of the former four into titles and tables, to give the better light for the drawing of observations and axioms out of them. These we call Compilers.

"We have three that bend themselves, looking into the experiments of their fellows, and casting about how to draw out of them things of use and practice for man's life and knowledge, as well for works as for plain demonstration of causes, means of natural divinations, and the easy and clear discovery of the virtues and parts of bodies. These we call Dowry-men, or Benefactors.

"Then after diverse meetings and consults of our whole number, to consider of the former labours and collections, we have three that take care out of them to direct new experiments of a higher light, more penetrating into nature than the former. These we call Lamps.

"We have three others that do execute the experiments so directed, and report them. These we call Inoculators.

Lastly, we have three that raise the former discoveries, by experiments, into greater observations, axioms, and aphorisms. These we call Interpreters of Nature.

"We have also, as you must think, novices and apprentices, that the succession of the former employed men do not fail, besides a great number of servants and attendants-men and women. And this we do also: we have consultations which of the inventions and experiences which we have discovered shall be published, and which not; and take all an oath of secrecy for the concealing of those which we think fit to keep secret, though some of those we do reveal sometimes to the State, and some not.

"For our ordinances and rites, we have two very long and fair galleries: in one of these we place patterns and samples of all manner of the more rare and excellent inventions; in the other we place the statues of all principal inventors. There we have the statue of your Columbus, that discovered the West Indies; also the inventor of ships; your monk, that was the inventor of ordnance and of gunpowder; the inventor of music; the inventor of letters; the inventor of printing; the inventor of observations of astronomy; the inventor of works in metal; the inventor of glass; the inventor of silk of the worm; the inventor of wine; the inventor of corn and bread; the inventor of sugars; and all these by more certain tradition than you have. Then have we diverse inventors of our own of excellent works, which, since you have not seen, it were too long to make descriptions of them; and besides, in the right understanding of those descriptions you might easily err; for upon every invention of value we erect a statue to the inventor, and give him a liberal and honourable reward. These statues are, some of brass, some of marble and touchstone,1 some of cedar and other special woods, gilt and adorned, some of iron, some of silver, some of gold.

"We have certain hymns and services, which we say daily, of laud and thanks to God for His marvellous Works, and forms of prayers imploring His aid and blessing for the illumination of our labours, and the turning of them into good and holy uses.

"Lastly, we have circuits, or visits, of diverse principal

1 Touchstone, Lydian stone, or basanite, is silicious schist almost as compact as flint, called touchstone because it was used to indicate the purity of gold by the streak left where the gold had been drawn across it.

cities of the kingdom, where, as it cometh to pass, we do publish such new profitable inventions as we think good. And we do also declare natural divinations of diseases, plagues, swarms of hurtful creatures, scarcity, tempests, earthquakes, great inundations, comets, temperature of the year, and diverse other things; and we give counsel thereupon what the people shall do for the prevention and remedy of them."

And when he had said this, he stood up. And I, as I had been taught, kneeled down, and he laid his right hand upon my head, and said:-"God bless thee, my son; and God bless this relation which I have made. I give thee leave to publish it, for the good of other nations; for we here are in God's bosom, a land unknown." And so he left me, having assigned a value of about two thousand ducats for a bounty to me and my fellows. For they give great largesses where they come, upon all occasions. The rest was not perfected.

papers

BEN JONSON was fifty-one years old at the accession of Charles I., and he lived, in weak health, the chief poet of the time, during the first twelve years of the reign, dying in 1637 at the age of sixty-three. Among the found after his death was his pastoral play "The Sad Shepherd," of which a part is lost, the beginning of a domestic tragedy, an English grammar, and a series of thoughts in prose which he called "Discoveries," and which seem to have been written at intervals, during the last years of his life, as they were suggested by his observation or his reading. By "discovery" he meant, according to a sense of the word then usual, uncovering, unmasking, and

endeavour to look below their disguises at the truths of life; or of literature, which is but the voice of life when most intent on its day labour. Here is a selection from Ben Jonson's

DISCOVERIES.

Jactura vitæ.-What a deal of cold business doth a man misspend the better part of life in! in scattering compliments, tendering visits, gathering and venting news, following feasts and plays, making a little winter-love in a dark

corner.

Beneficia.2-Nothing is a courtesy unless it be meant us; and that friendly and lovingly. We owe no thanks to rivers, that they carry our boats; or winds, that they be favouring and fill our sails; or meats, that they be nourishing. For these are what they are, necessarily. Horses carry us, trees shade us, but they know it not. It is true, some men may receive a courtesy, and not know it; but never any man received it from him that knew it not. Many men have been cured of diseases by accidents; but they were not remedies. I myself have known one helped of an ague by falling into a water, another whipped out of a fever: but no man would ever use these for medicines. It is the mind, and not the event, that distinguisheth the courtesy from wrong. My adversary may offend the judge with his pride and impertinences, and I win my cause; but he meant it not to me as a courtesy. I escaped pirates by being shipwrecked ; was the wreck a benefit therefore? No: the doing of courtesies aright is the mixing of the respects for his own sake and for mine. He that doeth them merely for his own sake, is like one that feeds his cattle to sell them: he hath his horse well dressed for Smithfield.

Veritas proprium hominis.3-Truth is man's proper good; and the only immortal thing was given to our mortality to use. No good Christian or ethnic,' if he be honest, can miss it: no statesman or patriot should. For without truth all the actions of mankind are craft, malice, or what you will, rather than wisdom. Homer says, he hates him worse than hellmouth, that utters one thing with his tongue, and keeps another in his breast. Which high expression was grounded on divine reason: for a lying mouth is a stinking pit, and murders with the contagion it venteth. Beside, nothing is lasting that is feigned; it will have another face than it had ere long. As Euripides saith, "No lie ever grows old."

De vere argutis.7-I do hear them say often, some men are not witty; because they are not everywhere witty; than which nothing is more foolish. If an eye or a nose be an excellent part in the face, therefore be all eye or nose! I think the eyebrow, the forehead, the cheek, chin, lip, or any part else, are as necessary, and natural in the place. But now nothing is good that is natural: right and natural language seems to have least of the wit in it; that which is writhed and tortured is counted the more exquisite. Cloth of bodkin or tissue must be embroidered; as if no face were fair that were not powdered or painted? no beauty to be had but in wresting and writhing our own tongue? Nothing is fashionable till it be deformed; and this is to write like a gentleman. All must be affected, and preposterous as our gallant's clothes, sweet bags, and night dressings: in which you would think our men lay in like ladies, it is so curious.

Ingeniorum discrimina. Not. 1.-In the difference of wits, I have observed there are many notes: and it is a little maistry to know them; to discern what every nature, every disposition will bear: for, before we sow our land, we should plough it. There are no fewer forms of minds than of bodies amongst us. The variety is incredible, and therefore we must search. Some are fit to make divines, some poets, some lawyers, some physicians: some to be sent to the plough, and trades.

There is no doctrine will do good, where nature is wanting. Some wits are swelling and high; others low and still; some hot and fiery, others cold and dull; one must have a bridle, the other a spur.

Not. 2.-There be some that are forward and bold; and these will do every little thing easily, I mean that is hard-by and next them, which they will utter unretarded without any shamefastness. These never perform much, but quickly. They are what they are on the sudden; they show presently like grain that, scattered on the top of the ground, shoots up but takes no root; has a yellow blade, but the ear empty. They are wits of good promise at first, but there is an ingenistitium: they stand still at sixteen, they get no higher.

Not. 3.-You have others that labour only to ostentation, and are ever more busy about the colours and surface of a work, than in the matter and foundation: for that is hid, the other is seen.

Not. 4.-Others, that in composition are nothing but what is rough and broken: Quæ per salebras, altaque saxa cadunt.9 And if it would come gently, they trouble it of purpose. They would not have it run without rubs, as if that style were more strong and manly that struck the ear with a kind of unevenness. These men err not by chance, but knowingly and willingly; they are like men that affect a fashion by themselves, have some singularity in a rough, cloak, or hatband; or their beards specially cut to provoke beholders, and set a mark upon themselves. They would be reprehended while they are looked on. And this vice, one that is authority with the rest, loving, delivers over to them to be imitated; so that ofttimes the faults which he fell into the others seek for: this is the danger when vice becomes a precedent.

Not. 5.-Others there are that have no composition at all; but a kind of tuning and rhyming fall in what they write. It runs and slides, and only makes a sound. Women's poets they are called, as you have women's tailors:

They write a verse as smooth, as soft as cream;
In which there is no torrent, nor scarce stream.

You may sound these wits, and find the depth of them with your middle finger. They are cream-bowl or but puddledeep.

Not. 6.-Some that turn over all books, and are equally searching in all papers, that write out of what they presently find or meet, without choice; by which means it happens that what they have discredited and impugned in one week, they have before or after extolled the same in another. Such are all the essayists, even their master Montaigne. These, in all they write, confess still what books they have read last; and therein their own folly, so much, that they bring it to the stake raw and undigested: not that the place did need it neither; but that they thought themselves furnished, and would vent it.

Not. 7.-Some again (who after they have got authority,

Discriminations of character.

From an epigram of Martial's (xi. 91) to a Chrestillus, who liked no verses that flow smoothly, but only "those which fall through rugged places and high rocks."

or, which is less, opinion, by their writings, to have read much) dare presently to feign whole books and authors, and lie safely. For what never was, will not easily be found, not by the most curious.

Not. 8.-And some, by a cunning protestation against all reading, and false venditation of their own naturals, think to divert the sagacity of their readers from themselves, and cool the scent of their own fox-like thefts; when yet they are so rank, as a man may find whole pages together usurped from one author: their necessities compelling them to read for present use, which could not be in many books; and so come forth more ridiculously and palpably guilty than those, who because they cannot trace, they yet would slander their industry.

Not. 9.-But the wretcheder are the obstinate contemners of all helps and arts; such as presuming on their own naturals (which perhaps are excellent) dare deride all diligence and seem to mock at the terms when they understand not the things; thinking that way to get off wittily with their ignorance. These are imitated often by such as are their peers in negligence, though they cannot be in nature and they utter all they can think with a kind of violence and indisposition; unexamined, without relation either to person, place, or any fitness else: and the more wilful and stubborn they are in it, the more learned they are esteemed of the multitude, through their excellent vice of judgment: who think those things the stronger that have no art; as if to break were better than to open, or to rend asunder gentler than to loose.

Not. 10.—It cannot but come to pass that these men who commonly seek to do more than enough, may sometimes happen on something that is good and great; but very seldom, and when it comes it does not recompense the rest of their ill. For their jests, and their sentences (which they only and ambitiously seek for) stick out, and are more eminent, because all is sordid and vile about them; as lights are more discerned in a thick darkness than a faint shadow. Now because they speak all they can (however unfitly) they are thought to have the greater copy: where the learned use ever election and a mean, they look back to what they intended at first, and make all an even and proportioned body. The true artificer will not run away from Nature, as he were afraid of her; or depart from life, and the likeness of truth; but speak to the capacity of his hearers. And though his language differ from the vulgar somewhat, it shall not fly from all humanity, with the Tamerlanes, and Tamar-chams of the late age, which had nothing in them but the scenical strutting, and furious vociferation, to warrant them to the ignorant gapers. He knows it is his only art, so to carry it as none but artificers perceive it. In the meantime, perhaps, he is called barren, dull, lean, a poor writer, or by what contumelious word can come in their cheeks, by these men, who, without labour, judgment, knowledge, or almost sense, are received or preferred before him. He gratulates them and their fortune. Another age, or juster men, will acknowledge the virtues of his studies, his wisdom in dividing, his subtlety in arguing, with what strength he doth inspire his readers, with what sweetness he strokes them; in inveighing, what sharpness; in jest, what urbanity he uses: how he doth reign in men's affections; how invade and break in upon them, and makes their minds like the thing he writes. Then in his elocution to behold what word is proper, which hath ornaments, which height, what is beautifully translated, where figures are fit, which gentle, which strong, to show the com

1 Copy, Latin, "copia," abundance. Anything is said to be a copy of another as being an increase of its quantity by reproduction.

position manly: and how he hath avoided faint, obscure, obscene, sordid, humble, improper, or effeminate phrase; which is not only praised of the most, but commended (which is worse) especially for that it is nought.

De Augmentis Scientiarum.—Julius Cæsar.-Lord St. Alban. -I have ever observed it to have been the office of a wise patriot, among the greatest affairs of the state, to take care of the Commonwealth of Learning. For schools, they are the seminaries of state; and nothing is worthier the study of a statesman, than that part of the republic which we call the advancement of letters. Witness the care of Julius Cæsar, who, in the heat of the civil war, writ his books of analogy, and dedicated them to Tully. This made the late Lord St. Alban entitle his work Novum Organum: which though by the most of superficial men, who cannot get beyond the title of nominals, it is not penetrated, nor understood, it really openeth all defects of learning whatsoever, and is a book

Qui longum noto scriptori prorogat ævum,2

My conceit of his person was never increased toward him by his place or honours: but I have and do reverence him, for the greatness that was only proper to himself, in that he seemed to me ever, by his work, one of the greatest men, and most worthy of admiration that had been in many ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength; for greatness he could not want. Neither could I condole in a word or syllable for him, as knowing no accident could do harm to virtue, but rather help to make it manifest.

The word "Discovery" is used, in the sense applied to it by Ben Jonson, in John Earle's "Microcosmographie; or, a Piece of the World Discovered."

John Earle, born at York in the year 1600, was sent to Oxford at the age of sixteen, and at twentythree was M.A., and a Fellow of Merton. In 1628, he being in his twenty-eighth year, a little volume of Characters, written by him, was published under the name of "Microcosmographie," because it painted man, the microcosm or world in little. Earle was a fine scholar, and esteemed at court as wit and poet; for he was drawn from the University a few years after the publishing of his "Microcosmographie," and had lodgings at court as chaplain to the Earl of Pembroke, who was Lord Chamberlain to the King's household. In 1639 the Earl of Pembroke presented him then Dr. Earle-to the Rectory of Bishopston, in Wiltshire, by which he remained until 1662, when (under Charles II.) he was made Bishop of Worcester. He had become Dean of Westminster at the Restoration. He died in 1665, and left behind him the character of one who had been no man's enemy. He was firm to Church and Crown, but an opponent of intolerance; "a man," said Dr. Calamy, "that could do good against evil, forgive much out of a charitable heart." Here are two of John Earle's Characters :

AN ANTIQUARY.

He is a man strangely thrifty of Time Past, and an enemy indeed to his maw, whence he fetches out many things when

* Horace, "Ars Poetica," 1. 346, which Roscommon translates, with its preceding context,

"These pass with admiration through the world,
And bring their author to eternal fame."

they are now all rotten and stinking. He is one that hath that unnatural disease to be enamoured of old age and wrinkles, and loves all things (as Dutchmen do cheese) the better for being mouldy and worm-eaten. He is of our religion because we say it is most ancient, and yet a broken statue would almost make him an idolater. A great admirer he is of the rust of old monuments, and reads only those characters where time hath eaten out the letters. He will go you forty miles to see a Saint's well or a ruined abbey: and if there be but a cross or stone footstool in the way, he'll be considering it so long till he forget his journey. His estate consists much in shekels and Roman coins, and he hath more pictures of Cæsar than James or Elizabeth. Beggars cozen him with musty things which they have raked from dunghills, and he preserves their rags for precious relics. He loves no library but where there are more spiders' volumes than authors' and looks with great veneration on the antique work of cobwebs. Printed books he contemns as a novelty of this latter age; but a manuscript he pores on everlastingly, especially if the cover be all moth-eaten and the dust make a parenthesis between every syllable. He would give all the books in his study (which are rarities all) for one of the old Roman binding, or six lines of Tully in his own hand. His chamber is hung commonly with strange beasts' skins, and is a kind of charnel house of bones extraordinary, and his discourse upon them, if you will hear him, shall last longer. His very attire is that which is the eldest out of fashion, and you may pick a criticism out of his breeches. He never looks upon himself till he is grey-haired, and then he is pleased with his own antiquity. His grave does not fright him, for he has been used to sepulchres, and he likes death the better because it gathers him to his fathers.

A DOWNRIGHT SCHOLAR

Is one that has much learning in the ore, unwrought and untried, which time and experience fashions and refines. He is good metal in the inside though rough and unscoured without, and therefore hated of the courtier that is quite contrary. The time has got a vein of making him ridiculous, and men laugh at him by tradition, and no unlucky absurdity but is put upon his profession and "done like a scholar." But his fault is only this, that his mind is somewhat much taken up with his mind, and his thoughts not loaden with any carriage besides. He has not put on the quaint garb of the age which is now become a man's total. He has not humbled his meditations to the industry of compliment, nor afflicted his brain in an elaborate leg! His body is not set upon nice pins to be turning and flexible for every motion, but his scrape is homely and his nod worse. He cannot kiss his hand and cry, Madame, nor talk idly enough to bear her company. His smacking of a gentlewoman2 is somewhat too savoury, and he mistakes her nose for her lip. A very woodcock would puzzle him in carving, and he wants the logic of a capon. He has not the glib faculty of sliding over a tale, but his words come squeamishly out of his mouth, and the laughter commonly before the jest. He names this word College too often, and his discourse beats too much on the University. The perplexity of mannerliness will not let him feed, and he is sharp set at an argument when he should cut his meat. He is discarded for a gamester at all games but One and Thirty, and at Tables he reaches not beyond doublets. His fingers are not long and drawn out to handle a fiddle, but his fist is cluncht with the habit of disputing. He ascends a horse

1 Leg, bow. Has not made a study of bowing.

2 The kiss was still used as an act of social courtesy.

somewhat sinisterly, though not on the left side, and they both go jogging in grief together. He is exceedingly censured by the Inns of Court men for that heinous vice, being out of fashion. He cannot speak to a dog in his own dialect, and understands Greek better than the language of a falconer. He has been used to a dark room and dark clothes, and his eyes dazzle at a satin doublet. The hermitage of his study has made him somewhat uncouth in the world, and men make him worse by staring on him. Thus is he silly and ridiculous, and it continues with him for some quarter of a year out of the University. But practise him a little in men, and brush him over with good company, and he shall out-balance those glisterers as much as a solid substance does a feather, or gold gold-lace.

The taste for Character writing became so general that even William Habington, in the second edition of a series of pure love-poems entitled “ Castara," prefixed to each of the three parts a prose Character of a Mistress, a Wife, and a Holy Man, to which he added afterwards the Character of a Friend; and John Milton, when at College, tried his hand at two Characters in verse, the pieces upon Hobson, the University carrier.

In 1639 an unnamed writer published a small collection of "Conceits, Clinches, Flashes, and Whimzies," which serve to illustrate the current form of jest among the talkers who desired to set the table in a roar. Many of these were of his own invention, and invented in cold blood. All of them, doubtless, obtained currency and aided mirth in social gatherings wherever laughter was at home and hungry enough to welcome all food, fresh or stale. I give them with the crust of age by leaving their old spelling.

CONCEITS, CLINCHES, FLASHES, AND WHIMZIES. One wondred much what great Scholler this same Finis was, because his name was almost to every booke.

One asked what he was that had a fine wit in Jest. It was answered, a foole in earnest.

One hearing a Usurer say he had been on the pike of Teneriff (which is supposed to be one of the highest hills in the world), asked him why he had not stayd there, for he was perswaded hee would never come so neere heaven againe.

A Gentleman that bore a spleene to another meets him in the street, gives him a box on the eare; the other, not willing to stricke againe, puts it off with a jest, asking him whether it was in jest or in earnest? The other answers it was in earnest. I am glad of that, said he, for if it had been in jest, I should have been very angry, for I do not like such jesting; and so past away from him.

Usurers live, sayes one, by the fall of heires, like swine by the dropping of acorns.

One asked his friend how he should use tobacco so that it might do him good? He answered: you must keepe a tobacco shop and sell it, for certainly there is none else find good in it.

3 A small edition of this book (26 copies) was issued by Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps in 1860, and in 1864 it was reprinted by Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt, in his valuable series of Shakespeare Jest-Books.

A simple fellow in gay cloths, sayes one, is like a Cinnamom tree; the barke is of more worth then the body.

A Scholler and a Courtier meeting in the street seemd to contest for the wall; sayes the Courtier: I do not use to give every coxcombe the wall. The Scholler answered: but I do, sir; and so passed by him.

One asked why Ladyes called their husbands Master such a one, and master such a one, and not by their titles of knighthood, as Sir Thomas, Sir Richard, Sir William, etc. It was answered that, though others called them by their right titles, as Sir William, Sir Thomas, etc., yet it was fit their wives should master them.

Of all knaves there's the greatest hope of a Cobler, for though he be never so idle a fellow, yet he is still mending.

A Smith, said one, is the most pragmaticall fellow under the Sun, for he hath alwayes many irons in the fire.

Smiths of all handy-crafts men are the most irregular, for they never thinke themselves better employed, then when they are addicted to their vices.

Glasiers, said one, must needes be good arbitrators, for they spend their whole time in nothing but composing of quarels.

Carpenters, said one, are the civelest men in a Commonwealth, for they never do their buisinesse without a Rule.

Of all wofull friends a hangman is the most trusty: for, if he once have to do with a man, he will see him hang'd before hee shall want mony or any thing else.

One said Physitians had the best of it; for, if they did well, the world did proclaime it; if ill, the earth did cover it.

Scriveners are most hard harted fellowes, for they never rejoyce more then when they put other men in bonds.

Horse-keepers and ostlers (let the world go which way it will, though there be never so much alteration in times and persons) are still stable men.

One said it was no great matter what a drunkard said in his drinke, for he seldome spake any thing that he could stand to.

One said of all professions, that Stage-players were the most philosophicall men that were, because they were as merry and as well contented, when they were in rags as when they were in robes.

One said Painters were cunning fellowes, for they had a colour for every thing they did.

One said Gallants had reason to be good Schollers, because they were deep in many books.

An Upholster was chiding his Apprentice, because he was not nimble enough at his worke, and had not his nailes and hammar in readines, when he should use them, telling him that, when he was an Apprentice, he was taught to have his nailes at his fingers ends.

One, drinking of a cup of burnt claret, said he was not able to let it down. Another demanded why. He answered, because it was red hot.

An Inkeeper brag'd he had a bed so large that two hundred Constables had lyen in it at one time, meaning two Constables of hundreds.

One said to his friend that had been speaking: I love to heare a man talk nonsense; the other answered, I know you love to heare youre selfe talke as well as any man.

One asked why begars stood in the streets begging with broomes in their hands. It was answered, because they did with them sweep away the durt out of peoples sight, whicn while they had a mind on they would never part with a

penny.

A Gentleman tooke up some commodities upon trust in a shop, promising the master of the shop that he would owe him so much money. The master of the shop was therewith very well contented; but seeing that the Gentleman delayed the paiment, he asked the money. The gentleman told him he had not promised to pay him, he had promised to owe him so much money, and that he would in no wise breake his promise, which if he paid him he did.

One asked why в stood before c. Because, said another, a man must в before he can c.

One asked how long the longest letter in the English Alphabet was. It was answered, an L long.

One comming by a Sexton (who was making a grave for one Button which was a great tal fellow), asked him for whom that extraordinary long grave was. He answered, he had made many longer then that, and said it was but a button hole in respect of some graves that he had made.

A great tall fellow, whose name was Way, lay along the street drunke. One went over him, and being asked why he did so, he answered he did but goe along the high-way.

Printers (saics one) are the most lawlesse men in a Kingdome, for they commit faults cum privilegio.

The greatest prose work of the reign of Charles I., perhaps the greatest in our literature, is Milton's "Areopagitica, or Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing." Milton, born in 1608, was seventeen years old at the accession of Charles I., and then went to College. He remained at College seven years, and then, having taken his M.A. degree, spent seven years in special study, five years and three quarters at Horton, during which time he wrote "L'Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," "Arcades," "Comus," and "Lycidas," followed by fifteen months of foreign travel. In June and July, 1639, Milton returned, and soon afterwards he took a garden house in Aldersgate Street, where he established a school. Danger of civil war then occupied men's thoughts, and the series of Milton's prose works-which represented simply his contribution of opinion and argument to the great controversies of the time— began in 1641 with pamphlets upon the most burning question of that year. Swords may clash as they will, but their victories leave all undecided, open to fresh strife that will come in sooner or later-" for what can war but endless war still breed?"-unless reason side with the battalions and approve their cause. The only war that can have happy issue is of thought opposed to thought; this is and must be the essential part of every battle that concerns the interests of man. In this conflict it was Milton's duty, as it is the duty of every citizen in time of danger to the commonwealth, to be at his post; and the period of Milton's prose writing, which extended over man's best years of ripened vigour-from the age of thirty-three to that of fifty-two-was a willing sacrifice of all his aspiration as a poet, that he might