The Poetical Works of John Milton

MINOR POEMS.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION;

OR,

CHRONOLOGY OF THE POEMS :

WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE EDITIONS OF 1645 AND 1673, AND OF THE CAMBRIDGE VOLUME OF MILTON MSS.

MILTON was a poet from his childhood. The earliest verses

of his that have been preserved, however, are his

PARAPHRASES ON PSALMS CXIV. AND CXXXVI.

These were done "at fifteen years old”—¿.e. in 1624, when Milton was a boy at St. Paul's School in London, just finishing his course there, and preparing to go to College.

AT CAMBRIDGE: 1625-1632.

In February 1624-5, or when sixteen years and two months old, Milton was admitted at Christ's College, Cambridge; and he remained at Cambridge (constantly there in term-time, though spending the vacations in London or elsewhere) till July 1632, when he left the University, as Master of Arts and with the highest distinction, at the age of twenty-three years and seven months. These seven years of his residence at Cambridge were a period of considerable literary activity. Besides four of his Latin familiar Epistles, one English letter to a friend, and seven Latin academic

exercises in prose, there remain, of his writings during this period, the following English and Latin poems :

I. ENGLISH:—

"ON THE DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT DYING OF A COUGH." 1626.
66 AT A VACATION EXERCISE IN THE COLLEGE." 1628.
"ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY (with "THE