and learning did the rest. His march was that of a conquering hero. In
Paris he surprised the savants by addressing them in their own tongue, and
reciting from their chief writers. This was repeated in Italy; and at
Florence, as a sort of half-challenge for permission to occupy the highest
seat, he was invited to read from his own compositions, which he did with
such grace and power that thereafter all doors flew open at his touch.

Returning to England after an absence of fifteen months, he found his
father's household broken up, and through bad investments, the family
fortune sadly depleted. But travel had added cubits to his stature: the
mixture with men had put him into possession of his own, and he now felt
well able to cope with the world. He secured modest lodgings in Saint
Bride's Churchyard, and set to work to make a living and a name by
authorship. His head teemed with subjects for poems, but cash advances
were not forthcoming from publishers, and, to bridge over, he tried
tutoring.

It was at this time that "Paradise Lost," the one matchless epic of
English literature, was conceived. Rough jottings were made as to
divisions and heads, and a few stanzas were written of the immortal poem
that was not to be completed for a score of years.

The first volume of Milton's poems was issued in Sixteen Hundred
Forty-five, when he was thirty-seven years of age. But before this he was
known as the author of some pamphlets which had made political London
reel. The writer was at once seen to be a man of remarkable learning and
marvelous intellect, and the work secured Milton a few friends and divers
enemies.

From a man of leisure Milton had suddenly become a worker, whose every