literature. Some of the unconscious borrowings attributed to him are
probably mere coincidences, but there is still enough to evince
acquaintance with "Sylvester, Spenser, Drummond, Drayton, Chaucer,
Fairfax, and Buchanan." The literary merit of these versions seems to us
to have been underrated. There may be no individual phrase beyond the
compass of an apt and sensitive boy with a turn for verse-making; but
the general tone is masculine and emphatic. There is not much to say,
but what is said is delivered with a "large utterance," prophetic of the
"os magna soniturum," and justifying his own report of his youthful
promise:--"It was found that whether aught was imposed me by them that
had the overlooking, or betaken to of mine own choice, in English or
other tongue, prosing or versing, but chiefly by this latter, the style,
by certain vital signs it had, was likely to live."

Among the incidents of Milton's life at St. Paul's School should not be
forgotten his friendship with Charles Diodati, the son of a Genevese
physician settled in England, whose father had been exiled from Italy
for his Protestantism. A friendship memorable not only as Milton's
tenderest and his first, but as one which quickened his instinctive love
of Italian literature, enhanced the pleasure, if it did not suggest the
undertaking, of his Italian pilgrimage, and doubtless helped to inspire
the execration which he launched in after years against the slayers of
the Vaudois. The Italian language is named by him among three which,
about the time of his migration to the University, he had added to the
classical and the vernacular, the other two being French and Hebrew. It
has been remarked, however, that his use of "Penseroso," incorrect both
in orthography and signification, shows that prior to his visit to Italy
he was unacquainted with the niceties of the language. He entered as "a
lesser pensioner" at Christ's College, Cambridge, on February 12, 1625;
the greatest poetic name in an University roll already including