in the most sacred sense of the term, he had ever possessed; lost him
when far away and unsuspicious of the already accomplished stroke; lost
him when returning to his side with aspirations to be imparted, and
intellectual treasures to be shared. _Bis ille miser qui serus amavit._
All this is expressed with earnest emotion in truth and tenderness,
surpassing "Lycidas," though void of the varied music and exquisite
felicities which could not well be present in the conventionalized idiom
of a modern Latin poet. The most pathetic passage is that in which he
contrasts the general complacency of animals in their kind with man's
dependence for sympathy on a single breast; the most biographically
interesting where he speaks of his plans for an epic on the story of
Arthur, which he seems about to undertake in earnest. But the impulses
from without which generally directed the course of this seemingly
autocratic, but really susceptible, nature, urged him in quite a
different direction: for some time yet he was to live, not make a poem.

The tidings which, arriving at Naples about Christmas, 1638, prevailed
upon Milton to abandon his projected visit to Sicily and Greece, were no
doubt those of the revolt of Scotland, and Charles's resolution to
quell it by force of arms. Ere he had yet quitted Italy, the King's
impotence had been sufficiently demonstrated, and about a month ere he
stood on English soil the royal army had "disbanded like the break-up of
a school." Milton may possibly have regretted his hasty return, but
before many months had passed it was plain that the revolution was only
beginning. Charles's ineffable infatuation brought on a second Scottish
war, ten times more ridiculously disastrous than the first, and its
result left him no alternative but the convocation (November, 1640) of
the Long Parliament, which sent Laud to the Tower and Strafford to the
block, cleared away servile judges and corrupt ministers, and made the
persecuted Puritans persecutors in their turn. Not a member of this