grave assemblage, perhaps, but would have laughed if told that not its
least memorable feat was to have prevented a young schoolmaster from
writing an epic.

Milton had by this time found the lodgings in St. Bride's Churchyard
insufficient for him, and had taken a house in Aldersgate Street, beyond
the City wall, and suburban enough to allow him a garden. "This street,"
writes Howell, in 1657, "resembleth an Italian street more than any
other in London, by reason of the spaciousness and uniformity of the
buildings and straightness thereof, with the convenient distance of the
houses." He did not at this time contemplate mixing actively in
political or religious controversy.

"I looked about to see if I could get any place that would hold
myself and my books, and so I took a house of sufficient size in
the city; and there with no small delight I resumed my intermitted
studies; cheerfully leaving the event of public affairs, first to
God, and then to those to whom the people had committed that
task."

But this was before the convocation of the Long Parliament. When it had
met,

"Perceiving that the true way to liberty followed on from these
beginnings, inasmuch also as I had so prepared myself from my
youth that, above all things, I could not be ignorant what is of
Divine and what of human right, I resolved, though I was then
meditating certain other matters, to transfer into this struggle
all my genius and all the strength of my industry."