range of our literature it would be difficult to find three others who
differ more widely in spirit or method. Milton represents the scholarship,
the culture of the Renaissance, combined with the moral earnestness of the
Puritan. Bunyan, a poor tinker and lay preacher, reflects the tremendous
spiritual ferment among the common people. And Dryden, the cool,
calculating author who made a business of writing, regards the Renaissance
and Puritanism as both things of the past. He lives in the present, aims to
give readers what they like, follows the French critics of the period who
advocate writing by rule, and popularizes that cold, formal, precise style
which, under the assumed name of classicism, is to dominate English poetry
during the following century.

* * * * *

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of eternity:
To such my errand is.

In these words of the Attendant Spirit in _Comus_ we seem to hear
Milton speaking to his readers. To such as regard poetry as the means of an
hour's pleasant recreation he brings no message; his "errand" is to those
who, like Sidney, regard poetry as the handmaiden of virtue, or, like
Aristotle, as the highest form of human history.

LIFE. Milton was born in London (1608) at a time when Shakespeare
and his fellow dramatists were in their glory. He grew up in a home
where the delights of poetry and music were added to the moral