he could never submit his understanding to the trammels of church
formularies. His later mind, about 1641, is expressed by himself
in his own forcible style,--"The church, to whose service by the
intention of my parents and friends I was destined of a child, and
in mine own resolutions, till coming to some maturity of years, and
perceiving what tyranny had invaded in the church, that he who would
take orders must subscribe slave, and take an oath withal.... I
thought it better to prefer a blameless silence before the sacred
office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude and forswearing."
When he took leave of the university, in 1632, he had perhaps not
developed this distinct antipathy to the establishment. For in a
letter, preserved in Trinity College, and written in the winter of
1631-32, he does not put forward any conscientious objections to the
clerical profession, but only apologises to the friend to whom the
letter is addressed, for delay in making choice of some profession.
The delay itself sprung from an unconscious distaste. In a mind of
the consistent texture of Milton's, motives are secretly influential
before they emerge in consciousness. We shall not be wrong in
asserting that when he left Cambridge in 1632, it was already
impossible, in the nature of things, that he should have taken orders
in the Church of England, or a fellowship of which orders were a
condition.




CHAPTER II.

RESIDENCE AT HORTON--L'ALLEGRO--IL PENSEROSO--ARCADES--COMUS--LYCIDAS.