Church, and was in consequence cast off by his father, who adhered
to the old faith. The disinherited son went up to London, and by
the assistance of a friend was set up in business as a scrivener. A
scrivener discharged some of the functions which, at the present day,
are undertaken for us in a solicitor's office. John Milton the father,
being a man of probity and force of character, was soon on the way to
acquire "a plentiful fortune." But he continued to live over his shop,
which was in Bread Street, Cheapside, and which bore the sign of the
Spread Eagle, the family crest.

It was at the Spread Eagle that his eldest son, John Milton, was
born, 9th December, 1608, being thus exactly contemporary with Lord
Clarendon, who also died in the same year as the poet. Milton must be
added to the long roll of our poets who have been natives of the
city which now never sees sunlight or blue sky, along with Chaucer,
Spenser, Herrick, Cowley, Shirley, Ben Jonson, Pope, Gray, Keats.
Besides attending as a day-scholar at St. Paul's School, which was
close at hand, his father engaged for him a private tutor at home. The
household of the Spread Eagle not only enjoyed civic prosperity, but
some share of that liberal cultivation, which, if not imbibed in the
home, neither school nor college ever confers. The scrivener was not
only an amateur in music, but a composer, whose tunes, songs, and airs
found their way into the best collections of music. Both schoolmaster
and tutor were men of mark. The high master of St. Paul's at that time
was Alexander Gill, an M.A. of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, who was
"esteemed to have such an excellent way of training up youth, that
none in his time went beyond it." The private tutor was Thomas Young,
who was, or had been, curate to Mr. Gataker, of Rotherhithe, itself
a certificate of merit, even if we had not the pupil's emphatic
testimony of gratitude. Milton's fourth elegy is addressed to Young,