blindness of Catholic obedience, versified the _Imitatio Christi_ at
the command of the Jesuits. Milton was not officially employed, but
voluntarily took up the work. The Puritans were bent upon substituting
a new version of the Davidic Psalms for that of Sternhold and Hopkins,
for no other reason than that the latter formed part of the hated Book
of Common Prayer. The Commons had pronounced in favour of a version by
one of their own members, the staunch Puritan M.P. for Truro, Francis
Rouse. The Lords favoured a rival book, and numerous other claimants
were before the public. Dissatisfied with any of these attempts,
Milton would essay himself. In 1648 he turned nine psalms, and
recurring to the task in 1653, "did into verse" eight more. He thought
these specimens worth preserving, and annexing to the volume of his
poems which he published himself in 1673. As this doggerel continues
to encumber each succeeding edition of the _Poetical Works_, it is as
well that Milton did not persevere with his experiment and produce a
complete Psalter. He prudently abandoned a task in which success is
impossible. A metrical psalm, being a compromise between the psalm and
the hymn, like other compromises, misses, rather than combines, the
distinctive excellences of the things united. That Milton should ever
have attempted what poetry forbids, is only another proof how entirely
at this period more absorbing motives had possession of his mind, and
overbore his poetical judgment. It is a coincidence worth remembering
that Milton's contemporary, Lord Clarendon, was at this very time
solacing his exile at Madrid by composing, not a version but a
commentary upon the Psalms, "applying those devotions to the troubles
of this time."

Yet all the while that he was thus unfaithful in practice to his art,
it was poetry that possessed his real affections, and the reputation
of a poet which formed his ambition. It was a temporary separation,