our national exodus, as well as Elder Brewster, John Cotton and many
others of the principal Puritan leaders and divines, were educated at
Cambridge. Sir Henry Vane, the younger, whom Macintosh regarded as not
inferior to Bacon in depth of intellect, and to whom Milton addrest the
sonnet, who was chosen Governor of Massachusetts, and who infused much
of his own thoughtful and profound spirit into Puritan institutions at
home and in America, was a student of Magdalen College, Oxford.

A little further on to the south of Sidney Sussex, upon St. Andrew's
Street, is Christ's College. The front and gate are old; the other
buildings are after a design by Inigo Jones. In the garden stands the
famous mulberry-tree said to have been planted by Milton. It is still
vigorous, tho carefully propt up and mounded around, and its aged trunk
is sheathed with lead. The martyr Latimer, John Howe, the prince of
theological writers, and Archdeacon Paley, belonged to this college; but
its most brilliant name is that of John Milton. He entered in 1624; took
the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1628, and that of Master of Arts in
1632. This is the entry in the college record: "John Milton of London,
son of John Milton, was entered as a student in the elements of letters
under Master Hill of the Pauline School, February 12, 1624...." Milton
has indignantly defended himself against the slander of his political
enemies, that he left college in disgrace, and calls it "a
commodious lie." ...

It is noticeable that Cambridge has produced all the great poets;
Oxford, with her yearnings and strivings, none. Milton were glory
enough; but Spenser, Gray, Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Tennyson (a
Lincolnshire man), may be thrown in. It might be said of Cambridge, as
Dr. Johnson said of Pembroke College, "We are a nest of singing birds
here." Milton, from the extreme elegance of his person and his mind,