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Milton was read by a former President—Henry Houlding—a 
name venerated by the members because of his literary powers, 
and his eminent services to the Club. 
They were glad to have the opportunity of hearing the Bishop 
speak of one of the immortal company of the Fathers of English 
song, and they would accord him a sincere and hearty welcome. 
The Bishop spoke eloquently for about an hour, with few 
notes, and approving cheers were frequent. Somebody has said, 
he observed, that two methods might be taken in dealing with 
biography—the presentative method and the representative 
method. By the first the writer or hearer would be invited to 
lift up into undue prominence every tiny incident connected with 
the hero—to bring all those incidents to one dead sameness of 
level—the look, the clothes, the small details of daily life, the 
outgoings and the incomings, simply because of their association 
with the subject. Aubrey supplies us with that method to the 
full. The other is the representative method where the episodes 
are taken to illustrate the character and the development of the 
mind. I shall do my poor best to adopt this method. 
On the 9th December, 1608, Milton was born at the ‘‘ Spread 
EKagle’’ in Bread Street, London. Aubrey makes it out that at 
ten vears of age he was a most precocious child. He was able to 
read the classics well—Latin and Greek at fourteen. At St. Paul's 
School he dovoured the classics. He was evidently not a popular 
schoolboy. He preferred his Xenophon to his schoolfellows. From 
St. Paul’s he went to Christ’s College, Cambridge, and wrote that 
splendid ode ‘‘ On the Morning of the Nativity’’ when he was 
twenty-one; and that beautiful sonnet on his twenty-third birth- 
day, a sonnet which speaks of time stealing away his youth. He 
went back from college to Horton in Buckinghamshire and 
remained for some years before he began foreign travel. He 
visited Paris and Italy an ardent young Protestant. His patron 
was Sir Henry Wotton, whose relationship to Milton seemed 
very much the same as that of Lord Southampton to Shakes- 
peare. His patron advised him to keep ‘‘ close thoughts and a 
frank countenance.” But he forgot the first part of the advice 
and aired his Protestantism. He visited the recently liberated 
prisoner of the Inquisition—Galileo. At Rome he was introduced 
to a young Englishman—Cardinal Barberini. His friends could 
do nothing for him and he had to go away from Rome and hide 
his head in Naples, but re-visited Rome for a couple of months 
and subsequently returned to England. 
As a school master Milton was by no means a success. No 
doubt an original mind like his was in its worst sphere in front 
of a lot of unruly boys, and his curriculum was enough to frighten 
them. What would the present day boys think of those who at 
