42 JOHN MILTON 
College, Cambridge, and there he lived for seven years 
and a half. His study and bedroom, unaltered since 
his time, are still shown to visitors; and in the beauti- 
ful garden — most beautiful, perhaps, of the gardens 
in that exquisite country town — you may see the mul- 
berry tree, many centuries old, with its decrepit boughs 
still resting on the wooden props which Milton’s loving 
care placed under them. 
Of his life at Cambridge we have not many details. 
More than once his proud, independent spirit got him 
into difficulties. There is a story that he was once 
flogged by one of the tutors, but it is not well sup- 
ported; he seems, however, to have been at one time 
punished with what in an American college would be 
called “suspension.” The cause was not neglect of 
study or serious misbehaviour, but defiant indepen- 
dence. He had none of youth’s wild or vicious in- 
clinations; then, as always, his conduct was without 
spot or flaw. It was part of his lofty conception of 
the poet’s calling that the poet’s soul should admit no 
kind of defilement in thought or deed. No priest or 
prophet ever more devoutly revered the work for 
which God had chosen him than this Puritan poet. 
The feeling of religious consecration and self-devotion 
finds strong expression in the sonnet written on his 
reaching the age of twenty-three : — 
“ How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, 
Stolen on his wing my three-and-twentieth year ! 
My hasting days fly on with full career, 
But my late spring no bud or blossom sheweth. 
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth, 
That I to manhood am arrived so near, 
And inward ripeness doth much less appear 
That some more timely-happy spirits endureth. 
