Excerpt from Lycidas, Sonnets Yet Milton himself regarded them as no more than the first fruits of his genius he had, in his own estimation, shattered the leaves of his poetic laurels before the mellowing year. In April, 1638, he set out on ajourney to Italy, the classic land of poetry and art. He had spent some months in Florence and Rome, and was staying in Naples when the sad news of civil war reached him; be resolved to turn his face homewards, for, he says, 'i thought it disgraceful; while my fellow - countrymen were fighting for liberty, that I should be travelling abroad for pleasure. He retraced his steps in a leisurely manner, and arrived in England in August, 1639. It was on this journey that he wrote his Italian Sonnets, and shortly after his return he wrote that elegy on the death of his friend Charles Diodati, to which allusion is made in the notes on Lycidas. III. In the end of 1639 Milton took lodgings'in London, and hoped to betake himself to his favourite studies with a view to still further maturing himself for the production of some great English poem. But this hope was not fulfilled. The Scots had rebelled against Episcopacy, and the Puritans of England (of whom, both by nature and upbringing, Milton was one) were all in sympathy with them. The famous Long Parlia ment had already resisted in a number of ways the unconstitutional conduct of Charles I., and had decided to sweep away the abuses of the Episcopal Church. How best to do this was the important question, and to the answering of this Milton first devoted himself with all the enthusiasm of his truly religious spirit. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.