MILTON 561 several streams; area, about 150 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 4,284, of whom 466 were colored. The surface is broken and the soil generally fertile. The chief productions in 1870 were 24,896 bushels of wheat, 93,095 of Indian corn, 15,331 of oats, 9,015 of sweet potatoes, 3,048 Ibs. of wool, 24,026 of butter, and 9,759 gallons of sorghum molasses. There were 457 horses, 2,191 cattle, 1,921 sheep, and 4,398 swine. Capital, Alpharetta. MILTON, a township and post village of Rock co., Wisconsin, on the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul, and the Chicago and Northwestern railroads, 30 m. S. E. of Madison, and 62 m. by rail S. W. of Milwaukee; pop. in 1870, 2,010. It is the seat of Milton college, estab- lished in 1 867 by the Seventh-day Baptists. This institution has normal, scientific, and classical (embracing preparatory and collegiate) courses. In 1873-'4 it had 8 instructors, 203 students (78 of collegiate grade), and a library of 1,800 volumes. It admits both sexes. MILTON, John, an English poet, born in Lon- don, Dec. 9, 1608, died there, Nov. 8, 1674. His father had been disinherited at an early age for abandoning the Catholic faith, adopted the profession of scrivener or copying lawyer, and retired with an independence. Though inclined to Puritanic habits, he had cultivated literature in his leisure, and holds a respecta- ble rank among the contemporary composers of madrigals, songs, and psalms. Milton thus received the training of a Puritan family, and was also taught the art and science of music, becoming an accomplished organist. In his writings, whenever he speaks of music, he is always technically and strictly correct. His father secured for him the best educational ad- vantages, and both as a boy and a man Milton was severely and constantly studious. He was still under the care of a private tutor when, being scarcely 12 years old, he was sent to the school of St. Paul's. Even at that age he sel- dom retired to rest from his studies till after midnight. There began his memorable friend- ships with Diodati and Gill. He was able to compose Latin prose and verse with ease and elegance, was familiar with Greek and Hebrew, and had "no mean apprehension of the sweet- ness of philosophy," when he was entered, Feb. 12, 1625, as a pensioner at Christ's college, Cambridge. Though destined to the church, he resolved early in his university career upon a life of continued study, with no professional aim, but with a view to authorship. He led a life of singular intellectual independence, did not conceal his disinclination to the scholastic sciences, and for a time was at variance with the authorities and was rusticated. His per- sonal beauty is uniformly mentioned by those who describe his youth as very remarkable. His light brown hair, parted in the middle, fell in curls upon his shoulders ; the expres- sion of his clear gray eyes was serene and thoughtful ; and, though he excelled in manly exercises, his fair complexion, slight figure, and innocent life caused him to be styled by his fellow collegians "the lady of Christ's." On quitting the university in 1632, he took up his abode in the village of Horton, Buck- inghamshire, whither his father had retired from London. There he spent the next five years in " a ceaseless round of study and read- ing," devoting his time chiefly to the Greek and Latin poets. At this time he wrote the " Sonnet to the Nightingale," the compan- ion pieces "L' Allegro" and "II Penseroso," the masques of "Arcades" and "Comus," and the elegy of "Lycidas." None of his other compositions are so tranquil and happy in tone, or indicate so distinctly his love of the lighter graces of poetry. They are replete with rural imagery, delicate fancies, playful allusions, and sensuous descriptions, and the themes and the idyllic treatment strikingly contrast with the poems which he produced after 20 years of con- flict in public life. On the death of his mother in 1637 he obtained his father's permission to travel on the continent, especially in Italy ; and he set out in the following year, attended by a single servant. In Paris he was welcomed by the English ambassador and introduced to Grotius ; in Florence, where he remained two months, he made the acquaintance of Galileo and was received into the literary academies, before which, according to custom, he gave evidence of his learning, and recited some of his Latin poems and three Italian sonnets, which won the encomiums of Italian wits and scholars; in Rome he made another stay of two months, protected by Lucas Holstein, the librarian of the Vatican, and by Cardinal Bar- berini. He abandoned his purpose of going to Sicily and Greece on receiving tidings of the impending rupture between the king and peo- ple in England, as he considered it dishonor- able to be pursuing his own gratification abroad while his countrymen were contending for lib- erty. He returned to England by way of Rome, where he again remained two months, and, though warned of Jesuitical plots, openly "de- fended the reformed religion in the very me- tropolis of popery" without fear or molesta- tion. He reached home in August, 1639, after an absence of 15 months. He had already de- termined to write a great poem, but his medi- tations were interrupted by the civil commo- tions, and by a period of 20 years during which the literature of England was almost exclusively polemical. He entered into the political dis- putes of the day, and during the whole splen- did and vexed era of Puritan supremacy in England, with the exception of a few sonnets, he appears only as a polemical prose writer and champion of the revolution. During his absence his father had broken up his household at Horton. Milton therefore hired apartments and afterward a house in London, and received his two young nephews Edward and John Phillips, sons of his sister Anne, to board with him as pupils. A few more pupils, sons of intimate friends, were afterward admitted ;
