Of the man whose profession is learning, it
is characteristic that knowledge is its own end, and research its own
reward. To Milton all knowledge, all life, virtue itself, was already
only a means to a further end. He will know only "that which is of use
to know," and by useful, he meant that which conduced to form him for
his vocation of poet.
From a very early period Milton had taken poetry to be his vocation,
in the most solemn and earnest mood. The idea of this devotion was the
shaping idea of his life. It was, indeed, a bent of nature, with roots
drawing from deeper strata of character than any act of reasoned will,
which kept him out of the professions, and now fixed him, a seeming
idler, but really hard at work, in his father's house at Horton. The
intimation which he had given of his purpose in the sonnet above
quoted had become, in 1641, "an inward prompting which grows daily
upon me, that by labour and intent study, which I take to be my
portion in this life, joined with the strong propensity of nature,
I might perhaps leave something so written to after times, as they
should not willingly let it die.
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