It is a coincidence worth remembering
that Milton's contemporary, Lord Clarendon, was at this very time
solacing his exile at Madrid by composing, not a version but a
commentary upon the Psalms, "applying those devotions to the troubles
of this time."
Yet all the while that he was thus unfaithful in practice to his art,
it was poetry that possessed his real affections, and the reputation
of a poet which formed his ambition. It was a temporary separation,
and not a divorce, which he designed. In each successive pamphlet he
reiterates his undertaking to redeem his pledge of a great work, as
soon as liberty shall be consolidated in the realm. Meanwhile, as an
earnest of what should be hereafter, he permitted the publication of a
collection of his early poems.
This little volume of some 200 pages, rude in execution as it is,
ranks among the highest prizes of the book collector, very few copies
being extant, and those mostly in public libraries. It appeared in
1645, and owed its appearance, not to the vanity of the author, but
to the zeal of a publisher. Humphrey Moseley, at the sign, of the
Prince's Arms, in St.
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