which in their exquisite grace and tenderness of wording scarcely fall below the mastery of the mightier measure and deeper thought of "Lycidas," written in 1637. Of his Latin poems, written also during his undergraduate years, Dr. Peile has said--and on such a point there could be no higher authority:--"Even then he thought in Latin: his exercises are original poems, not mere clever imitations. There is remarkable power in them--power which could only be gained by one who had filled himself with the spirit of classical literature." After this testimony we can assuredly afford to smile at those rumours of some disgrace in his university career spread about in later years by his detractors. That he had met perhaps, according to Aubrey's account, with "some unkindnesse" from his tutor Chapell, even though that phrase by an amended reading is interpreted "whipt him," need not distress us. It is a doubtful piece of gossip, and even if it were true--for flogging of students was by no means obsolete--it was a story to the tutor's disgrace, not to Milton's; and certainly the poet himself bore no grudge against the College authorities, as these magnanimous words plainly testify:-- "I acknowledge publicly with all grateful mind, that more than ordinary respect which I found, above any of my equals, at the hands of those courteous and learned men, the Fellows of that College, wherein I spent some years; who, at my parting, after I had taken two degrees, as the manner is, signified many ways how much better it would content them that I would stay; as by many letters full of kindness and loving respect, both before that time and long after, I was assured of their singular good affection towards me."[74]