candour, put the more charitable construction on it; for I call God to witness how much, as a father, I regard you, with what singular devotion I have always followed you in thought, and how I feared to trouble you with my writings. In sooth, I make it my first care, that since there is nothing else to commend my letters, that their rarity may commend them. Next, as out of that most vehement desire after you which I feel, I always fancy you with me, and speak to you, and beheld you as if you were present, and so, as always happens in love, soothe my grief by a certain vain imagination of your presence, it is, in truth, my fear, as soon as I meditate sending you a letter, that it should suddenly come into my mind by what an interval of earth you are distant from me, and so the grief of your absence, already nearly lulled, should grow fresh and break up my sweet dream. The Hebrew Bible, your truly most acceptable gift, I have already received. These lines I have written in London, in the midst of town distractions, not, as usual, surrounded by books; if, therefore, anything in this epistle should please you less than might be, and disappoint your expectations, it will be made up for by another more elaborate one as soon as I have returned to the haunts of the Muses.’ When the above letter was written, Milton had become a Cambridge student, where he was to experience a new kind of tutor. Milton could not get on with Chappell as he did with Young. The tie between the Stowmarket Vicar and the poet was of a much more cordial character.