In thus early displaying his independence of opinion in his religious belief, he did but follow the example set him by his father, while he obeyed the honest impulse of his nature; for his father had been disinherited by his grandfather for deserting the Roman Catholic faith. Shortly after he left the University he retired into the country with his father, who had then relinquished business with a handsome estate; and while there he continued his studies, selecting no particular profession, but devoting himself to the cultivation of all. It was in these years of sweet scholastic solitude, that he produced his Mask of Comus, than which there is not a nobler poem in any language. This brought him great fame among the polite and refined of the day, and was widely circulated for a while in manuscript; so that when he started on his travels soon after this, (which was in 1638,) he carried with him letters commanding, in his behalf, attention from the most eminent men of the Continent. He went first to France, and while in Paris was introduced by Lord Scudamore, the English ambassador, to Hugo Grotius, with whom he had a very interesting interview. From Paris he went into Italy, and coming to Florence, in that city he mingled freely with the refined and learned, and, by the elegant displays of his own accomplishments and learning, won the admiration and regard of all. The scholars and wits of that place vied with one another in entertaining him, and celebrated his many merits in their compositions. With many of those brilliant spirits of that favored land he formed an intimacy, which was continued for years after his return home, as we find by his familiar letters. From Florence he traveled to Rome, and was there again treated with marked kindness and attention by Lucas Holstensius, the librarian of the Vatican, the Cardinal Barberino, and other persons of distinction in that famous city. From Rome he proceeded to Naples, and there made the friendship of the Marquis of Villa, a man of “singular merit and virtue,” and who was afterward celebrated by Milton in a poem, as he had been by Tasso, in his Jerusalem Delivered, and his Dialogue on Friendship. Happy and fortunate lot! thus to be the object of regard, and to have his merits recorded, and his virtues enshrined, for the admiration of posterity, in the works of these great poetic minds! He had intended, after having thus visited the finest parts of Italy, to go over into Sicily, and thence to Greece; but the news from England of the difficulties between the Parliament and the King changed his mind, and he determined to return home, to mingle with his countrymen in their toil for freedom, thinking it unworthy of him to be loitering away his time in luxurious ease, while his native land was distracted, and his fellow men at home were battling in fierce strife for liberty.