Leaving this subject of his attainments, however, and returning to his college life, it may farther be stated, as a proof of Wordsworth’s love of good fellowship at this time, that during a visit to a friend who occupied the rooms which John Milton, the blind old Homer of the Commonwealth occupied, during his residence in Cambridge, he drank so copiously in his enthusiasm and reverence for the place, and its grand and golden memories, that he was fairly carried away on the other side of the rational barriers, and in short got gloriously drunk; not so drunk, however, that he could not attend the chapel service, and behave there with due decorum. Speaking of the great men who had trod the streets of Cambridge and worn an university gown before him, and of his great reverence for them, he has occasion to introduce Milton, and alludes to this excess at the close of the passage. I will quote it entire. “Beside the pleasant mill of Trumpington, I laughed with Chaucer in the hawthorn shade; Heard him, while birds were warbling, tell his tales Of amorous passion. And that gentle bard, Chosen by the muses for their page of state!-- Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven With the moon’s beauty, and the moon’s soft pace, I called him brother, Englishman, and friend. Yea our blind poet, who in his later day, Stood almost single, uttering odious truth-- Darkness before, and danger’s voice behind. Soul awful,--if the earth has ever lodged An awful soul--I seem’d to see him here Familiarly, and in his scholar’s dress, Bounding before me, yet a stripling youth-- A boy, no better, with his rosy cheek Angelical, keen eye, courageous look, And conscious step of purity and pride. Among the band of my compeers was one Whom chance had stationed in the very room Honoured by Milton’s name. O temperate bard! Be it confest, that for the first time, seated Within thy innocent lodge and oratory, One of a festive circle, I poured out Libations to thy memory, drank, till pride And gratitude grew dizzy in a brain Never excited by the fumes of wine Before that hour, or since. Then forth I ran From the assembly; through a length of streets Ran, ostrich like, to reach our chapel door In not a desperate or opprobrious time, Albeit long after the importunate bell Had stopped, with wearisome Cassandra voice No longer haunting the dark winter night. Call back, O friend! a moment to thy mind, The place itself, and fashion of the rites. With careless ostentation shouldering up My surplice, through the inferior throng I clove Of the plain Burghers, who, in audience stood On the last skirts of their permitted ground, Under the pealing organ. Empty thoughts! I am asham’d of them; and that great bard And thou, my friend! who in thy ample mind Hast placed me high above my best deserts,