them who sail Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow Sabaean odours from the spicy shore Of Araby the Blest, with such delay Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league Cheered with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles; So entertained those odorous sweets the Fiend. And when he draws near to Eve in the rose-thicket, sidelong he works his way, As when a ship, by skilful steersman wrought, Nigh river's mouth, or foreland, where the wind Veers oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her sail. There is nothing here that is not within the reach of any inland reader, but Milton's choice of nautical similitudes may serve to remind us how much of the interest of Old London centred round its port. Here were to be heard those tales of far-sought adventure and peril which gave even to the boisterous life of Elizabethan London an air of triviality and security. Hereby came in "the variety of fashions and foreign stuffs," which Fynes Moryson, writing in Milton's childhood, compares to the stars of heaven and the sands of the sea for number. All sorts of characters, nationalities, and costumes were daily to be seen in Paul's Walk, adjoining Milton's school. One sort interests us pre-eminently. "In the general pride of England," says Fynes Moryson, "there is no fit difference made of degrees; for very Bankrupts, Players, and Cutpurses go apparelled like gentlemen." Shakespeare was alive during the first seven years of Milton's life, and was no doubt sometimes a visitor to the Mermaid, a stone's throw from the scrivener's house. Perhaps his cloak brushed the child Milton in the street. Milton was born in the golden age of the drama, and a score of masterpieces were put upon the London stage while he was in his cradle. But the golden age passed rapidly; the quality of the drama degenerated and the opposition to it grew strong before he was of years to attend a play. Perhaps he never saw a play by the masters during his boyhood, and his visits to the well-trod stage anon, If Jonson's learned sock be on, Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native woodnotes wild,