To the Horton time belong the "minor poems" not already produced during the student years at Cambridge. Of the circumstances in which the several poems were written, an account is given in the Notes in this volume. This early, or minor, verse of Milton is elicited by passing events, and is considered to concern only himself and a few friends. For immediate fame he takes no thought. He feels his immaturity. His ambition contemplates a distant future, and he meditates plans, as yet undefined and vague, of some great work that the world shall not willingly let die. Very important in Milton's intellectual development is his journey to France and Italy, on which he set out in April, 1638. As an indication of his social position in England, we must note that he carries with him letters of introduction which secure to him notice and recognition from men of rank or of notable literary and scientific standing. He goes abroad as a cultivated private gentleman, known to have achieved distinction as a student. Undoubtedly his chief qualification for holding his own in learned Italian society was his command of languages, especially of Latin, unless indeed we are to put before his linguistic accomplishments the refined and gentlemanly personal bearing which was his birthright, and which, in his years of intense application to books, he had not forfeited. In Italy he associated with men whose intellectual interests were the universal ones of science, in which he was as much at home as they. Thus he possessed a perfect outfit of the endowments and the acquisitions which a traveller needs to make his travel fruitful to himself and honorable to his country. In Italy he made friends among men of note, and established relations which were to have their importance in his future life. But most memorable among his Italian experiences was his visit to the aged Galileo, who was then a "prisoner to the Inquisition" for teaching that the earth moves round the sun. The modern astronomy was then winning its way among men of thought very much as the doctrine of evolution has been winning its way during the last half century. Few minds surrendered instantly and without misgiving to the new conception. Milton has still many years to meditate the question before he comes to the composition of Paradise Lost, when his scheme of the physical universe will have to recognize the requirements of poetic art and the prevalence of ancient beliefs regarding the origin and order of the cosmos. From the fact that the poet puts the earth in the centre of the universe, that he adopts, in fact, the Ptolemaic system, though he knew the Copernican, we are not entitled to infer that he held a fixed conviction in the matter, and that, on direct examination as to his views, he would have absolutely professed one theory and rejected the other. The poet has all rights of choice, and may be said to know best where to stand to take his view of the world.