Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 2: Great Britain and Ireland, Part 2
General
Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 2: Great Britain and Ireland, Part 2
Great Britain -- Description and travel; Ireland -- Description and travel
A little further on to the south of Sidney Sussex, upon St. Andrew's
Street, is Christ's College. The front and gate are old; the other
buildings are after a design by Inigo Jones. In the garden stands the
famous mulberry-tree said to have been planted by Milton. It is still
vigorous, tho carefully propt up and mounded around, and its aged trunk
is sheathed with lead. The martyr Latimer, John Howe, the prince of
theological writers, and Archdeacon Paley, belonged to this college; but
its most brilliant name is that of John Milton. He entered in 1624; took
the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1628, and that of Master of Arts in
1632. This is the entry in the college record: "John Milton of London,
son of John Milton, was entered as a student in the elements of letters
under Master Hill of the Pauline School, February 12, 1624...." Milton
has indignantly defended himself against the slander of his political
enemies, that he left college in disgrace, and calls it "a
commodious lie." ...
It is noticeable that Cambridge has produced all the great poets;
Oxford, with her yearnings and strivings, none. Milton were glory
enough; but Spenser, Gray, Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Tennyson (a
Lincolnshire man), may be thrown in. It might be said of Cambridge, as
Dr. Johnson said of Pembroke College, "We are a nest of singing birds
here." Milton, from the extreme elegance of his person and his mind,
rather than from any effeminateness of character, was called while in
the University, "the lady of Christ's College." The young poet could not
have been inspired by outward Nature in his own room; for the miniature
dormer-windows are too high to look out of at all. It is a small attic
chamber, with very steep narrow stairs leading up to it. The name of
"Milton" (so it is said to be, tho hard to make out) is cut in the old
oaken door.
CHESTER [Footnote: From "English Note-Books." By special arrangement
with, and by permission of the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Co.
Copyright, 1870-1898.]
BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.
I went with Mr. Ticknor to Chester by railway. It is quite an
indescribable old town, and I feel as if I had had a glimpse of old
England. The wall encloses a large space within the town, but there are
numerous houses and streets not included within its precincts. Some of
the principal streets pass under the ancient gateways; and at the side
there are flights of steps, giving access to the summit. Around the top
of the whole wall, a circuit of about two miles, there runs a walk, well
paved with flagstones, and broad enough for three persons to walk
abreast....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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