In the same paper, a little later, Mr Hyde Clarke writes on the subject of Milton's father being a choir-boy at Christ Church: "My Oxford and other correspondents, including Mr Mark Pattison, the eloquent critic of the Poet, who has laboured in this investigation have looked unfavourably on my proposition (_i.e._ that he was a Chorister of Christ Church), because they consider the Roman Catholic _recusant_ can never have sent his son to any heretical school. An answer is now given in my favour by Mr. Allnutt, because if in 1552 Richard Milton could serve as Churchwarden, the other matter of providing a scholarship for his son was but a small one. It is further probable that Richard Milton became a confirmed Roman Catholic only in his later years."--Hyde Clarke. I think it is quite possible and even very probable that Milton's father learnt his music at Christ Church. Then who taught him? Whoever it was, he turned out a thoroughly good musician. Milton's own compositions prove it, and, as we have seen, he is associated with all the best English composers of the period in more than one work. Coming to London, we are told he had an organ and other instruments in his house and {69} to the practice of music he devoted his leisure. Masson says: "His special faculty was music, and it is possible on his first coming to London he had taught or practised music professionally." He was evidently in the musical world of London, and his house was probably the resort of many of the best musicians of the time. The short Motet for _Teares and Lamentations_ is in a good contrapuntal style, with many devices which a man would use if he had been educated in a Cathedral Choir. The style had "eaten into his marrow," as old Sir John Goss once said to me, in reference to a Chorister's daily musical work. Another interesting matter is Milton's contribution to Ravenscroft's _Whole Book of Psalms_, published in 1621. Here are found two tunes credited to John Milton, but I think there is no doubt they were merely harmonized by him. The best one is a tune still often sung in our Churches--entitled _York_: this seems to be an old Scottish tune; it was published in Edinburgh in 1615. It appears three times in Ravenscroft's book and with different harmonies, two of them being by the elder Milton. The melody in this tune is, of course, given to the tenor, as was the custom at this time. The tune has always been a favourite, and an old author says that "it {70} was so well known that half the nurses in England used to sing the tenor part as a lullaby." This sounds rather startling! One would not believe that any baby could be put to sleep by hearing the tenor part of any hymn-tune. But the tenor part here is the melody, and really it has a gentle, swaying style about it, so that I, for one, believe the story of the Nurses and the Babies!