y poems.

[Illustration: VISIT OF MILTON TO THE BLIND GALILEO AT THE VILLA
D'ARCETRI NEAR FLORENCE IN 1638. _From the painting by T. Lessi._]

In 1638, when he was in his thirtieth year, he determined to broaden
his views by travel. He went to Italy, which the Englishmen of his day
still regarded as the home of art, culture, and song. After about
fifteen months abroad, hearing that his countrymen were on the verge
of civil war, he returned home to play his part in the mighty tragedy
of the times.

Milton's "Left Hand."--In 1642 the Civil War broke out between the
Royalists and the Puritans. He took sides in the struggle for liberty,
not with his sword, but with his pen. During this time he wrote little
but prose. He regretted that the necessity of the time demanded prose,
in the writing of which, he says, "I have the use, as I may account
it, but of my left hand."

With that "left hand" he wrote much prose. There is one common quality
running through all his prose works, although they treat of the most
varied subjects. Every one of these works strikes a blow for fuller
liberty in some direction,--for more liberty in church, in state, and
in home relations, for the freedom of expressing opinions, and for a
system of education which should break away from the leading strings
of the inferior methods of the past. His greatest prose work is the
_Areopagitica: A Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing_.

Much of his prose is poetic and adorned with figures of rhetoric. He
frequently follows the Latin order, and inverts his sentences, which
are often unreasonably long. Sometimes his "left hand" astonishes us
by slinking mud at his opponents, and we eagerly await the loosing of
the right hand which was to give us _Paradise Lost_.

His Blindness.--The English government from 1649 to 1660 is known as
the Commonwealth. The two most striking figures of the time were
Oliver Cromwell, who in 1653 was styled the Lord Protector, and John
Milton, who was the Secretary for Foreign Tongues.

[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF MILTON'S SIGNATURE IN THE ELEVENTH YEAR
OF HIS BLINDNESS._From his application to wed Elizabeth Minshull.
Feb. 11, 1663._]

One of the greatest of European scholars, a professor at Leyden, named
Salmasius, had written a book attacking the Commonwealth and upholding
the late king. The Council requested Milton to write a fitting answer.
As his eyes were already failing him, he was warned to rest them; but
he s