him for the
church, but he chose literature as a profession, travelled and made
distinguished friendships in Italy, Switzerland and France, and when
little past his majority was before the public as a poet, author of the
Ode to the Nativity, of a Masque, and of many songs and elegies. In
later years he entered political life under the stress of his Puritan
sympathies, and served under Cromwell and his successor as Latin
Secretary of State through the time of the Commonwealth. While in public
duty he became blind, but in his retirement composed "Paradise Lost and
Paradise Regained." Died in 1676.

_THE TUNE._

In the old "Carmina Sacra" a noble choral (without name except "No war
nor battle sound") well interprets portions of the 4th and 5th stanzas
of the great hymn, but replaces the line--

"The idle spear and shield were high uphung."

--with the more modern and less figurative--

"No hostile chiefs to furious combat ran."

Three stanzas are also added, by the Rev. H.O. Dwight, missionary to
Constantinople. The substituted line, which is also, perhaps, the
composition of Mr. Dwight, rhymes with--

"His reign of peace upon the earth began,"

--and as it is not un-Miltonic, few singers have ever known that it was
not Milton's own.

Dr. John Knowles Paine, Professor of Music at Harvard University, and
author of the Oratorio of "St. Peter," composed a cantata to the great
Christmas Ode of Milton, probably about 1868.

Professor Paine died Apr. 25, 1906.

It is worth noting that John Milton senior, the great poet's father, was
a skilled musician and a composer of psalmody. The old tunes "York" and
"Norwich," in Ravenscroft's collection and copied from it in many early
New England singing-books, are supposed to be his.

The Miltons were an old Oxfordshire Catholic family, and John, the
poet's father, was disinherited for turning Protestant, but he prospered
in business, and earned the comfort of a country gentleman. He died,
very aged, in May, 1646, and his son addressed a Latin poem ("Ad
Patrem") to his memory.

"HARK! THE HERALD ANGELS SING."

This hymn of Charles Wesley, dating about 1730, was evidently written
with the "Adeste Fideles" in mind, some of the stanzas, in fact, being
almost like translations of it. The form of the two first lines was
originally--

Hark! how all the welkin rings,
"Glory to the King of Kings!"

--but was altered thirty years later by Rev. Martin Madan