ecated the blame of slowness, you will also, I hope,
pardon me the fault of haste; for having put off this letter, I preferred
writing little, and that rather in a slovenly manner, to not writing at
all. Farewell, much-to-be respected Sir.'

The question is, Did Milton carry out this intention, and pay Stowmarket
a visit? Professor Masson thinks he may have been there in the memorable
summer and autumn of 1630. The Rev. Mr. Hollingsworth, the Stowmarket
historian argues that it is not unlikely that several, if not many,
visits, extending over a period of thirty years, while the tutor held the
living, were made by the poet to the place. Tradition has constantly
associated his name with the mulberry-trees of the Vicarage, which he
planted, but of these only one remains. 'This venerable relic of the
past,' continues the Vicar, 'is much decayed, and is still in vigorous
bearing. Its girth, before it breaks into branches, is ten feet, and I
have had in one season as much as ten gallons from the pure juices of its
fruits, which yields a highly flavoured and brilliant-coloured wine.' It
stands a few yards distant from the oldest part of the house, and
opposite the windows of an upstair double room, which was formerly the
sitting-parlour of the Vicar, and where, it is to be believed, the poet
and his friend had many a talk of the way to advance religion and liberty
in the land, to remove hirelings out of the Church, and to abolish the
Bishops. There too, perhaps, might have come to the guest visions of
'Paradise Lost.' In his first work Milton throws out something like a
hint of the great poem which he was in time to write. 'Then, amidst,' to
quote his own sonorous language, 'the hymns and hallelujahs of saints,
_someone_ may, perhaps, be heard offering in high strains, in new and
lofty measures, to sing and celebrate Thy Divine mercies and marvellous
judgments in this land throughout all ages.' We can easily believe how,
in the Stowmarket Vicarage, the plan of the poet may have been talked
over, and the heart of the poet encouraged to the work. Regarding Young
as Milton did, we may be sure that he would have been only too glad to
listen to his suggestions and adopt his advice. There must have been a
good deal of plain living and high thinking at the Stowmarket Vicarage
when Milton came there as an occasional guest. This is the more probable
as Milton's earliest publications were in support of the views of
Smectymn