ian divines. His friendship for Young probably led him into the
field of controversy, for he owns that he was not disposed to this manner
of writing 'wherein, knowing myself inferior to myself, led by the genial
power of nature to another task, I have the use, as I may account, but of
my left hand.' It is a fact that Milton was thus drawn into the
controversy, and what more natural than that he should have been induced
to do so by the Stowmarket Vicar in the Stowmarket Vicarage? The poet's
family were familiar with that part of Suffolk, and his brother, Sir
Christopher, who was a stanch Royalist and barrister, lived at Ipswich,
but twelve miles off. He went to see Milton, and Milton might have
visited Ipswich and Stowmarket at the same time. Be that as it may,
tradition and probability alike justify the belief that Milton came to
Stowmarket, and that he went away all the wiser and better, all the
stronger to do good work for man and God, for his age and all succeeding
ages. Young, as it may be inferred, was held in high honour by his
friends. He was spoken of by two neighbouring ejected Rectors as the
reverend, learned, orthodox, prudent, and holy Dr. Young. When he died,
an epitaph was inscribed with some care by a friendly hand, and an
unwilling admission is made of the opposition he had encountered. It is
now illegible, and some of its lines appear to have been carefully
erased--by some High Church chisel, probably. But the following copy was
made when the epitaph was fresh and legible:

'Here is committed to earth's trust
Wise, pious, spotlesse, learned dust,
Who living more adorned the place
Than the place him. Such was God's grace.'

Is the verse of this epitaph from Milton's pen or not? Mr. Hollingsworth
writes: 'The probability is quite in favour that the pupil should write
the last memorial of one whom he so highly honoured and loved as his old
master. Nor is the verse itself, with the exception of the last line,
unlike the character of Milton's poetry, and this last may have been
mutilated and rendered inharmonious by the action of the stone-cutter,
who also confused the death of the father and son.' It is pleasant to
think, not only that Milton now and then came to the Stowmarket Vicarage,
but that in the church itself there is a slight record of his poetical
fame. Let me add, as a further illustration of the connection of the
great poet with the county of Suffolk, that I am in