he sweetest and truest poets that there had been in Great Britain
through that age of miscellaneous metrical effort, much of it
miscalled Poetry, which included the whole of the laureateship of Ben
Jonson and the beginning of that of Davenant. Accordingly, it is not
difficult to suppose that phrases about Drummond from Milton's own
mouth were worked by Phillips into his prose preface to the London
edition of the Poems of Drummond. There is a little hyperbolism in
that preface; but the opening definition of Drummond's genius is
exact, and the fitness of some of the phrases quite admirable.
Thus:--

"To say that these Poems are the effects of a genius the most
polite and verdant that ever the Scottish nation produced, although
it he a commendation not to be rejected (for it is well known that
that country hath afforded many rare and admirable wits), yet it is
not the highest that may be given him; for, should I affirm that
neither Tasso, nor Guarini, nor any of the most neat and refined
spirits of Italy, nor even the choicest of our English Poets, can
challenge to themselves any advantage above him, it could not be
judged any attribute superior to what he deserves ... And, though
he hath not had the good fortune to be so generally famed abroad as
many others, perhaps of less esteem, yet this is a consideration
that cannot diminish, but rather advance, his credit; for, by
breaking forth of obscurity, he will attract the higher
admiration, and, like the sun emerging from a cloud, appear at
length with so much the more forcible rays..."

Milton's interesting German friend, Henry Oldenburg, had recently
removed from London to Oxford. "In the beginning of this year," says
Wood in his _Fasti_ for 1656, "studied in Oxon, in the condition
of a sojourner, HENRY OLDENBURG, who wrote himself sometimes
GRUBENDOL [anagram of OLDENBUBG]; and in the month of June he was
entered a, student by the name of _'Henricus Oldenburg, Bremensis,
Nobilis Saxo'_: at which time he was tutor to a young Irish
nobleman, called Henry O'Bryen [son of Henry, Earl of Thomond], then
also a student there."[1] As we construe the case, Oldenburg, having
been for some years in England as agent for Bremen, had begun to see
that he was likely to remain in England permanently; and he had gone
to Oxford for the benefit of a year of study there with readings in
the Bodleian, and the society more especially of Robert Boyle,
Wilkins, W