to know," and by useful, he meant that which conduced to form him for
his vocation of poet.

From a very early period Milton had taken poetry to be his vocation,
in the most solemn and earnest mood. The idea of this devotion was the
shaping idea of his life. It was, indeed, a bent of nature, with roots
drawing from deeper strata of character than any act of reasoned will,
which kept him out of the professions, and now fixed him, a seeming
idler, but really hard at work, in his father's house at Horton. The
intimation which he had given of his purpose in the sonnet above
quoted had become, in 1641, "an inward prompting which grows daily
upon me, that by labour and intent study, which I take to be my
portion in this life, joined with the strong propensity of nature,
I might perhaps leave something so written to after times, as they
should not willingly let it die."

What the ultimate form of his poetic utterance shall be, he is in no
hurry to decide. He will be "long choosing," and quite content to be
"beginning late." All his care at present is to qualify himself
for the lofty function to which he aspires. No lawyer, physician,
statesman, ever laboured to fit himself for his profession harder
than Milton strove to qualify himself for his vocation of poet.
Verse-making is, to the wits, a game of ingenuity; to Milton, it is
a prophetic office, towards which the will of heaven leads him. The
creation he contemplates will not flow from him as the stanzas of the
_Gerusalemme_ did from Tasso at twenty-one. Before he can make a poem,
Milton will make himself. "I was confirmed in this opinion, that he
who would not be frustrated of his hope to write well hereafter in
laudable things ought himself to be a true poem.... not presuming to
sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he have