history. Even before his journey to Italy he read Italian with as much
ease as French. He tells us that it was by his father's advice that he
had acquired these modern languages. But we can, see that they were
essential parts of his own scheme of self-education, which included,
in another direction, Hebrew, both Biblical and Rabbinical and even
Syriac.

The intensity of his nature showed itself in his method of study. He
read, not desultorily, a bit here and another there, but "when I take
up with a thing, I never pause or break it off, nor am drawn away from
it by any other interest, till I have arrived at the goal I proposed
to myself," He made breaks occasionally In this routine of study by
visits to London, to see friends, to buy books, to take lessons in
mathematics, to go to the theatre, or to concerts. A love of music was
inherited from his father.

I have called this period, 1632-39, one of preparation, and not of
production. But though the first volume of poems printed by Milton did
not appear till 1645, the most considerable part of its contents was
written during the period included in the present chapter.

The fame of the author of _Paradise Lost_ has overshadowed that of the
author of _L'Allegro, Il Penseroso,_ and _Lycidas_. Yet had _Paradise
Lost_ never been written, these three poems, with _Comus_, would have
sufficed to place their author in a class apart, and above all those
who had used the English language for poetical purposes before him. It
is incumbent on Milton's biographer to relate the circumstances of the
composition of _Comus_, as it is an incident in the life of the poet.

Milton's musical tastes had brought him the acquaintance of Henry