“Cambridge... for Seven Years” 1625–1632but Mr. Tovey only.” Formal exercises were deferred to December 16.^83 If Milton
returned in late autumn he would have found Edward King, a new B.A. just 18
years old, appointed by royal mandate to a vacated fellowship. King’s father and
elder brother were important administrators in Ireland and his godfather was an
Irish bishop. Milton had no such court patronage or family influence, and statutes
mandating geographical distribution of the fellows made him technically ineligible
for this fellowship. He probably had few if any regrets, given his disenchantment
with university education and his growing disinclination to the usual fellowship
requirements of ordination and celibacy. But, as with Charles Diodati, he again had
to witness the very visible success of another bright young man some years his
junior. Late that year he would have received the good news of Alexander Gil’s full
pardon (November 30).
Milton affixed the date 1630 to his first published poem, the 16-line “Epitaph on
the admirable Dramatick Poet, W. Shakespeare,” for the 1632 Second Folio of
Shakespeare’s plays.^84 We do not know the intermediary who brought the as yet
unknown Milton to the attention of the publishers: possibly it came about through
his father’s associations in musical or theatrical circles (he was a trustee of Blackfriars
Theatre). Milton’s poem, along with one other added in the new edition, is un-
signed; the rest carry authors’ names or initials. The anonymity may testify to Milton’s
continuing sense of unreadiness, to an unease shared with many English gentlemen
about writing for the print marketplace, or to a desire to make his formal public
debut with some more impressive poem or volume of poetry.^85 In style and form –
iambic pentameter couplets that combine formality with restrained feeling – this
epitaph shows some debt to Jonson, especially to Jonson’s own tribute to Shake-
speare, reprinted in this edition. Both poems apostrophize Shakespeare and deliver
critical judgments. Also, several elements of conception and diction – the “piled
Stones” as opposed to living works, and especially the Spenserian archaism, “Star-
ypointing Pyramid” – echo an epitaph, circulating in manuscript, that was attributed
to Shakespeare himself in the seventeenth century.^86 Milton’s tribute to Shake-
speare involved, it seems, his deft imitation of a supposed Shakespeare poem. But
Milton’s poem reworks the conventional conceit that a poet’s best monument is his
works, making Shakespeare’s readers his true “live-long Monument”: their wonder
and astonishment turn them to “Marble with too much conceiving.”^87 Building on
his supposed imitation of Shakespeare in this poem, Milton explicitly claims the
Bard as his model, describing him as “my Shakespeare” and his poetry as “Del-
phic,” inspired. But he also calls anxious attention to Shakespeare’s “easy num-
bers,” which put to shame the “slow-endeavoring art” Milton associates with himself.
For much of Lent and Easter terms, 1631, Milton was almost certainly in Cam-
bridge. His brother Christopher was admitted to Christ’s on February 15 (LR I,
227); Milton probably helped him settle in and influenced his choice of Tovey as
tutor. Milton’s poems of these months are Cambridge poems. Two lighthearted,
whimsical English epitaphs “On the University Carrier” are his anonymous contri-