“Studious Retirement” 1632–1638role could provide a livelihood in itself, except for playwrights or commercial hacks.
A gentleman needed a patron, another career, or financial independence, but Milton
made no effort to invite court patronage, he was not offered a college fellowship,
he hated law and business, he found no patron or post in a great family, and his
resistance to the ministry steadily increased, thanks both to Laud and his own deep-
est inclinations. All this sufficiently accounts for his anxieties, his sense of belatedness
by comparison with his contemporaries, and his insistence on more and more prepa-
ration as he sought to account to himself, to others, and to God for his delay in
taking up a life’s work. He justified delaying the moment of decision on the hu-
manist ground that his inadequate formal education must be supplemented by fur-
ther study, as well as on the Puritan principle that the all-important choice of vocation
must follow God’s as yet unclear directive. By late 1637 he had received some
clarifications, and his father soon agreed to continue his support, apparently reas-
sured by “Ad Patrem” and by the publication, in hand or imminent, of A Maske
and Lycidas.
In the early months of 1638 Milton’s plans for a European tour took shape. His
brother Christopher had recently married Thomasine Webber, who probably be-
gan to live at Horton by November, 1637, freeing Milton from whatever contraints
the needs of his recently widowed father, now 77 years old, might have imposed.^90
His projected travels (with the manservant a gentleman would need) could be ex-
pected to cost Milton senior the considerable sum of £250 or £300 a year.^91 Milton
applied to Henry Lawes for help with a passport he would need in order to leave
England, and in April Lawes secured the requisite documents.^92
In March or early April Milton, through a mutual friend,^93 sought acquaintance
with Sir Henry Wotton, Provost of Eton and erstwhile ambassador to various
countries, including Venice. After an initial meeting Milton wrote Wotton on
April 6 asking advice in planning his journey and enclosing a copy of the recently
printed Comus. On April 13, answering this (now lost) letter, Wotton lamented
that he did not meet Milton before, proclaimed his delight in Milton’s conversa-
tion, and praised Comus enthusiastically, especially the “Dorique delicacy in your
Songs and Odes, whereunto I must confess plainly to have seen yet nothing paral-
lel in our Language” (CPW I, 341). He first read it, he states, “som good while
before, with singular delight” and he thanks Milton “for intimating unto me (how
modestly soever) the true Artificer.” He recommends a route for the journey,
provides Milton with letters of introduction for Paris, and tenders some prudent
advice (once offered to him) for an ardent Protestant travelling in Rome: “I pensieri
stretti, & il viso sciolto [your thoughts close, and your countenance open] will go
safely over the whole World” (CPW I, 342). Milton surely found this learned
man’s praise of his work and gestures of friendship a powerful confirmation of his
commitment to poetry, as well as a happy augury of forthcoming encounters with
European literati.