Notes to Chapter 1occasion is lost. I see no convincing reason, however, to accept John Shawcross’s alter-
native dating – June, 1631 for the poem and July 2, 1631 for the letter to Gil (“The
Dating of Certain Poems, Letters, and Prolusions Written by Milton,” English Language
Notes 2 (1965), 261–2.
52 Edward Phillips thought Milton had for King “a particular Friendship and Intimacy”
(EL 54). Norman Postlethwaite and Gordon Campbell in “Edward King, Milton’s
‘Lycidas’: Poems and Documents,” MQ 28 (1994), 79–80, argue that they were close
friends, chiefly on the strength of the headnote, Phillips’s testimony, and the emphasis
on King’s learning in most of the tributes to him in Justa Edouardo King Naufrago. But
Milton’s “a learned friend” seems formulaic and Phillips’s comment obviously derives
from it.
53 See Cedric C. Brown, John Milton: A Literary Life (New York, 1995), 2–8, 18, for a
reconstruction of the festival and a perceptive analysis of Milton’s self-presentation in
the several parts of that exercise. Thomas R. Hartman argues (“Prolusions,” ME, VII,
37–9) that Prolusion VI in its various parts precisely parodies a specific event, the Uni-
versity Commencement Exercises, but the parallels he adduces seem somewhat strained.
54 The poem was first printed in Poems, 1673, and is quoted from that edition.
55 His address to the eldest, Substance, as “King” may indicate that Edward King played
that role; and the address to Relation beginning “Rivers arise” probably identifies that
personification with a student named Rivers, either George or his brother Nizell.
56 See Clark, Milton at St Paul’s School, 83–99; Barker, “Milton’s Schoolmasters,” 526–36;
Parker II, 712–14.
57 This is in part a precis of a very long treatise by the Jesuit philosopher Francis Suarez, in
Disputationes Metaphysicae (Mainz, 1605).
58 Cambridge University Archives, Supplicats 1627, 1628, 1629, fol. 331; the supplication
is in Milton’s hand. He also signed the three Articles of Religion in the University
Subscription Book (Subs I, 286). Chronology, 37.
59 This portrait, now at the National Portrait Gallery, London, is generally believed to be
one of two (the other is the schoolboy portrait) that remained in the possession of
Milton’s widow, according to Aubrey’s report and that of Milton’s daughter, Deborah
Clarke. It later came into the possession of Arthur Onslow, Speaker of the House of
Commons. Some doubt surrounds the attribution, based on the discrepancy between
the youthful appearance of the subject and the inscribed age, the discrepancy between
the brown eyes of the portrait and the usual representation of Milton with grey eyes,
and the somewhat unclear provenance of this portrait. But none of this seems decisive
enough to discredit the chain of attribution over three centuries. For a skeptical argu-
ment underscoring the dubiety of the attribution, see Leo Miller, “Milton’s Portraits.”
60 In Poems, 1645 he dates it “anno aetatis 20.”
61 For discussion of some sources – Callimachus, Ovid, Horace, George Buchanan’s “Maiae
Calendae” among others – see A. S. P. Woodhouse, “Notes on Milton’s Early Devel-
opment,” University of Toronto Quarterly 13 (1943–4), 66–101; and D. C. Allen, “Milton
as a Latin Poet,” in Neo-Latin Poetry of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, eds. James
E. Phillips and D. C. Allen (Los Angeles, 1965), 30–52.
62 Revard, Tangles of Neaera’s Hair, 17–27.
63 Ll. 55–60, 95–6. “Exuit invisam Tellus rediviva senectam, / Et cupit amplexus Phoebe
subire tuos; / Et cupit, & digna est, quid enim formosius illa, / Pandit ut omniferos
Notes to Chapter 2