Notes to Chapter 1113 For Renaissance melancholy, see Raymond Klibansky, Erwin Panofsky, and Fritz
Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy (London, 1964); also Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melan-
choly (London, 1621).
114 See Annabel Patterson, “‘Forc’d fingers’: Milton’s Early Poems and Ideological Con-
straint,” in The Muses Common-Weale, ed. Claude Summers and Ted-Larry Pebworth
(Columbia, Mo., 1988), 9–22.
Chapter 3 “Studious Retirement”: Hammersmith and Horton, 1632–16381 One biographical scenario suggests that Milton rejected the ministry before or upon
leaving Cambridge: Masson, I, 333–9; A. S. P. Woodhouse, “Notes on Milton’s Early
Development,” University of Toronto Quarterly 13 (1943–4), 66–101; Douglas Bush,
“The Date of Milton’s Ad Patrem,” Modern Philology 61 (1963–4), 204–8; and Variorum
I, 232–40. A contrary scenario proposes that Milton was still expecting to combine
poetry and the ministry as late as 1640: John Spencer Hill, John Milton: Poet, Priest and
Prophet (London, 1979), 27–49. John T. Shawcross, John Milton: The Self and the World
(Lexington, 1993), 61–70, takes 1637 to be the year of decision.
2 Two Chancery depositions in September, 1631 give Milton senior’s legal address as
Bread Street, London (LR I, 149–50); on September 14, 1632 and again on January 8,
1635 his legal address is noted in Chancery depositions as “Hammersmith in the County
of Middlesex.” See chapter 2, note 77. In 1634 he declined the honor of serving as
Master of the Scriveners Company, presumably because he had retired to a residence
outside London (LR I, 284).
3 Writs in a lawsuit against Milton senior from January to March, 1637 designate his
residence as Horton. A writ dated March 22, 1637 refers to an earlier writ of May 23,
1636 (now lost) locating him “within 17 myles of London” (Horton’s distance). See J.
Milton French, Milton in Chancery: New Chapters in the Lives of the Poet and his Father
(New York and London, 1939), 55–6, 262–4. Also in May, 1636, Milton petitioned to
resign from his office as assistant to the Scriveners Company, on account of his “re-
moval to inhabit in the country.”
4 Survey of London, Hammersmith, vol. 6 (London, 1915). No record has been found iden-
tifying the house the Miltons occupied. After June, 1632, the hamlet had its own place
of worship, the chapel of St Paul’s, with John Dent as curate.
5 See chapter 2, n. 20.
6 John Harper, in “ ‘One Equal Music’: The Music of Milton’s Youth,” MQ 31 (1997),
1–9, argues that Milton senior’s musical associates were rather conservative than pro-
gressive in their musical taste and practice.
7 Gresham College was established by Sir Thomas Gresham, founder of the Royal Ex-
change, for the presentation of public lectures – some in Latin, some in English – in
Astronomy, Music, Divinity, Geometry, Physick, Civil Law, and Rhetoric. Masson (I,
566) points out that the most famous mathematical teachers of the day, John Greaves,
professor of geometry, and Henry Gellibrand, professor of astronomy, were associated
with the college.
8 For the documents and an account of the suits, see French, Milton in Chancery, 35–67,
236–90. Bower failed to return the widow Downer’s £50 upon request, and loaned itNotes to Chapter 2–3