Part 23 (1/2)

XIX.

The sonnet, says Ma.s.son, may have been written any time between 1652 and 1655.

2. Ere half my days. Milton's blindness is considered to have become total in 1652, when he was at the age of forty-four. How shall we understand these words?

3. See the Parable of the Talents, Matthew XXV.

8. I fondly ask. See note on Il Pens. 6.

XX.

Probable date, 1655. Of the Mr. Lawrence to whom the sonnet is addressed nothing is certainly known.

6. Favonius is the Latin name for Zephyrus, the west wind.

10. Attic: refined, delicate, poignant.

13. and spare To interpose them oft: refrain from too free enjoyment of them.

XXI.

The second sonnet to Cyriac Skinner determines its own date as 1655, and this one is probably to be a.s.signed to the same year.

But little is known of the person to whom this sonnet and the next one are addressed, except what we learn from the sonnets themselves,--that he was an intimate and esteemed friend of Milton. He may have been one of Milton's pupils; and he may, when his old teacher had become blind, have rendered him important services as amanuensis or as reader.