SONNET (QUERY, BY MILTON) ON THE LIBRARY AT CAMBRIDGE

In a *Collection of Recente and Witty Pieces by several eminente hands*, London, printed by W.S. for Simon Waterfou, 1628, p. 109., is the following sonnet, far the best thing in the book:— "ON THE LIBRARIE AT CAMBRIDGE. "In that great maze of books I sighed and said,— It is a grave-yard, and each tome a tombe; Shrouded in hempen rags, behold the dead, Coffined and ranged in crypts of dismal gloom, Food for the worm and redolent of mold, Traced with brief epitaph in tarnished gold— Ah, golden lettered hope!—ah, dolorous doom! Yet mid the common death, where all is cold, And mildewed pride in d…