Minor Queries.
56. _Was Milton an Anglo-Saxon Scholar?_--I have long been very curious
to know whether Milton was an Anglo-Saxon scholar. He compiled a
history of the Saxon period: had he the power of access to the original
sources? Is there any ground for supposing that he had read our Saxon
_Paradise Lost_; I mean the immortal poetry of Caedmon? If he really knew
nothing of this ancient relic, then it may well be said, that the poems
of Caedmon and of Milton afford the most striking known example of
coincident poetic imagination.
I should be extremely obliged to any of your learned correspondents who
would bring the faintest ray of evidence to bear upon this obscure
question.
The similarity of the two poems has been noticed long ago, _e.g._ by Sir
F. Palgrave in _The Archaeologia_, xxiv. I know not whether he was the
first; I think Conybeare was beforehand with him.