He was soon to have stronger proofs that his son had not mistaken his vocation: it would be pleasant to be assured that the old man was capable of valuing "Comus" and "Lycidas" at their worth.
The circumstances under which "Comus" was produced, and its subsequent publication with the extorted consent of the author, show that Milton did not wholly want encouragement and sympathy.

The insertion of his lines on Shakespeare in the Second Folio (1632) also denotes some reputation as a wit.

In the main, however, remote from urban circles and literary cliques, with few correspondents and no second self in sweetheart or friend, he must have led a solitary intellectual life, alone with his great ambition, and probably pitied by his acquaintance.
"The world," says Emerson to the Poet, "is full of renunciations and apprenticeships, and this is thine; thou must pass for a fool and a churl for a long season.

This is the screen and sheath in which Pan has protected his well-beloved flower." The special nature of Milton's studies cannot now be exactly ascertained.

Of his manner of studying he informs Diodati, "No delay, no rest, no care or thought almost of anything holds me aside until I reach the end I am making for, and round off, as it were, some great period of my studies." Of his object he says: "God has instilled into me, at all events, a vehement love of the beautiful.