Note Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise — MILTON’S MINOR POEMS.

70-72. Understand clear, as applied to spirit, to mean “pure, guileless, unsophisticated.” Sir Henry Wotton, in his Panegyric to King Charles, says of King James I.,—“I will not deny his appetite of glory, which generous minds do ever latest part from.” Love of fame, according to the poet, is the motive that prompts the scholar to live as an ascetic and to persevere in toilsome labor. This love of fame is an infirmity, but not a debasing one: it leaves the mind noble. Remember, however, that the author of the Imitation of Christ prayed, Da mihi nesciri.