It would be unjust to leave Milton without speaking of his greatest work--and of a marvelous capsule analysis of the motivations of one of its characters. "Satan in Paradise Lost," one exam perceived, "is what Milton would have liked to have been if he hadn't gone blind." But then, this bit of biographical lore doesn't seem so bad when compared with the identification of Hogarth as Beowulf's grandfather.

Spelling errors crop up yearly. One undergraduate in statistics, obviously concentrating too heavily in science, wrote of a "tetrachloric correlation." And a Soc Rel section man saw a reference--probably by a boy from Michigan--to a "Deus ex mackinaw." Or perhaps he lived near the girl who wrote of ancient Troy's Scalamander River.

Spelling alone, however, cannot account for the duke's strategy, whose motivation can only be guessed. The subject: English history. "At Blenheim Marlborough directed his atacks at the right wing, where were stationed the most delectable French troops."

In another English history exam, students were asked to show how the power of Parliment increased under the sovereignty of the Tudors. To one boy, it all boiled down to this: "Elizabeth's first Parliament begged her to marry, advice it would never have dreamed of giving her father."

If Elizabeth's legitimacy is in doubt, however, where does that leave poor Nausicaa, who was identified as a "rare form of Greek disease"? Although this might have been merely grim humor, another identification in the same course--Hum 2--was more purposefully thought out. The passage, from the Divine Comedy, described Mathilda taking Dante across the river Lethe, and giving him a symbolic baptism--washing away sins so he can enter Paradise. Mathilda tells Dante, "Hold me! Hold me!"

Identification: "Aeneas courting an Amazon."

The name of pius Aeneas calls to mind that of the immortal poet (70-19 B.C.) of whom it was written: "To be a Christian in Vergil's day was like being a Communist today." Ah, well, perhaps it is the wave of the future.

On the closing blooper I have no comment to offer. It was written by a 'Cliffie, taking a test on Paradise Lost, and I quote: "After the Fall, of course, Eve found new ways to manipulate Adam.