noise; the rest are perhaps too diffuse on common topicks; but the last is natural and beautiful

From Florence he went to Sienna, and from Sienna to Rome, where he was again received with kindness by the Learned and the Great. Holstenius, the keeper of the Vatican library, who had resided three years at Oxford, introduced him to Cardinal Barberini: and he, at a musical entertainment, waited for him at the door, and led him by the hand into the assembly. Here Selvaggi praised him in a distich, and Salsilli in a tetrastich: neither of them of much value. The Italians were gainers by this literary commerce; for the encomiums with which Milton repaid Salsilli, though not secure against a stern granimarian, turn the balance indisputably in Milton's favour.

Of these Italian testimonies, poor as they are, he was proud enough to publish them before his poems; though he says, he cannot be suspected but to have known that they were said non tam de se, quam supra se.

At Rome, as at Florence, he staid only two months; a time indeed sufficient, if he defired only to ramble with an explainer of its an antiquities, or to view palaces and count pictures; but certainly too short for the contemplation of learning, policy, or manners.

From Rome he passed on to Naples, in company of a hermit; a companion from whom little could be expected, yet to him Milton owed his introduction to Manso marquis of Villa, who had before been the patron of Taffo. Manso was enough delighted with his accomplishments to honour him with a sorry distich, in which he commends him for every thing but his religion; and Milton, in return, addressed him in a Latin poem, which must have raised an high opinion of English elegance and literature,

His purpose was now to have visited Sicily and Greece; but, hearing of the differences between the king and parliament, he thought it proper to hasten home, rather than pass his life in foreign amusements while his countrymen were contending for their rights. He therefore came back to Rome, though the merchrants informed him of plots laid against him by the Jesuits, for the liberty of his conversations on religion. He had sense enough to judge that there was no danger, and therefore kept on his way, and acted as before, neither obtruding nor shunning controversy He had perhaps given some offence by vifiting Galileo, then a prisoner in the inquisition for philosophical heresy; and at Naples he was told by Manso, that, by his declarations on religious questions, he had excluded himself from some distinctions which he should otherwise have paid him. But such conduct, though it did not please, was yet sufficiently safe, and Milton staid two months more at Rome, and went on to Florence without molestation.

From Florence he visited Lucca. He afterwards went to Venice; and having sent away a collection of music and other books, travelled to Geneva, which he probably considered as the metropolis of orthodoxy.

Here he reposed, as in a congenial element, and became acquainted with John Diodati and Frederick Spanheim, two learned professors of Divinity. From Geneva e passed through France; and came home, after an absence and three months.

of a

year

At

At his return he heard of the death of his friend Charles Diodati; a man whom it is reasonable to suppose of great merit, since he was thought by Milton worthy of a poem, intituled, Epitaphium Damonis, written with the common but childish imitation of pastoral life.

He now hired a lodging at the house of one Russel, a taylor, in St. Bride's Church-yard, and undertook the education of John and Edward Philips, his sister's sons. Finding his rooms too little, he took a house and garden in Aldersgate-street, which was not then so much out of the world as it is now; and chose his dwelling at the upper end' of a passage, that he might avoid the noise of the street. Here he received more boys to be boarded and instructed.

Let not our veneration for Milton forbid us to look with some degree of merriment on great promises and small performances, on the man who hastens home, because his countrymen are contending for their liberty, and when he reaches the scene of action, vapours away his patriotism in a private boarding-schoolThis is the period of his life from which all his biographers seem inclined to shrink. They are unwilling that Milton should be degraded to a school-master; but, since it cannot be denied that he taught boys, one finds out, that he taught for nothing, and another, that his motive was only zeal for the propargation of Learning and virtue; and all tell what they do not know to be true, only to excuse an act which no wise man will consider as in itself disgraceful. His father was alive; his allowance was not ample; and he supplied its deficiencies by an honest and useful employment.

It is told, that in the art of education he performed wonders; and a formidable list is given of the authors, Greek and Latin, that were read in Aldersgatestreet, by youth betwen ten and fifteen or sixteen years of age. Those who tell or receive these stories should consider that nobody can be taught faster than lie can learn. The speed of the horseman must be limited by the power of his horse. Every man, that has ever undertaken to instruct others, can tell what slow advances he has been able to make, and how much patience it requires to recall vagrant inattention, to stimulate sluggish indifference, and to rectify absurd misapprehension.

The purpose of Milton, as it seems, was to teach something more solid than the common literature of Schools, by reading those authors that treat of physical subjects, such as the Georgick, and astronomical treatises of the ancients. This was a scheme of improvement which seems to have busied many literary projectors of that age. Cowley, who had more means than Milton of knowing what was

that

This is inaccurately expressed: Philips, and Dr. Newton after him, say a garden house, í. e. a house situate in a garden, and of which there were especially in the north suburbs of London very many, if not few else. The term is technical, and frequently occurs in the Athen. and Fast. Oxon. The meaning thereof may be collected from the article Thomas Farnabe, the famous school-master, of whom the author says, that he taught in Goldsmith's Rents in Cripplegate parish, behind Redcross-ftreet, where were large gardens and handsome houses. Milton's house in Jewin-street was also a garden-house, as were indeed most of his dwellings after his settlement in London. H,

wanting to the embellishments of life, formed the same plan of education in his imaginary College.

But the truth is, that the knowledge of external nature, and the sciences which that knowledge requi es or, includes, are not the great or the frequent business of the human mind. Whether we provide for action or conversation, whether we wish to be useful or pleasing, the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong; the next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and with those examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions. Prejudice and Justice are virtues and excellences of all times and of all places; we are perpetually moralists, but we are geometri ians only by chance. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter are voluntary, and at leisure. Physiological learning is of such rare emergence, that one man may know another half his life without being able to estimate his skill in hydrostaticks or astronomy; but his moral and prudential character immediately appears.

Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most materials for conversation; and these purposes are best served by poets, orators, and historians

Let me not be censured for this digression as pedantick or paradoxical; for if I have Milton against me, I have Socrates on my side. It was his labour to turn philosophy from the study of nature to speculations upon life; but the innovators whom I oppose are turning off attention from life to nature. They seem to think, that we are placed here to watch the growth of plants, or the motions of the stars. Socrates was rather of opinion, that what we had to learn was, how to do good, and avoid evil.

Ὅτιι τοι ἐν μεγάροισι κακίντ ̓ ἀγαθόνε τέτυκται.

Of institutions we may judge by their effects. From this wonder-working academy, I do not know that there ever proceeded any man very eminent for knowledge: its only genuine product, I believe, is a small History of Poetry, written in Latin by his nephew Philips, of which perhaps none of my readers has ever heard *.

That in his school, as in every thing else which he undertook, he laboured with great diligence, there is no reason for doubting. One part of his method deserves general imitation. He was careful to instruct his scholars in religion. Every Sunday was spent upon theology: of which he dictated a short system, gathered from the writers that were then fashionable in Dutch universities.

He set his pupils an example of hard study and spare diet; only now and then he allowed himself to pass a day of festivity and indulgence with some gay gentlemen of Gray's Inn.

He

* We may be sure at least, that Dr. Johnson had never seen the book he speaks of; for "it is entirely composed in English, though its tittle begins with two Latin words, Theatrum "Poerarum ; or A complete Collection of the Poets, &c.' à circumstance that probably misled "the bicgrapher of Milton." European Magazine, June, 1787. p. 388. E.

He now began to engage in the controversies of the times, and lent his breath to blow the flames of contention. In 1641 he published a treatise of Reformation, in two books, against the established Church; being willing to help the Puritans, who were, he says, inferior to the Prelates in learning.

Hal bishop of Norwich, had published an Humble Remonstrance, in defence of Episcopacy; to which, in 1641, six ministers*, of whose names the first letters made the celebrated word Smectymnuus, gave their answer. Of this Answer a Confutation was attempted by the learned Uher; and to the Confutation Milton published a Reply, intituled, Of Prelatical Episcopacy, and whether it may be deduced from the Apostolical Times, by virtue of those testimonies which are alledged to that purpose in some late treatises, one whereof goes under the name of James Lord Bishop of Armagh.

I have transcribed this title to shew, by his contemptuous mention of Usher, that he had now adopted the puritanical savageness of manners. His next work was, The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelacy, by Mr. John Milton, 1642. In this book he discovers, not with ostentatious exultation, but with calm confidence, his high opinion of his own powers; and promises to undertake something, he yet knows not what, that may be of use and honour to his country. "This," says he, " is not to be obtained but by devout prayer to "that Eternal Spirit that can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and "sends out his Seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and "purify the lips of whom he pleases. To this must be added, industrious and "select reading, steady observation, and insight into all seemly and generous "arts and affairs; till which in some measure be compast, I refuse not to "sustain this expectation.". From a promise like this, at once fervid, pious and rational, might be expected the Paradise Lost..

He published the same year two more pamphlets, upon the same question. To one of his antagonists, who affirms that he was vomited out of the university, he answers, in general terms; " The Fellows of the College wherein I spent "some years, at my parting, after I had taken two degrees, as the manner is, “signified many times how much better it would content that I should stay, "As for the common approbation or dislike of that place, as now it is, "that I should esteem or disesteem myself the more for that, too simple is "the answerer, if he think to obtain one with me. Of small practice were the "physician who could not judge, by what she and her sister have of long "time vomited, that the worser stuff she strongly keeps in her stomach, but "the better she is ever kecking at, and is queasy; she vomits now out of sickness; but before it will be well with her, she must vomit with strong physick. The university, in the time of her better health, and my younger "judgment, I never greatly admired, but now much less."

This is surely the language of a man who thinks that he has been injured. He proceeds to describe the course of his conduct, and the train of his thoughts; and,

Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, William Spinstow.

.

and, because he has been suspected of incontinence, gives an account of his own purity: That if I be justly charged," says he, "with this crime, it may come 66 upon me with tenfold shame."

The style of his piece is rough, and such perhaps was that of his antagonist This roughness he justifies, by great examples in a long digression. Sometimes lè tries to be humorous: "Lest I should take him for some chaplain in hand, some squire of the body to his prelate, one who serves not at the altar only but at the "Court-cupboard, he will bestow on us a pretty model of himself; and sets me "out half a dozen ptisical mottoes, wherever he had them, hopping short in the "measure of convulsion fits; in which labour the agony of his wit having scaped narrowly, instead of well sized periods, he greets us with a quantity of thumbring posies. And thus ends this section, or rather dissection of himself." Such is the controversial merriment of Milton; his gloomy seriousness is yet more offensive. Such is his malignity, that hell grows darker at his frown

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His father, after Reading was taken by Essex, came to reside in his house; and his school increased.. At Whitsuntide, in his thirty-fifth year, he married Mary, the daughter of Mr. Powel, a justice of the peace in Oxfordshire. He brought her to town with him, and expected all the advantages of a conjugal life. The lady, however, seems not much to have delighted in the pleasures of spare diet and hard study; for, as Philips relates, " having for a month led a philosophic life, after having been used at home to a great house, and much company "and joviality, her friends, possibly by her own desire, made earnest suit to "have her company the remaining part of the summer; which was granted, upon a promise of her return at Michaelmas."

Milton was too busy to much miss his wife: he pursued his studies; and now and then visited the Lady Margaret Leith, whom he has mentioned in one of his sonnets. At last Michaelmas arrived; but the Lady had no inclination to return to the sullen gloom of her husband's habitation, and therefore very willingly forgot her promise. He sent her a letter, but had no answer; he sent more. with the same success. It could be alledged that letters miscarry; he therefore dis· patched a messenger, being by this time too angry to go himself. His messenger was sent back with some contempt. The family of the Lady were Cavaliers.

In a man whose opinion of his own merit was like Milton's, less provocation than this might have raised violent resentment. Milton soon determined to repudiate her for disobedience; and, being one of those who could easily find arguments to justify inclination, published (in 1644) The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce; which was followed by The Judgement of Martin Bucer, concerning Divorce; and the next year, his Tetrachordon, Expositions upon the four chief places of Scripture which treat of Marrirge.

This innovation was opposed, as might be expected, by the clergy, who, then holding their famous assembly at Westminster, procured that the author should be calledbefore the Lords; "but that House," says Wood," whether approv→ "ing the doctrine, or not favouring his accusers, did soon dismiss him."

There seems not to have been much written against him, nor any thing by any writer of eminence. The antagonist that appeared is styled by him, a Serving

Mart