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time to Cambridge.And it may be conjectured | bought and begun with servitude and forswear. from the willingness with which he has perpeting.' uated the memory of his exile, that its cause was such as gave him no shame.o **

He took both the usual degrees; that of bachelor in 1628, and that of master in 1632; but he left the University with no kindness for its institution, alienated either by the injudicious severity of his governors, or his own captious perverseness. The cause cannot now be known but the effect appears inbchise writings. His scheme of education, inscribed to Hartlib, supersedes falls academical instruction, being intended to comprise the whole time which men usually spend in literature, from their entrance upon grammar, “till they proceed, as it is called, masters of arts." And in his discourse on the likeliest way to remove hirelings out of the church," the ingeniously proposes, that the profits of the lands forfeited by the act for superstitious usese should be applied to such acade mies all over the land, where languages and arts may be taught together; so that youth may be at once brought up to a competency of learning

These expressions are, I find, applied, to the subscription of the Articles; but it seems more probable that they relate to canonical obedience. I know not any of the Articles which seem to thwart his opinions: but the thoughts of obedience, whether canonical or civil, raised his indignation. it at t

His unwillingness to engage in the ministry, perhaps not yet advanced to a settled resolution of declining it, appears in a letter to one of hi friends, who had reproved his suspended and dilatory life, which he seems to have imputed to an insatiable curiosity, and fantastic luxury of various knowledge. To this he writes a cool and plausible answer, in which he endeavours to persuade him, that the delay proceeds not from the delights of desultory study, but from the desire of obtaining more task; ng more fitness for his tas and that he that he goes on, not taking thought of

66

being late, so it gives advantage to be more fit.'

OPISKIBID 8 10 1139 9ħr

When he left the University, he returned to

and an honest trade, by which means, such of his father, homorton, in Buck

inghamshire,

he

lived five years, in which time he is said to have read all the Greek and Latin writers. With what limitations this universality is to be understood, who shall inform us?

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them as had the gift, being enabled to support themselves (without tithes) by the latter, may, by the shelps of the former, become worthy preachers.""moons 90 101 1517901010119 91One of his objections to academical education, as it was then conducted, is, that men designed It might be supposed, that he who read so for orders in the church were permitted to act much should d have done nothing else; but Milplays, writhing and unboning their clergy ton found time to write the mask of " of "Comus," limbs to all the antic and dishonest gestures of which was presented at Ludlow, then the reTrincalos, *buffoons, and bawds, prostituting sidence of the Lord President of Wales, in the shame of that ministry which they had, or 1634; and had the honour of being acted by the were near having, to the eyes of the courtiers Earl of Bridgewater's sons and daughter. The and court ladies, their grooms and mademoi-fiction is derived from Homer's Circe ;* but selles. od 1309'situe boob sa S 201400 --This is sufficiently peevish in a man who, when he mentions his exile from the college, relates, with great luxuriance, the compensation which the pleasures of the theatre afford him Plays were therefore only criminal when they were acted by academics.mos 8,210758 & Tu vaca zitHe went to the University with a design of entering into the church, but in time altered his mind go for he declared, that whoever became a clergyman must subscribe slave, and take an bath withal, which, unless he took with a conscience that could not retch, he must straight perjure himself. He thought it better to prefer a blameless silence before the office of speaking, 970367918! bts subg915 der pad ton VIDIĆ BOJLIV 9740 03 VOD 267 92gqing 2014 9 By the mention of this name, he evidently refers to Albemazor, acted at Cambridge in 1614. Igplays were performed at the was then ver very frequent. The last drama M dramatic performance at either University was The Grateful Fair" written by Christopher Smart, and represented at Pembroke College, Cambridges about 1747.R. bis told to red bom

noramus and same

e time practice was

It has, nevertheless, its foundation in reality. in the year 1634, had his residence at Ludlow Castle, The Earl of Bridgewater being President of Wales in Shropshire, at which time Lord Brackly and Mr. Egerton, his sons, and Lady Alice Egerton, his daughter, passing through a place called the Hay wood forest, or Haywood, in Herefordshire, were benighted, and the lady for a short time lost: this their accident being related to father, upon their arrival at his castle, Milton, at the request of his friend, Henry Lawes, who taught music in the fami1, wrote this mask. Lawes set it to music, and it

was acted on Michaelmas night; the two brothers,

the young lady, and Lawes himself bearing each a part in the representation.

The Lady Alice Egerton, became afterwards the wife of the Earl of Carbury, who, at his seat called Golden-grove, in Caermarthenshire, harboured Dr. Jeremy Taylor in the time of the usurpation. Among the Doctor's sermons is one on her death in which her character is finely portrayed. Her sister, Lady Mary, was given in marriage to Lord Herbert, of Cherbury. H 09ÍNEA PEw atmo es Notwithstanding Dr. Johnson's assertion, that the fiction is derived from Homer's Circe, it may be

we never can refuse to any modern the liberty boIt appears in all his writings that he had the of borrowing from Homer:

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nusual concomitant of great abilities, a lofty and steady confidence in himself, perhaps not without some contempt of others; for scarcely any man ever wrote so much, and praised so few. Of his praise he was very frugal; as he set its value high, and considered his mention of a

His next production was "Lycidas,ban elegy, written in 1637, on the death of Mr. King, the son of Sir John King,

Ireland in the time of Elizabeth, James for name as a security against the waste of time,

Charles.

9

and King was much a favourite at Cambridge, idge, and many of the wits joined to do honour to his memory. Milton's acquaintance with the Italian writers may be discovered by a mixture of longer and shorter verses, according to the rules of Tuscan poetry, and his malignity to the church, by some lines which are interpreted as d as threatening its extermination. 36 He is supposed about to his Arcades;" ten For, ú, he used sometimes to steal from his studies a few days, which he spent at Harefield, the house of the Countess Dowager of Derby, where the "Arcades" made part of a dramatic vti-1377 or tisl sd god entertainment.

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and a certain preservative from oblivion.vti1998 At Florence he could not, indeed, complain that his merit wanted distinction. Carlo Dati presented him with an encomiastic inscription, in the tumid lapidary style; and Francini wrote him an ode, of which the first stanza is only empty noise; the rest are perhaps too diffuse on common topics: but the last is natural and beautifulwozie ai bu

18 to 279126M

From Florence he went too Sienna, and from

Sienna to Rome, where he was again receive

9

with kindness by the learned and the great. Holstenius, the keeper of the Vatican Library, who had resided three years at Oxford, intros duced him to Cardinal Barberini: and he, at a musical entertainment, waited for him at the door, and led him by the hands into the asseme bly. Here Selvaggi praised him insa distich, and Salsili in a tetrastic; 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 grammarian) turn the balance indisputably in Milton's favour.dì ai 219b10 107,

but to have known that they were said non tam de se, quam supra sera sdt or „gnivæd. "69a 979w

He began now to grow of the c e country e country, and had some purpose taking chambers in the Inns of Court, when the death of his the for which mother set him liberty to travel, he obtained his father's consent, and Sir Henry Wotton's directions; with the celebrated precept of prudence, i i vensieri stretti, ed i il viso, sciolto; "thoughts close, lose, and looks loose.de oom In 1638 he left England, and went first to Of these Italian testimonies, poor as they are, Paris; where, by the favour of Lord Scuda- he was proud enough to publish them before his more, he had the opportunity of visiting Groti-poems; though he says, he cannot be susperteil us, then residing at the French court as ambassador from Christiana of Sweden. From Paris he hasted into Italy, of which he had with par ticular diligence studied the language and literature; and though he seems to have intended a very quick perambulation of the country, stayed two months at Florence; where he found his way into the academies, and produced his com positions with such applause as appears to have exalted him in his own opinion, and confirmed him in the hope, that, "by labour and intense study, which,” says I take to be my porwind tion in this life, joined with a strong propensity of nature," he might "leave something so written to aftertimes, as they should not willingly

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toAt Rome, as at Florence, he stayed only two months; a time indeed sufficient, if he desired only tos ramble with anyexplainer of its antiquities, or to view palaces and count pictures; but certainly too short for the contemplation of learning, policy, or manners.mas9lq sdt doidw

From Rome he passed on to Naples, in com pany 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 been before the patrons of Tasso, b 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 La tin poem, which must have raised a high opin❤ ion of English elegance and literature. His purpose was now to have visited Sicily but, hearing of the differences beKing and parliament, he thought it Proper to hasten home, rather than pass his life countrymen in foreign amusements while his c were contending for their rights. He therefore came back to Rome, though the merchants in formed him of plots laid against hims by the

the

conjectured,” that it was rather taken from the
Comus of Erycius Puteanus, in which, under the
Action of a dream, the characters of Comus and his and Greece;
attendants are delineated, and the delights of sensul tween
alists exposed and reprobated. This little tract was
published at Louvain in 1611, and afterwards at Ox
ford in 1634, the very year in which Milton's
drad to
Milton evidently was indebted to the Old Wives
Tale" of George Peele for the plan of “Comus.” R.

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"Comus" was written.-H.

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ism in a private boarding school. This 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

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 visiting Galileo, then a prisoner in the Inquisition for philosophical heresy; and at Naples he was told by Manso, that, by his declar-zeal for the propagation of learning and virtue ; ations 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 stayed two months more at Rome, and went on to Florence without moles-employment. tation.

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, he passed through France; and came home, after an absence of a year and three months.

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, entitled "Epitaphium Damonis," written with the common but childish imitation of pastoral life.

*

He now hired a lodging at the house of one Russel, a tailor 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.

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

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 Aldersgate-street by youth between ten and fifteen or sixteen years of age. Those who tell or receive these stories should consider, that nobody can be taught faster than he can learn. The speed of the horseman must be limited by the power of the 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 recal 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 Georgic and astronomical treatises of the ancients. This was a scheme of improvement which seems to have busied many literature projectors of that age. Cowley, who had more means than Milton of knowing what was 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 requires 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 ac

Let not our veneration for Milton forbid us to look with some degree of merriment on great promises and small performance, on the man who hastens home, because his countrymen are contending for their liberty, and, when he reach-quaintance with the history of mankind, and es the scene of action, vapours away his patriot

* This is inaccurately expressed: Philips, and Dr. Newton after him, say a garden-house, i. e. a house situated in a garden, and of which there were, especially in the north suburbs of London, very many, if Lot 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 Farnaby, the famous schoolmaster, of whom the author says, that he taught in Goldsmith's-rents, in Cripplegate parish, behind Redcross-street, 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 settle

ment in London.-H.

with those examples which may be said to em-
body truth, and prove by events the reasonable-
ness of opinions. Prudence and justice are vir-
tues and excellences of all times and of all places
we are perpetually moralists, but we are geom-
Our intercourse with
etricians only by chance.
intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations
upon matter are voluntary, and at leisure.
Physiological learning is of such rare emergence,
that one may know another half his life, with
out being able to estimate his skill in hydrostat-
tics or astronomy; but his moral and prudential
character immediately appears.

Those authors, therefore, are to be read at

sa ei ehfTdoodog gnibrood staving 6 ni prei
schools that supply most axioms of prudence,
most principles of moral truth, and most mate-
rials for conversation; and these purposes a are
best served by poets, orators, and historians.
Tet Let me not be censured for this digression as
pedantic or paradoxical; for, if I have Milton
against me, I have Socrates on
was
side. It was
my
his labour to turn philosophy from the study of
nature to speculations upon life; but the innova-
etors 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:

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to do good, and
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out
out of the University," he answers in general
terms. The fellows of the college wherein I
spent some
some years, at my parting, after Phad
taken two degrees, as the manner is, signified
9201 times
many how much better it would content
that I shouAs for the common
approbation or of that place as now it is,
should esteem or disesteem myself the
too simple is the answerer, if he
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
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2958 Me to bre est le to epitellanza bag Johnson did not here allude to Philips's "Th Thea-of her better health, and my younger judgment, trum Poetarum," as has been ignorantly supposed, I never greatly admired, but now much less." but (as he himself informed Mr. Malone) to another This biss surely the language of a man who work by the same author, entitled, "Tractatulus de thinks that he has been injured. He proceeds 97Carmine dramatis Poetarum Veterum præsertim in to describe the course of his conduct, and the 90 Choris tragicis et veteris Comoedias Cui subjungi- train of his thoughts; and, because he has been fitur compendiose enumeratio poetarum (saltem quo suspected of incontinence, gives an account of rum fame maxim emituit) qui a tempore Dantis Lei Atigini usquead hunc æta his own purity" that if I be &c be justly charged,” Claruerunt, says he, with this crime, it may come upon me with tenfold shame." to teore beobai orow The style of his piece is rough, and such per

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haps was that of his antagon st. This roughness he justifies by great examples in a long digression. Sometimes he 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 phthisical mottoes, wherever he had them, hopping short in the measure of convulsion fits; in which labour the agony of his wit having escaped narrowly, instead of well-sized periods, he greets us with a quantity of thumbring poesies. 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.

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. Powell, 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 Leigh, 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 alleged that letters miscarry; he therefore despatched 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 Judgment of Martin Bucer, concerning Divorce ;" and the next year, his Tetrachordon, "Expositions upon the four chief Places of Scripture which treat of Marriage."

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 called before the Lords; "but that House," says Wood, "whether approving 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 man turned solicitor. Howel, in his Letters, mentions the new doctrine with contempt;† and it was, I suppose, thought more worthy of derision than of confutation. He complains of this neglect in two sonnets, of which the first is contemptible, and the second

not excellent.

From this time it is observed, that he became an enemy to the presbyterians, whom he had favoured before. He that changes his party by his humour, is not more virtuous than he that changes it by his interest; he loves himself rather than truth.

His wife and her relations now found that Milton was not an unresisting sufferer of injuries; and perceiving that he had begun to put his doctrine in practice, by courting a young of one Doctor Davis, who was however not woman of great accomplishments, the daughter ready to comply, they resolved to endeavour a

re-union. He went sometimes to the house of
one Blackborough, his relation, in the lane of
St. Martin's le-Grand, and at one of his usual
visits was surprised to see his wife come from
another room, and implore forgiveness on her
knees. He resisted her intreaties for a while :
"but partly," says Philips, "his own generous
nature, more inclinable to reconciliation than to
perseverance in anger or revenge, and partly the
strong intercession of friends on both sides, soon
brought him to an act of oblivion and a firm
It were injurious to omit,
league of peace."
that Milton afterwards received her father and
her brothers in his own house, when they were
distressed, with other royalists.

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He published about the same time his Areopagitica, a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of unlicensed Printing. The danger of such unbounded liberty, and the danger of bounding it, have produced a problem in the science of government, which human understanding seems hitherto unable to solve. If nothing may be published but what civil authority shall have previously approved, power must always be the standard of truth: if every dreamer of innovations may propagate his projects, there can be

* It was animadverted upon, but without any men. tion of Milton's name, by Bishop Hall, in his Cases of Conscience Decaie, 4, Case 2.-J. B.

+He terms the author of it a shallow brain'd puppy; and thus refers to it in his index, "Of a noddy who wrote a book about winning."-J. B.

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