Many of his Elegies appear to have been written in his eighteenth year, by which it appears that he had then read the Roman authors with very nice difcernment. I once heard Mr. Hampton, the tranflator of Polybius, remark what I think is true, that Milton was the first Englishman who, after the revival of letters, wrote Latin verses with claffick elegance. If any exceptions can be made, they are very few: Haddon and Aseham, the pride of Elizabeth's reign, however they may have fucceeded in profe, no fooner attempt verses than they provoke derifion. If we produced any thing worthy of notice before the elegies of Milton, it was perhaps Alabafter's Roxana.

Of the exercises which the rules of the Univerfity required, fome were published by him in his maturer years. They had been undoubtedly applauded; for they were fuch as few can perform: yet there is reason to fufpect that he was regarded in his college with no great fondness. That he obtained no fellowship is certain; but the unkindness with which he was treated was not merely VOL. I. K negative.

negative. I am afhamed to relate what I fear is true, that Milton was the laft ftudent in either university that fuffered the publick indignity of corporal correction.

It was, in the violence of controverfial hoftility, objected to him, that he was expelled this he steadily denies, and it was apparently not true; but it seems plain from his own verses to Diodati, that he had incurred Ruftication; a temporary dismission into the country, with perhaps the lofs of a

term:

Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revifere Camum,
Nee dudum vetiti me laris angit amor;
Nec duri libet ufque minas perferre magiftri,
Cæteraque ingenio non fubeunda meo.

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I cannot find any meaning but this, which even kindness and reverence can give to the term, vetiti laris, " a habitation from which "he is excluded;" or how exile can be otherwife interpreted. He declares yet more, that he is weary of enduring the threats of a rigorous mafter, and fomething else, which a temper like his cannot undergo. What was more than threat was evidently punishment. This poem,

which mentions his exile, proves likewife that it was not perpetual; for it concludes with a refolution of returning fome time to Cambridge.

He took both the ufual degrees; that of Batchelor in 1628, and that of Mafter in 1632; but he left the univerfity with no kindness for its inftitution, alienated either by the injudicious feverity of his governors, or his own captious perverfeness. ́The cause cannot now be known, but the effect appears in his writings. His fcheme of education, inscribed to Hartlib, fuperfedes all academical instruction, being intended to comprise the whole time which men ufually spend in literature, from their entrance upon grammar, till they proceeds as it is called, mafters of arts." And in his Difcourfe on the likelieft Way to remove Hirelings out of the Church, he ingenioufly propofes, that the profits of the lands forfeited by the act for fuperftitious uses, should be applied to fuch academies all over the land, where languages and arts may be taught toge ther; so that youth may be at once brought up to a competency of learning and an honest trade; by which means fuch of them as had the gift,

being enabled to fupport themselves (without tithes) by the latter, may, by the help of the former, become worthy preachers.

One of his objections to academical education, as it was then conducted, is, that men defigned for orders in the Church were permitted to act plays, writhing and unboning their clergy limbs to all the antick and dishonest geftures of Trincalos, buffoons and bawds, proflituting the fhame of that miniftry which they had, or were near having, to the eyes of courtiers and court-ladies, their grooms and mademoifelles..

This is fufficiently peevish in a man, who, when he mentions his exile from the college, relates, with great luxuriance, the compenfation which the pleasures of the theatre afford him. Plays were therefore only criminal when they were acted by academicks.

He went to the univerfity with a design of entering into the church, but in time altered his mind; for he declared, that whoever became a clergyman muft" fubfcribe flave, and "take an oath withal, which, unless he took

2

" with

"with a confcience that could retch, he must

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ftraight perjure himself. He thought it "better to prefer a blameless filence before "the office of speaking, bought and begun "with fervitude and forfwearing."

Thefe expreffions 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 feem to thwart his opinions; but the thoughts of obedience, whether canonical or civil, raised his indignation.

His unwillingness to engage in the ministry, perhaps not yet advanced to a settled refolution of declining it, appears in a letter to one of his friends, who had reproved his suspended and dilatory life, which he seems to have imputed to an infatiable curiofity, and fantastick luxury of various knowledge. To this he writes a cool and plaufible answer, in which he endeavours to perfuade him that the delay proceeds not from the delights of defultory study, but from the defire of obtaining more fitness for his task; and that he