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fixteenth year, to Chrift's College in Cambridge, where he entered a fizar, Feb. 12, 1624.

He was at this time eminently skilled in the Latin tongue; and he himself, by annexing the dates to his first compofitions, a boaft of which the learned Politian had given him an example, feems to commend the earliness of his own proficiency to the notice of pofterity. But the products of his vernal fertility have been furpaffed by many, and particularly by his contemporary Cowley. Of the powers of the mind it is difficult to form an eftimate: many have excelled Milton in their first effays, who never rofe to works like Paradife Loft.

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At fifteen, a date which he uses till he is fixteen, he tranflated or verfified two Pfalms, 114 and 136, which he thought worthy of the publick eye; but they raise no great expectations: they would in any numerous school have obtained praife, but not excited wonder.

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 verfes with claffick elegance. If any exceptions can be made, they are very few : Haddon and Afcham, the pride of Elizabeth's reign, however they may have fucceeded in profe, no fooner attempt verfes than they provoke derifion. If we produced any thing worthy of notice before the elegies of Milton, it was perhaps Alabafter's Roxana.

Of these exercises which the rules of the University required, fome were published by him in his maturer years. They had been undoubtedly applauded; for

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they were fuch as few can perform: yet there is reason to suspect 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 negative. I am afhamed to relate what I fear is true, that Milton was one of the laft ftudents in either univerfity that fuffered the publick indignity of corporal correction.

It was, in the violence of controversial hoftility, objected to him, that he was expelled; this he fteadily denies, and it was apparently not true; but it feems plain from his own verfes to Diodati, that he had incurred Ruftication; a temporary difmiffion into the country, with perhaps the lofs of a term:

Me tenet urbs refluâ quam Thamefis alluit undâ,
Meque nec invitum patria dulcis habet.
Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revifere Camum,
Nec dudum vetiti me laris angit amor.-
Nec duri libet ufque minas perferre magiftri,
Cæteraque ingenio non fubeunda meo.
Si fit hoc exilium patrias adiiffe penates,
Et vacuum curis oția grata fequi,
Non ego vel profugi nomen fortemve recufo,
Lætus et exilii conditione fruor,

I cannot find any meaning but this, which even kind nefs and reverence can give to the term, vetiti laris, "a habitation from which he is excluded;" or how exile can be otherwise interpreted. He declares yet more, that he is weary of enduring the threats of a rigorous mafter, and fomething else, which a temper like bis cannot undergo. What was more than threat was probably punishment. This poem, which mentions his exile, proves likewise that it was not perpetual; for it

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concludes with a refolution of returning fome time to Cambridge. And it may be conjectured from the willingnefs with which he has perpetuated the memory of his exile, that its caufe was fuch as gave him no fhame.

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 institution, alienated either by the injudicious feverity of his governors, or his own captious perverfenefs. The caufe cannot now be known, but the effect appears in his writings. His scheme of education, infcribed to Hartlib, fuperfedes all academical inftruction, being intended to comprife the whole time which men ufually fpend in literature, from their entrance upon grammar, till they proceed, as it is called, mafters of arts. And in his Difcourfe on the likeliest Way to remove Hirelings out of the Church, he ingeniously propofes, that the profits of the lands forfeited by the act for fuperftitious afes, fhould be applied to fuch academies all over the land, where languages and arts may be taught together; fo 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 difho neft geftures of Trincales, buffoons and bawds, prostituting the fhame of that miniftry which they bad, or were near baving, to the eyes of courtiers and courtladies, their grooms and mademoifelles*.

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This paffage, it may be fuppofed, was a cenfure of the practice of acting plays in the univerfities, of which the instances are many.

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 university with a defign of entering into the church, but in time altered his mind; for he declared, that whoever became a clergyman must ❝ fub"fcribe flave, and take an oath withal, which, unless " he took with a confcience that could retch, he muft "ftraight perjure himself. He thought it better to prefer a blameless filence before the office of speak"ing, bought and begun with fervitude and for"fwearing."

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Thefe expreffions are, I find, applied to the fubfcription of the Articles; but it feems 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, raifed his indignation.

His unwillingness to engage in the ministry, perhaps not yet advanced to a fettled refolution of declining it, appears in a letter to one of his friends, who had reproved his fufpended and dilatory life, which he feems to have imputed to an infatiable curiofity, and fantastick luxury of various knowledge. To this he writes a cool In 1566 was reprefented before queen Elizabeth in the hall of Christ church college, Oxford, by the fcholars thereof, the comedy of Palemon and Arcite, written by Richard Edwards, master of the royal chapel children; and afterwards, before king James 1. at Trinity college, Cambridge, the comedy of Ignoramus. And later than that, viz. in 1636, was acted before the king and queen, in the hall of St. John's in Oxford, a play entitled Love's Hospital, by the fcholars of that college.

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and plaufible anfwer, 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 tafk; and that he goes on, not taking thought of being late, so it give advantage to be more fit.

When he left the univerfity, he returned to his father, then refiding at Horton in Buckinghamshire, with whom he lived five years; in which time he is faid to have read all the Greek and Latin writers. With what limitations this univerfality is to be understood, who fhall inform us ?

It might be fuppofed that he who read fo much should have done nothing elfe; but Milton found time to write the Mafque of Comus, which was prefented at Ludlow, then the refidence of the Lord Prefident of Wales, in 1634; and had the honour of being acted by the Earl of Bridgewater's fons and daughter. The fiction is derived from Homer's Circe; but we never

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It has nevertheless its foundation in reality. The earl of Bridgewater being prefident of Wales in the year 1634, had his refidence at Ludlow castle in Shropfhire, at which time lord Brackly and Mr. Egerton his fons, and lady Alice Egerton his daughter, paffing through a place called the Hay-wood foreft, or Haywood in Herefordshire, were benighted, and the lady for a fhort time loft: this accident being related to their father upon their arrival at his caftle, Milton, at the request of his friend Henry Lawes who taught mufic in the family, wrote this mafque. Lawes fet it to music, and it was acted on Michaelmas night; the two brothers, the young lady, and Lawes himfelf, bearing each a part in the reprefentation.

The lady Alice Egerton became afterwards the wife of the earl of Carbury, who at his feat called Golden-grove, in Caermarthenshire, harbored Dr. Jeremy Taylor in the time of the Ufurpation. Among the doctor's fermons is one on her death, in which her character is finely pourtrayed. Her fitter, lady Mary, was given in marriage to lord Herbert of Cherbury.

VOL. II.

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