tive party', and brought Mountague, whose reputation as a logomachist and a scholar stood equally high', an ardent combatant into the arena. The pedantry and controversial character of the writings of the time will both be found to receive some illustration in the following brief extracts:— "These are your flourishes and præludia. Hitherto your Rorarii have played to entertain the Reader with some slight skirmishes a little before the bickering; now, at the last, res deducta est ad Triarios, the signall is given them in the reere to arise and doe their devoyre3." Again, with reference to the supposed sanctity of the number ten, he says*: "It may be questioned why David, being to combat with Goliah, chose five smooth stones out of the river. Why a letter was added to Abraham's name? and wherefore another was taken from Sara's? Why Abraham, at his interview with God, beginneth with fiftie and goeth down unto, but no further then, Ten? Many such curiosities may be questioned and enquired after; but you phillip off Antiquitie with disdaine; not alone by underhand injurie (as if that Sinke of Sinne, the Gnosticks, or their accursed branches, κακοῦ κόρακος κακὸν ὦον, an accursed Egge of an accursed Bird, the Marcosian and Colarbasian Blasphemers, had bin no other in your opinion than the approved doctors of the primitive times) but with open mouth and disvizored face, you in expresse terms have, as Eusebius writeth of Marcellus of Ancyra, without cause and very 1 This feeling was not uncommon at the period, and was shared by many eminent men of a far from controversial spirit. Jebb, in his Life of Nicholas Ferrar, speaks of commutation as one of those wicked compositions that are now so frequent." p. 270. 2 "Very sharp the nib of his pen and much gall in his ink, against those who opposed him," was Fuller's dictum respecting our author. 3 Mountague's Diatriba (edit. of 1621), p. 284. 4 Ibid. p. 261. idly (out of, not fierie Zeale, but puffed Vanitie) vented despight against the servants of God, and those none of the ordinary ones neyther, but such as were of chief renowne in the church, and well reputed of by all, for goodly life and conversation." Possibly the reader will feel less concern at Selden's levity in "phillipping" off antiquity, when he hears how antiquity was sometimes dragged into the argument. "Thirdly it was Hercules who first of all taught the people of that country so to honour God, and first of all established that Religious Dutie, both by practice and precept in Evander's time. For, Amphitryoniades qua tempestate juvencos returning with the conquered spoil of Geryon, out of Spaine into Italy, unto Evander his ancient Oast, Ovel Toîs Deoîs τῶν λαφύρων τὴν δεκάτην, offered the Tenth part (according to the ancient custom of Greece) of the spoyles unto the gods, sayth Halicarnassus. Which being Xápupa, spoyles, in regard of Geryon, from whom he had taken them in Spaine, were in his owne intent xapioτnpia, offerings of thanksgiving, for the restoring of his goods and cattell, diminished by the theft of Cacus, who had taken away part of his Oxen. Then, at that time, Inventori Patri Aram dedicavit. And upon that Ara called Maxima, sacrificed the Tenth of his cattell, by way of thanksgiving, Eidem Inventori Patri1." 1 Mountague's Diatriba (edit. of 1621), p. 433. CHAPTER III (continued). INFLUENCE OF CAMBRIDGE STUDIES DISCERNIBLE IN THE CENTURY. Influences on character. Milton. PART II. Influence on Character and Thought. FROM those more superficial traits which we have noted, let us proceed to those deeper influences to be recognized in character and in thought. And here it is necessary at the outset to bear in mind, that arguments founded on any inferences thus drawn require to be very clearly and decisively substantiated. With reference to minds of a peculiarly subjective character, it is, indeed, often impossible to assert the effects of circumstances, which it would be only reasonable to suppose would materially influence those of a less self-sustained order. In the case of Milton, for instance, beyond the culture of his classical taste, there is little reason for supposing that Cambridge did much towards moulding his character, or, if so, it would appear to be quite as much by the development of antagonistic as of sympathetic feelings. Facts would seem to indicate that his differences with the college authorities, his native independence of spirit, his Puritan sympathies, and his noble scorn of the frivolities and vice which prevailed around him, combined to produce rather a spirit of antagonism CHAP. III.] INFLUENCE OF CAMBRIDGE STUDIES. 77 towards than of acquiescence in the training he underwent1. "His soul was like a star and dwelt apart," not only in the time of his old age and his blindness, but also in the purity and self-reliance of his youth. Hear, for instance, how in his twenty-third year, he could discourse of temperance and study, amid those who had known his life and habits as their associate and fellow-student for some seven years; the lady in Comus speaks not in words more wise or more chaste : "If, by living modestly and temperately, we choose rather to tame the first impulses of fierce youth by reason and persevering constancy in study, preserving the heavenly vigour of the mind, pure and untouched from all contagion and stain, it would be incredible, my hearers, to us looking back after a few years, what a space we should seem to have traversed, what a huge sea of learning to have over-navigated with placid voyage.... If from boyhood we allow no day to pass without its lessons and diligent study, if in art we wisely omit what is foreign, superfluous, useless, certainly, within the age of Alexander the Great, we shall have made a greater and more glorious conquest than that of the globe; and so far shall we be from accusing the brevity of life, or the fatigue of knowledge, that I believe we should be readier, like him of old, 1 His lines to his friend Diodati, written from London during the second year of his Cambridge course, are familiar to most readers : "Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum, Nec dudum vetiti me laris angit amor." In the same letter he speaks of the "hoarse murmur of the schools." He can no longer endure "duri minas perferre magistri Cæteraque ingenio non subeunda meo. to weep and sob that there remained no more worlds for us to triumph over1." There is, again, not the slightest evidence, that his intercourse with his tutor ever assumed that confidential and intimate character observable in the case of students like Nicholas Ferrar, D'Ewes, and Matthew Robinson; on the contrary, there is reason to suppose that the religious influences to which they were, in this relation, subjected, were no part of the experience of John Milton, and consequently that we miss the effects of certain associations, to the importance of which we have already adverted. Throughout the whole range of his writings, we have sought in vain for a single passage which would seem to imply that his lofty nature ever condescended to acknowledge that it owed any great debt of gratitude to the nurture which it had received amid the routine of college discipline and the influences of academic life. However reluctantly, it would seem, therefore, that we must forego that thrill of pride with which we should delight to trace, in the productions of the genius of John Milton, the fostering and guiding influence of his university career. Let it suffice us that we can yet point to his name upon the roll, that he walked our streets, wore our garb, and pursued our studies, and bequeathed to these, the scenes of his pure early manhood and his most ardent aspirations, a reputation greater than they could confer2. 1 College Exercises, No. VII. delivered in College Chapel, 1631. (From Masson's Life, p. 272.) 2 For a very just criticism on the rare type of Milton's genius, we may refer the reader to Mr Masson's work, p. 281. It will, of course, be understood that we in no way wish to undervalue the undoubted effects of his classical studies on his writings. But as a classical student he appears again to have been superior even to his University. "He was," says Mr Hallam, "perhaps the first writer who eminently possessed a genuine discernment and feeling of antiquity.” Milton's estimate of the system of classical education in his time was |