"At my first fitting to read to him, observing that I used the English pronunciation, he told me, if I would have the benefit of the Latin tongue, not only to read and understand Latin authors, but to converse with foreigners, either abroad or at home, I must learn the foreign pronunciation; to this I confenting, he inftructed me how to found the vowels this change of pronunciation proved a new difficulty to me; but,

Labor omnia vincit

Improbus ;

And fo did I; which made my reading the more acceptable to my mafter. He, on the other hand, perceiving with what earnest defire I pursued learning, gave me not only all the encouragement, but all the help he could; for having a curious ear, he understood by my tone when I understood what I read, and when I did not, and accordingly would ftop me, examine me, and open the most difficult paffages to me."

The clearness and fimplicity of Ellwood's narrative brings us, as it were, into the company of Milton, and fhews, in a very agreeable point of view, the native courtesy and sweetness of a temper, that has been strangely mifreprefented as morose and auftere.

Johnson, with his accustomed afperity to Milton, discovers an inclination to cenfure him for his mode of teaching Latin to Ellwood; but Milton, who was inftructing an indigent young man, had pro

bably

bably very friendly reafons for wifhing him to acquire immediately the foreign pronunciation; and affuredly the patience, good nature, and fuccefs, with which he condefcended to teach this fingular attendant, do credit both to the difciple and the preceptor.

Declining health foon interrupted the ftudies of Ellwood, and obliged him to retire to the houfe of a friend and physician in the country. Here, after great fuffering from sickness, he revived, and returned again to London.

"I I was very kindly received by my mafter (continues the interesting quaker) who had conceived fo good an opinion of me, that my converfation, I found, was acceptable, and he feemed heartily glad my recovery and return, and into our old method of ftudy we fell again, I reading to him, and he explaining to me, as occafion required."

of

But learning (as poor Ellwood obferves) was almoft a forbidden fruit to him. His intercourfe with Milton was again interrupted by a second calamity; a party of foldiers rufhed into a meeting of quakers, that included this unfortunate fcholar, and he was hurried, with his friends, from prison to prison. Though ten-pence was all the money he poffeffed, his honeft pride prevented his applying to Milton for relief in this exigence, and he contrived to fupport himself by his industry, in confinement, with admirable fortitude,

Moderate profperity, however, visited at last this honeft and devout man, affording him an agreeable opportunity

opportunity of being useful to the great poet, who

An affluent quaker, who refided at Chalfont, in Buckinghamshire, fettled Ellwood in his family, to instruct his children, and in 1665, when the pestilence raged in London, Milton requested his friendly difciple to find a refuge for him in his neighbourhood.

"I took a pretty box for him," says this affectionate friend," in Giles Chalfont, a mile from me, of which I gave him notice, and intended to have waited on him, and feen him well settled in it, but was prevented by imprisonment."

This was a fecond captivity that the unfortunate young man had to fuftain; for in confequence of a recent and most iniquitous perfecution of the quakers, he was apprehended at the funeral of a friend, and confined in the gaol of Aylesbury.

"But being now releafed," continues Ellwood, "I foon made a visit to him, to welcome him into the country."

"After fome common difcourfes had passed be tween us, he called for a manufcript of his, which, being brought, he delivered to me, bidding me take it home with me, and read it at my leifure, and when I had fo done, return it to him, with my judgment thereupon.

A

"When I came home, and fet myself to read it, I found it was that excellent poem, which he entitled Paradife Loft.

"After I had, with the best attention, read it through, I made him another vifit, and returned

1

him his book, with due acknowledgment of the favour he had done me in communicating it to me. He asked me how I liked it, and what I thought of it? which I modeftly and freely told him; and, after fome farther difcourfe about it, I pleasantly faid to him, Thou haft faid much here of Paradise loft, but what hast thou to fay of Paradise found.' He made me no answer, but fat fome time in a mufe, then brake off that discourse, and fell upon another fubject.

"After the fickness was over, and the city well cleansed, and become safely habitable again, he returned thither; and when afterwards I went to wait on him there (which I seldom failed of doing, whenever my occafions led me to London) he fhewed me his fecond poem, called Paradise Regain'd, and in a pleasant tone faid to me, This is owing to you, for you put it into my head by the question you put to me at Chalfont, which before I had not thought of'."

The perfonal regard of this ingenious quaker for Milton, and his giving birth to a compofition of fuch magnitude and merit as Paradise Regain'd, entitle him to distinction in a life of his great poetical friend, and I have therefore rather tranfcribed than abridged his relation. My reader, I doubt not, will join with me in wishing that we had more sketches of the venerable bard, thus minutely delineated from the life, in the colours of fidelity and. affection.

The last of Milton's familiar letters in Latin relates to this period; it speaks with devotional gra

titude of the safe afylum from the plague, which he had found in the country; it speaks alfo with fo much feeling of his paft political adventures, and of the present inconvenience which he suffered from the lofs of fight, that I apprehend an entire tranflation of it can hardly fail of being acceptable to the English reader. It is dated from London, August 15, 1666, and addreffed to Heimbach, an accomplished German, who is ftiled counsellor to the elector of Brandenburgh. An expreffion in a former letter to the fame correfpondent seems to intimate, that this learned foreigner, who vifited England in his youth, had refided with Milton, perhaps in the character of a difciple-But here is the interefting letter:

*If among fo many funerals of my countrymen, in a year so full of peftilence and forrow, you

were

*Ornatiffimo Viro Petro Heimbachio,

Electoris Brandenburgici Confiliario.

Si inter tot funera popularium meorum, anno tam gravi ac peftilenti, abreptum me quoque, ut fcribis, ex rumore præfertim aliquo credidifti, mirum non eft; atque ille rumor apud veftros, ut videtur, homines, fi ex eo quod de falute meo foliciti effent, increbuit, non difplicet; indicium enim fuæ erga me benevolentiæ fuiffe exiftimo. Sed Dei benignitate, qui tutum mihi receptum in agris paraverat, et vivo adhuc et valeo; utinam ne inutilis, quicquid muneris in hac vita reftat mihi peragendum. Tibi vero tam longo intervallo veniffe in mentem mei, pergratum eft; quamquam prout rem verbis exornas, præbere aliquem fufpicionem videris, oblitum mei te potius effe, qui tot virtutum diverfarum conjugium in me, ut fcribis, admirere. Ego certe ex tot conjugiis numerofam nimis prolem expavefcerem, nifi

conftaret