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that enabled him to afcend the fublimeft heights, both of genius and of virtue.

When Milton began his courfe of academical ftudy, he had views of foon entering the church, to "whofe fervice," he fays, " by the intentions of my

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parents and friends, I was deftined of a child, " and in mine own refolutions." It was a religious fcruple that prevented him from taking orders; and though his mode of thinking may be deemed erroneous, there is a refined and hallowed probity in his conduct on this occafion, that is entitled to the highest esteem; particularly when we confider, that although he declined the office of a minister, he devoted himself, with intense application, to what he confidered as the interest of true religion. The fincerity and fervour with which he fpeaks on this topic must be applauded by every candid perfon, however differing from him on points that relate to our religious establishment.

"For me (fays this zealous and disinterested ad"vocate for fimple christianity) I have determined "to lay up, as the best treasure and folace of a good old age, if God vouchsafe it me, the honest "liberty of free speech from my youth, where I "fhall think it available in fo dear a concernment

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as the church's good." In the polemical writings of Milton there is a merit to which few polemics can pretend; they were the pure dictates of confcience, and produced by the facrifice of his favourite purfuits: this he has ftated in the following very forcible and interesting language:

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"Concerning therefore this wayward subject "against prelaty, the touching whereof is fo diftafte"ful and difquietous to a number of men, as by "what hath been faid I may deferve of charitable "readers to be credited, that neither envy nor gall "hath entered me upon this controversy, but the "enforcement of confcience only, and a preventive "fear, left the omitting of this duty fhould be "against me, when I would store up to myself the "good provifion of peaceful hours: fo left it fhould "be ftill imputed to be, as I have found it hath "been, that some self pleasing humour of vain "glory has incited me to conteft with men of high "eftimation, now while green years are upon my "head; from this needless furmifal I fhall hope to "diffuade the intelligent and equal auditor, if I "can but fay fuccefsfully, that which in this

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exigent behoves me, although I would be heard, "only if it might be, by the elegant and learned "reader, to whom principally for a while I fhall beg leave I may addrefs myself: to him it will be no new thing, though I tell him, that if I hunted "after praise by the oftentation of wit and learn

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ing, I fhould not write thus out of mine own ❝season, when I have neither yet completed to my "mind the full circle of my private ftudies (al

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though I complain not of any infufficiency to the "matter in hand) or were I ready to my wishes, it 66 were a folly to commit any thing elaborately com"pofed to the careless and interrupted liftening of "these tumultuous times. Next, if I were wife "only to mine own ends, I would certainly take "fuch

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"fuch a fubject, as of itself might catch applaufe; "whereas this has all the disadvantages on the con"trary; and fuch a fubject, as the publishing "whereof might be delayed at pleasure, and time σε enough to pencil it over with all the curious "touches of art, even to the perfection of a fault"lefs picture; when, as in this argument, the not "deferring is of great moment to the good speed"ing, that if folidity have leifure to do her of"fice, art cannot have much. Laftly, I fhould "not chufe this manner of writing, wherein, knowing myself inferior to myself, led by the genial power of nature to another task, I have the ufe, "as I may account, but of my left hand:" Profe Works, vol. I. page 62.

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Such is the delineation that our author has given us of his own mind and motives in his treatise on Church Government, which the mention of his early defign to take orders has led me to anticipate.

Having paffed feven years in Cambridge, and taken his two degrees, that of batchelor, in 1628, and that of master, in 1632, he was admitted to the fame degrée at Oxford, in 1635. On quitting an academical life, he was, according to his own teftimony, regretted by the fellows of his college; but he regarded the houfe of his father as a retreat favourable to his literary pursuits, and, at the age twenty-four, he gladly fhared the rural retirement, in which his parents had recently fettled, at Horton, in Buckinghamshire: here he devoted himself, for five years, to ftudy, with that ardour and perfe

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verance, to which, as he fays himself, in a letter to his friend, Charles Diodati, his nature forcibly inclined him. The letter I am speaking of was written in the last year of his refidence under the roof of his father, and exhibits a lively picture of his progrefs in learning, his paffion for virtue, and his hope of renown.

"To give you an account of my ftudies," he fays, "I have brought down the affairs of the Greeks, in a continued courfe of reading, to the period in which they ceafed to be Greeks. I have long been engaged in the obfcurer parts of Italian history, under the Lombards, the Franks, and the Germans, to the time in which liberty was granted them by the emperor Rodolphus; from this point I think it beft to pursue in feparate histories, the exploits of each particular city *.'

He fhews himself, in this letter, moft paffionately attached to the Platonic philofophy: "As to other points, what God may have determined for me, I know not; but this I know, that if he ever inftilled. an intenfe love of moral beauty into the breaft of any man, he has inftilled it into mine: Ceres, in the fable, pursued not her daughter with a greater keenness of enquiry, than I, day and night, the idea of perfection. Hence, wherever I find a man def

De ftudiis etiam noftris fies certior, Græcorum res conti nuatâ lectione deduximus ufquequo illi Græci effe funt defiti: Italorum in obfcura e diu verfati fumus fub Longobardis et Francis et Germanis ad illud tempus quo illis ab Rodolpho Germaniæ rege conceffa libertas eft; exinde quid quæque civitas fuo marte gefferit, feparatim legere præftabit.

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pifing the false estimates of the vulgar, and daring to afpire, in fentiment, language, and conduct, to what the higheft wifdom, through every age, has taught us as most excellent, to him I unite myself by a fort of neceflary attachment; and if I am fo influenced by nature or deftiny, that by no exertion or labours of my own I may exalt myself to this fummit of worth and honour, yet no powers of heaven or earth will hinder me from looking with reverence and affection upon thofe, who have thoroughly attained this glory, or appear engaged in the fuccefsful purfuit of it.

"You enquire with a kind of folicitude, even into my thoughts.-Hear then, Diodati, but let me whilper in your ear, that I may not blush at my reply-I think (fo help me Heaven) of immortality. You enquire alfo, what I am about? I nurse my wings, and meditate a flight; but my Pegasus rises as yet on very tender pinions. Let us be humbly wife!*"

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*De cætero quidem quid de me ftatuerit Deus nefcio; illud certe, δεινόν μοι έρωτα, είπερ τω άλλω, το καλό ενέταξε : nec tanto Ceres labore, ut in fabulis eft, liberam fertur quæfiviffe filiam, quanto ego hanc re nahe der veluti pulcherrimam quandam imaginem, per omnes rerum formas et facies ; (πολλαι γας μορφαί των Action) dies noctefque indagare foleo, et quafi certis quibufdam veftigiis ducentem fector. Unde fit, ut qui, fpretis, quæ vulgus pravâ rerum æftimatione opinatur, id fentire, et loqui et effe audet, quod fumma per omne ævum fapientia optimum effe docuit, illi me protinus, ficubi reperiam, neceffitate quadam adjungam. Quod fi ego five naturâ, five meo fato ita fum comparatus, ut nullâ contentione, et laboribus meis ad tale decus et

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