taking the true road to liberty, and might proceed with the utmost rectitude from these beginnings to deliver human life from all base subjection, if their difcipline, drawing its fource from religion, proceeded to morals and political inftitutions; as I had been trained from my youth to the particular knowledge of what belonged to divine, and what to human jurifdiction; and as I thought I fhould deferve to forfeit the power of being useful to mankind, if I now failed to affift my country and the church, and fo many brethren, who for the fake of the gospel were exposing themselves to peril, I refolved, though my thoughts had been pre-engaged by other defigns, to transfer to this object all my talents and all my application: first, therefore, I wrote of reformation in England two books addreffed to a friend; afterwards, when two bishops of eminence had afferted their caufe against the leading minifters of the oppofite party, as I conceived that I could argue, from a love of truth and a sense of chriftian duty, not lefs forcibly than my antagonifts, (who contended for lucre and their own unjust dominion) I answered one of them in two books with the following titles, Of Prelatical Epifcopacy, Of Church Government; and the other, first in Andmadverfions upon the Remonftrants Defence

tendebant, ad hunc libris duobus, quorum unus De Epifcopatu Prælatico, alter De Ratione Disciplinæ Ecclefiafticæ, infcribitur, ad illum fcriptis quibufdam animadverfionibus, & mox Apologia refpondi, et miniftris facundiam hominis, ut ferebatur ægre fuf tinentibus, fuppetias tuli, & ab eo tempore fi quid poftea refponderent, interfui.

against

against Smectymnuus, and fecondly, in my Apology. As the ministers were thought hardly equal to their opponent in eloquence, I lent them my aid, and from that time, if they made any farther reply, I was a party concerned."

I have inferted this paffage at full length, because it gives us a clear infight into the motives of Milton on his firft engaging in controverfy, and difcovers the high opinion which he entertained, both of the christian purity and the argumentative powers of his own cultivated mind: the two bishops to whom he alludes were, Hall bishop of Norwich, famous as our first satirift, and the learned Ufher, primate of Ireland. Hall published, in 1640, " An humble Remonftrance to the High Court of Parliament in Behalf of Epifcopacy"-an answer to this appeared written by fix minifters, under the title of Smectymnuus, a word cafually formed from the initial letters of their respective names. This little band of religious writers included Thomas Young, the beloved preceptor of Milton; fo that perfonal attachment conspired with public enthufiafm to make our author vehement in his reply.to the two bishops, who failed not to encounter the confederate antagonists of their order. He probably recollected the sufferings of his favourite inftructor, when he exclaimed in his treatise of reformation, "What numbers of faithful and free born Englishmen and good chriftians have been conftrained to forfake their dearest home, their friends and kindred, whom nothing but the wide ocean, or

the

the favage deserts of America, could hide and shelter from the fury of the bishops."

However furious the perfecution might be, which excited antipathy and abhorrence in Milton against the order of bishops, it must be confeffed that he frequently speaks with that intemperance of zeal, which defeats its own purpose. There are some paffages in his controverfial writings, that must be read with concern by his most paffionate admirers; yet even the gloom and feverity of these are compenfated by fuch occafional flashes of ardent fancy, of found argument, and of fublime devotion, as may extort commendation even from readers who love not the author.

In his first Ecclefiaftical Treatife of Reformation, he makes the following very folemn appeal to heaven on his integrity as a writer : "And here withal I "invoke the immortal deity, revealer and judge of "fecrets, that wherever I have in this book plainly "and roundly, though worthily and truly, laid ડ open the faults and blemishes of fathers, mar

'

tyrs, or chriftian emperors, or have otherways

inveighed against error and superstition with ve"hement expreffions, I have done it neither out of "malice, nor lift to speak evil, nor any vain glory, "but of mere neceffity, to vindicate the spotless "truth from an ignominious bondage."

Towards the close of this performance he gives a distant mysterious hint of his great and unsettled poetical defigns, with a very ftriking mixture of moral, political, and religious enthusiasm.

"Then,

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"Then, amidst the hymns and hallelujahs of faints, fome one may, perhaps, be heard offering "at high ftrains, in new and lofty measures, to fing "and celebrate thy divine mercies and marvellous judgments in this land throughout all ages."

In his fubfequent work, on the Reason of Church Government, he gratifies us with a more enlarged view of his literary projects, not yet moulded into form, but, like the unarranged elements of creation, now floating at large in his capacious mind.

I transcribe the long paffage alluded to, because it illuftrates the mental character of Milton, with a mild energy, a folemn fplendor of fentiment and expreffion peculiar to himself.

"Time ferves not now, and, perhaps, I might "feem too profufe to give any certain account of "what the mind at home, in the fpacious circuits "of her mufing, hath liberty to propose to herself, "though of highest hope and hardeft attempting; "whether that epic form, whereof the two poems "of Homer, and those other two of Virgil and "Taffo, are a diffuse, and the book of Job a brief, "model; or whether the rules of Ariftotle herein

are ftrictly to be kept, or nature to be followed; "which in them that know art, and ufe judgment, "is no tranfgreffion, but an enriching of art: and laftly, what king or knight, before the Conqueft,

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might be chofen, in whom to lay the pattern of a "christian hero. And as Taffo gave to a prince of Italy his choice, whether he would command him "to write of Godfrey's expedition against the in"fidels, Belifarius against the' Goths, or Charle

"main against the Lombards; if to the inftinct of nature, and the emboldening of art aught may be "trufted, and that there be nothing adverse in our

climate, or the fate of this age, it haply would be "no rafhness, from an equal diligence and inclina"tion, to present the like offer in our antient "ftories. Or whether thofe dramatic conftituti

ons, wherein Sophocles and Euripides reign, shall "be found more doctrinal and exemplary to a na "tion-Or, if occafion fhall lead, to imitate those

magnific odes and hymns, wherein Pindarus and "Callimachus are in moft things worthy. But "those frequent fongs throughout the law and pro"phets, beyond all thefe, not in their divine argu"ment alone, but in the very critical art of com"pofition, may be easily made appear over all the "kinds of lyric poefy to be incomparable. Thefe "abilities, wherefoever they be found, are the in"fpired gift of God, rarely bestowed, but yet to "fome (though most abuse) in every nation; and

are of power, befides the office of a pulpit, to in"breed and cherish in a great people the feeds of "virtue and public civility, to allay the perturba❝tions of the mind, and set the affections in right

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tune; to celebrate in glorious and lofty hymns the "throne and equipage of God's almightinefs, and "what he works, and what he fuffers to be wrought "with high providence in his church; to fing "victorious agonies of martyrs and faints, the deeds "and triumphs of juft and pious nations doing va"liantly through faith against the enemies of "Chrift; to deplore the general relapfes of king"doms

F