"Concerning therefore this wayward subject against prelaty, the touching whereof is so distasteful and difquietous to a number of men, as by what hath been said I may "deferve of charitable readers to be credited, that neither

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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 should be still imputed to be, as I have “found it hath been, that some self pleafing humour of vain glory has incited me to conteft with men of high estima“tion, now while green years are upon my head; from this “ needless surmifal I fhall hope to diffuade the intelligent “and equal auditor, if I can but fay fuccefsfully, that " which in this 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 shall beg leave I

may address myfelf: to him it will be no new thing, “ though I tell him, that if I hunted after praise by the "oftentation of wit and learning, 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 (although I complain not of any infufficiency to the mat"ter in hand) or were I ready to my wifhes, it were a folly "to commit any thing elaborately composed to the careless “ and interrupted listening of these tumultuous times. Next, "if I were wife only to my own ends, I would certainly "take such a subject, as of itself might catch applause ; “whereas this has all the disadvantages on the contrary;

" and

“ and such a subject, as the publishing whereof might be "delayed at pleasure, and time enough to pencil it over with "all the curious touches of art, even to the perfection of a faultless picture; when, as in this argument, the not de“ ferring is of great moment to the good speeding, that if “ solidity have leisure to do her office, art cannot have much. Laftly, I should not chuse this manner of writing, wherein, knowing myself inferior to myself, led by the genial power "of nature to another task, I have the use, as I may account, "but of my left hand.” left hand." Profe Works, vol. I. page 62.

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 design 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 degree 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 house of his father as a retreat favourable to his literary purfuits, and, at the age of twentyfour, he gladly shared the rural retirement, in which his parents had recently settled, at Horton, in Buckinghamshire : here he devoted himself, for five years, to ftudy, with that ardour and perseverance, to which, as he says 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, E and

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 says, "I have brought down the affairs of the Greeks, in a continued course of reading, to the period in which they ceased 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 separate 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 instilled an intense love of moral beauty into the breast of any man, he has instilled 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 defpifing the false estimates of the vulgar, and daring to aspire, in fentiment, language, and conduct, to what the highest wisdom, through every age, has taught us as most excellent, to him I unite myself by a fort of neceffary attachment; and if I am so influenced by nature or destiny, 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 tho

De ftudiis etiam noftris fies certior, Græcorum res continuatâ lectione deduximus ufquequo illi Græci effe funt defiti: Italorum in oufcura re diu verfati fumus fub Longobardis

et Francis et Germanis ad illud tempus que illis ab Rodolpho Germaniæ rege conceffa libertas eft; exinde quid quæque civitas fuo marte gefferit, feparatim legere præstabit.

roughly

roughly attained this glory, or appear engaged in the fuc→ cessful purfuit of it.

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

This ́very interesting epistle, in which Milton pours forth his heart to the favourite friend of his youth, may convince every candid reader, that he poffeffed, in no common degree, two qualities very rarely united, ambitious ardour of mind and unaffected modefty. The poet, who fpeaks with fuch graceful humility of his literary atchievements, had at this time written Comus, a compofition that abundantly displays the variety and compass of his poetical powers. After he had delineated, with equal excellence, the frolics

* De cætero quidem quid de me statuerit Deus nefcio ; illud certe, δεινόν μοι έρωτα, είπερ • τω αλλως τε καλε ενέταξε : nec tanto Ceres labore, ut in fabulis eft, liberam fertur quæfiviffe filiam, quanto ego hanc re nane idexv veluti pulcherrimam quandam imaginem, per omnes rerum formas et facies; (monλai yag μορφαι των Δαιμονιων) dies noftefque indagare foleo, et quafi certis quibufdam veftigiis ducentem sector. Unde fit, ut qui, fpretis, quæ vulgus pravá 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 faftigium laudis ipfe valeam emergere, ta men quo minus qui eam gloriam affecuti funt, aut eo feliciter afpirant, illos femper colam et fufpiciam, nec dii puto nec homines prohibuerint. Multa folicite quæris, etiam quid cogitem. Audi, Theodate, verum in aurem ut ne rubeam, et finito paulifper apud te grandia loquar: quid cogitem quæris? Ita me bonus deus, immortalitatem quid agam vero? popuw, et volare meditor: fed tenellis admodum adhuc pennis-evehit fe nofter Pegafus humile fapiamus.

of gaiety and the triumphs of virtue, paffing with exquifite transition from the most sportive to the fublimeft tones of poetry, he might have spoken more confidently of his own productions without a particle of arrogance.

We know not exactly what poems he compofed during his refidence at Horton. The Arcades feems to have been one of his early compofitions, and it was intended as a compliment to his fair neighbour, the accomplished Countess Dowager of Derby; she was the fixth daughter of Sir John Spencer, and allied to Spencer the poet, who, with his usual modesty and tenderness, has celebrated her under the title of Amarillis. At the house of this lady, near Uxbridge, Milton is faid to have been a frequent vifitor. The Earl of Bridgewater, before whom, and by whofe children, Comus was represented, had married a daughter of Ferdinando Earl of Derby, and thus, as Mr. Warton obferves, it was for the fame family that Milton wrote both the Arcades and Comus. It is probable that the pleasure, which the Arcades afforded to the young relations of the Countefs, gave rise to Comus, as Lawes, the mufical friend of Milton, in dedicating the mask to the young Lord Brackley, her grandson, fays, "this poem, which received its firft occafion of birth from yourself and others of your noble family, and much honour from your own perfon in the performance."

Thefe expreffions of Lawes allude, perhaps, to the real incident, which is faid to have supplied the subject of Comus, and may seem to confirm an anecdote related by Mr. Warton, from a manuscript of Oldys; that the young and noble performers in this celebrated drama were really involved in