"certainly take such a subject, as of itself might "catch applaufe; whereas this has all the difadvantages on the contrary; and fuch a fubject, 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 faultlefs picture; when

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as in this argument, the not deferring is of great moment to the good speeding, that if fo"lidity have leifure to do her office, 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 tafk, I have the ufe, as I may account, but of my left hand." Prose 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 design to take orders has led me to anticipate.

Having passed seven years in Cambridge, and taken his two degrees, that of bachelor, 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 favorable to his literary pursuits, and, at the age of 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 ardor

and perfeverance, 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 progress in learning, his pasfion 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 courfe of reading, to the period in which they ceafed to be Greeks. I have long

been engaged in the obfcurer parts of Italian hiftory, under the Lombards, the Franks, and the Germans, to the time in which liberty was grant ed them by the emperor Rodolphus; from this point I think it beft to pursue, in feparate hiftories, the exploits of each particular city *."

He shows 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 breast of any man, he has inftilled it into mine: Ceres, in the fable, pursued not her daughter with a greater keenness of inquiry, than I, day and night, the idea of perfection. Hence, wherever

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

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 moft 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 labors of my own I may exalt myself to this fummit of worth and honor, 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 pursuit of it.

"You inquire, 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 inquire also, what I am about? I nurse my wings, and meditate a flight; but my Pegasus rifes as yet on very tender pinions. Let us be humbly wife!"

* De cætero quidem quid de me ftatuerit Deus nefcio; illud certe, δεινόν μοι ερωτα, είπερ τω αλλω, το καλο ενες αξε; nec tanto Ceres labore, ut in fabulis eft, liberam fertur quæfiviffe filiam, quanto ego hanc т8 xaλ8 day veluti pulcherrimam quandam imaginem, per omnes rerum formas & facies; (oλλar jag μogçal TWV Darμovswv) dies noctefque indagare foleo, & quafi certis quibufdam veftigiis ducentem fector. Unde fit, ut qui, fpretis, quæ vulgus prava rerum æftimatione opinatur, id fentire, & loqui &e ffe audet, quod fumma per omne ævum fapientia optimum effe docuit, illi me protinus, ficubi reperiam, neceffitate quadam adjungam. Quod fi ego five natura, five meo fato ita

This very interefting epiftle, in which Milton pours forth his heart to the favorite friend of his youth, may convince every candid reader, that he poffeffed, in no common degree, two qualities very rarely united, ambitious ardor of mind and unaffected modefty. modefty. The poet, who speaks with such graceful humility of his literary achievements, 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 of gaiety and [the triumphs of virtue, paffing with exquifite tranfition from the most fportive to the fublimeft tones of poetry, he might have spoken more confidently of his own productions without a particle of arrogance.

We know not exacly what poems he compoïed 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 fum comparatus, ut nulla contentione, & laboribus meis ad tale decus & faftigium laudis ipfe valeam emergere, tamen quo minus qui eam gloriam affecuti funt, aut eo feliciter aspirant, illos femper colam & fufpiciam, nec dii puto nec homines prohibuerint. Multa folicite quæris, etiam quid cogitem. Audi, Theodate, verum in aurem ut ne rubeam, & finito paulifper apud te grandia loquar: quid cogitem quæris? Ita me bonus deus, immortalitatem quid agam vero? egoque, & volarmeditor: fed tenellis admodum adhuc pennis evehit fe nofter Pegafus humile fapiamus.

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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 houfe 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 reprefented, 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 pleafure, which the Arcades afforded to the young relations of the Countefs, gave rife to Comus, as Lawes, the mufical friend of Milton, in dedicating the mask to the young Lord Brackley, her grandfon, fays, "this poem, which received its first occafion of birth from yourself and others of your noble family, and much honor from your own person in the performance.

Thefe expreffions of Lawes allude, perhaps, to the real incident, which is faid to have fupplied the subject of Comus, and may feem 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 adventures very fimilar to their theatrical fituation; that in visiting their relations, in Herefordshire, they were benighted in a forest, and the Lady Alice Egerton actually loft.

Whatever might be the origin of the mask, the modesty of the youthful poet appears very