ferring the Latin poetry of Cowley to that of Milton. An eminent foreign critic has bestowed that high praise on the juvenile productions of our author, which his prejudiced countryman is inclined to deny. Morhoff has affirmed, with equal truth and liberality, that the verses, which Milton produced in his childhood, discover both the fire and judgment of maturer life: a commendation that no impartial reader will be inclined to extenuate, who peruses the spirited epistle to his exiled preceptor, composed in his eighteenth year.

Some of his English verses bear an earlier date. The first of his juvenile productions, in the language which he was destined to ennoble, is a paraphrase of the hundred and fourteenth psalm; it was executed at the age of fifteen, and discovers a power, that Dryden, and other more presumptuous critics, have unjustly denied to Milton, the power of moving with facility in the fetters of rhyme : this power is still more conspicuous in the poem he wrote at the age of seventeen, on the death of his sister's child; a

composition peculiarly entitled to the notice of those, who love to contemplate the early dawn of poetical genius. In this perfor mance, puerile, as it is in every sense of the word, the intelligent reader may yet discern as in the bud, all the striking characteristics of Milton; his affectionate sensibility, his superior imagination, and all that native tendency to devotional enthusiasm,

Which sets the heart on fire,

To spurn the sordid world, and unto Heav'n aspire.

Admirably trained as the youth of the poet was to acquire academical honor by the union of industry and talents, he seems to have experienced at Cambridge a chequered fortune, very similar to his destiny in the world. It appears from some remarkable passages in the Latin exercises, which he recited in his College, that he was at first an object of partial severity, and afterwards of general admiration. He had differed in opinion concerning a plan of academical studies with some persons of authority in

his college, and thus excited their displeasure. He speaks of them as highly incensed against him; but expresses, with the most liberal sensibility, his surprise, delight, and gratitude, in finding that his enemies forgot their animosity to honor him with unexpected applause.

An idle story has been circulated concerning his treatment in College. "I am ashamed," says Dr. Johnson, “to relate what I fear is true, that Milton was the last student in either University that suf fered the public indignity of corporal punishment." In confirmation of this incident, which appears improbable, though supported by Mr. Warton, the biographical critic alledges the following passage from the first Elegy;

A

Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum,
Nec dudum vetiti me laris angit amor;

Nec duri libet usque minas perferre magistri,
Cæteraque ingenio non subeunda meo,

Nor zeal nor duty now my steps impel
To reedy Cam and my forbidden cell;

"Tis time that I a pedant's threats disdain,
And fly from wrongs my soul will ne'er sustain.

Dr. Johnson considers these expressions as an absolute proof, that Milton was obliged to undergo this indignity; but they may suggest a very different idea. From all the light we can obtain concerning this anecdote," it seems most probable, that Milton was threatened, indeed, with what he considered as a punishment, not only dishonorable but unmerited; that his manly spirit disdaineď to submit to it; and that he was therefore obliged to acquiesce in a short exile from Cambridge.

: In speaking of his academical life, it is necessary to obviate another remark of a si-' milar tendency.

"There is reason," says Johnson, "to suspect that he was regarded in his college with no great fondness." To counteract

this invidious insinuation we are furnished with a reply, made by Milton himself, to this very calumny, originally fabricated by one of his contemporaries; a calumny,which

he had so fully refuted, that it ought to have revived no more! he begins with thanking his reviler for the aspersion: "It has given me," he says, "an apt occasion "to acknowledge publicly, with all grateful “mind, that more than ordinary favor and

66

respect, which I found, above any of my "equals, at the hand of those courteous and "learned men, the Fellows of that College, "wherein I spent some years; who, at my

parting, after I had taken two degrees, as "the manner is, signified many ways how "much better it would content them that "I would stay, as by many letters, full of "kindness and loving respect, both before "that time and long after, I was assured of "their singular affection towards me."Prose Works, vol. 1, p. 115.

The Latin poems of Milton are yet entitled to more of our attention because they exhibit lively proofs, that he possessed both tenderness and enthusiasm, those primary constituents of a poet, at an early period of life, and in the highest degree: they have additional value, from making us acquainted