There lives, deep learn'd, and primitively just,
A faithful steward of his Christian truft;

My friend, and favourite inmate of my heart,
That now is forc'd to want its better part.
What mountains now, and feas, alas! how wide!
Me from my other, dearer felf divide!
Dear as the fage, renown'd for moral truth,
To the prime spirit of the Attic youth!

Dear as the Stagyrite to Ammon's fon,
His pupil, who disdain'd the world he won!
Nor fo did Chiron, or fo Phoenix fhine,

In

young Achilles' eyes, as he in mine:

First led by him, thro' fweet Aonian shade,

Each facred haunt of Pindus I furvey'd;

Explor'd the fountain, and the Muse my guide,

Thrice steep'd my lips in the Caftalian tide.

And again, in expreffing his regret upon the length of their separation :

Nec dum ejus licuit mihi lumina pascere vultu,

Aut linguæ dulces aure bibiffe fonos.

Nor yet his friendly features feaft my fight,

Nor his sweet accents my fond ear delight.

As the tenderness of the young poet is admirably displayed in the beginning of this Elegy, his more acknowledged characteristic, religious fortitude, is not lefs admirable in the close of it.

At

1

At tu fume animos, nec fpes cadat anxia curis,
Nec tua concutiat decolor offa metus.
Sis etenim quamvis fulgentibus obfitus armis,
Intententque tibi millia tela necem,

At nullis vel inerme latus violabitur armis,
Deque tuo cufpis nulla cruore bibet;
Namque eris ipfe dei radiante fub ægide tutus,
Ille tibi cuftos, et pugil ille tibi:

Et tu (quod fupereft miferis) fperare memento,
Et tu magnanimo pectore vince mala;
Nec dubites quandoque frui melioribus annis,
Atque iterum patrios poffe videre lares.

But thou, take courage, ftrive against despair,
Shake not with dread, nor nourish anxious care.
What tho' grim war on every fide appears,
And thou art menac'd by a thousand fpears,
Not one shall drink thy blood, not one offend
Ev'n the defenceless bofom of my friend;
For thee the ægis of thy God fhall hide;
Jehovah's felf fhall combat on thy fide;
Thou, therefore, as the most afflicted may,
Still hope, and triumph o'er thy evil day;
Truft thou shalt yet behold a happier time,
And

yet again enjoy thy native clime.

The reader, inclined to symphatise in the joys of Milton, will be gratified in being informed, that his preceptor, whose exile and poverty he pathetically lamented, and whose profperous return he predicted, was in a few reftored

C 2

years

to

to his country, and became Mafter of Jefus College, in Cambridge.

As the year in which he quitted England (1623) correfponds with the fifteenth year of his pupil's age, it is probable that Milton was placed, at that time, under the care of Mr. Gill and his fon; the former, chief master of St. Paul's fchool, the latter, his affiftant, and afterwards his fucceffor. It is remarkable, that Milton, who has been fo uncandidly reprefented as an uncontroulable spirit, and a spurner of all just authority, seems to have contracted a tender attachment to more than one difciplinarian concerned in his education. He is faid to have been the favourite scholar of the younger Gill; and he has left traces of their friendship in three Latin epiftles, that express the highest esteem for the literary character and poetical talents of his inftructor.

On the 12th of February, 1624, he was entered, not as as a fizar, which fome of his biographers have erroneously afferted, but as a penfioner of Chrift's College, in Cambridge. "At this time," fays Doctor Johnson, " he was

eminently skilled in the Latin tongue, and he himself, by annexing the dates to his first compofitions, a boast of "which the learned Politian had given him an example, "feems to commend the earliness of his own proficiency "to the notice of posterity; but the products of his vernal fertility have been furpaffed by many, and particularly by "his contemporary, Cowley. Of the powers of the mind "it is difficult to form an estimate; many have excelled "Milton in their firft effays, who never rofe to works like 'Paradife Loft.”

This is the first of many remarks, replete with detraction, in which an illuftrious author has indulged his fpleen against Milton, in a life of the poet, where an ill-fubdued propenfity to cenfure is ever combating with a neceffity to commend. The partifans of the powerful critic, from a natural partiality to their departed master, affect to confider his malignity as exifting only in the prejudices of those who endeavour to counteract his injuftice. A biographer of Milton ought therefore to regard it as his indifpenfible duty to show how far this malignity is diffused through a long series of obfervations, which affect the reputation both of the poet and the man; a duty that must be painful in proportion to the fincerity of our esteem for literary genius; fince, different as they were in their principles, their manners, and their writings, both the poet and his critical biographer are affuredly entitled to the praise of exalted genius. Perhaps in the republic of letters there never existed two writers more defervedly distinguished, not only for the energy of their mental faculties, but for a generous and devout defire to benefit mankind by their exertion.

Yet it must be lamented, and by the lovers of Milton in particular, that a moralift, who has given us, in the Rambler, fuch fublime leffons for the discipline of the heart and mind, should be unable to preferve his own from that acrimonious spirit of detraction, which led him to depreciate, to the utmost of his power, the rare abilities, and perhaps the still rarer integrity, of Milton. It may be faid, that the truly eloquent and fplendid encomium, which he has bestowed on the great work of the poet, ought to exempt

him

him from fuch a charge. The fingular beauties and effect of this eulogy fhall be mentioned in the proper place, and with all the applause they merit; but here it is juft to recollect, that the praife of the encomiaft is nearly confined to the fentence he paffes as a critic; his more diffusive detraction may be traced in almost every page of the biographer: not to encounter it on its first appearance, and wherever it is vifible and important, would be to fail in that justice and regard towards the character of Milton, which he, perhaps, of all men, has most eminently deserved.

In the preceding citation it is evidently the purpose of Dr. Johnson to degrade Milton below Cowley, and many other poets, diftinguished by juvenile compofitions; but Mr. Warton has, with great tafte and judgment, exposed the error of Dr. Johnson, in preferring 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 perufes the fpirited epiftle to his exiled preceptor, composed in his eighteenth year. Some of his English verfes bear an earlier date. The firft of his juvenile productions, in the language which he was deftined to ennoble, is a paraphrafe of the hundred and fourteenth pfalm; it was executed at the age of fifteen, and discovers a power that Dryden, and other more prefumptuous critics, have unjuftly