"and fuch a fubject, as the publishing where of 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 deferring is of great moment to the good speeding, that if folidity have leisure to do her office, art cannot have much. “ Lastly, I should not chuse 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." Profe Works, vol. I. page 62. Such is the delineation that our author has given us of his own mind and motives in his treatife on Church Government, which the mention of his early defign 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 fhared the rural retirement, in which his parents had recently fettled, at Horton, in Buckinghamshire: here he devoted himself, for five years, to study, with that ardour 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, E and

and exhibits a lively picture of his progress in learning, his passion for virtue, and his hope of renown.

"To give you an account of my studies," he fays, "I have brought down the affairs of the Greeks, in a continued courfe 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 best to pursue, in separate histories, the exploits of each particular city *.

He fhews himself, in this letter, most passionately attached to the Platonic philosophy : "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 inftilled 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 sentiment, 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 labours of my own 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 those, who have tho

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

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

roughly

roughly attained this glory, or appear engaged in the fuccessful 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 alfo, what I am about? I nurse my wings, and meditate a flight; but my Pegasus rises as yet on very tender pinions. Let us be humbly wife !*"

This very interefting epiftle, 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 modesty. The poet, who speaks with such graceful humility of his literary atchievements, had at this time written Comus, a compofition that abundantly difplays 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 ερωτα, ειπες τω αλλως τε καλά ενέταξε : nec tanto Ceres labore, ut in fabulis eft, liberam fertur quæ-. fiviffe filiam, quanto ego hanc 78 kans ideav veluti pulcherrimam quandam imaginem, per omnes rerum formas et facies; (πonnal vag μορφαί των Δαιμονιων) dies noltefque indagare foleo, et quafi certis quibufdam veftigiis ducentem fector. Unde fit, ut qui, fpretis, quæ vulgus pravâ 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, tamen 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? lepopuw, et volare meditor: fed tenellis admodum adhuc pennis evehit fe nofter Pegafus: humile fapiamus.

of gaiety and the triumphs of virtue, paffing with exquifite tranfition from the most sportive to the fublimest 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; fhe 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 said 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 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 said 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

adventures very fimilar to their theatrical fituation; that in vifiting their relations, in Herefordshire, they were benighted in a foreft, and the lady Alice Egerton actually lost.▾

Whatever might be the origin of the mafk, the modesty of the youthful poet appears very confpicuous in the following words of Lawes's dedication: "Although not openly acknowledged by the author, yet it is a legitimate offfpring, fo lovely and so much defired, that the often copying of it hath tired my pen, to give my feveral friends fa"tisfaction, and brought me to a neceffity of producing it to the public view."

Milton difcovered a fimilar diffidence refpecting his Lycidas, which was written while he refided with his father, in November, 1637. This exquifite poem, which, as Mr.. Warton juftly obferves, " muft have been either folicited as favour by those whom the poet had left in his college, "or was a voluntary contribution of friendship fent to them " from the country," appeared firft in the academical collection of verses on the death of Mr. Edward King, and was fubfcribed only with the initials of its author.

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An animated and benevolent veteran of criticism, Doctor Warton, has considered a relish for the Lycidas as a test of true tafte in poetry; and it certainly is a teft, which no lover of Milton will be inclined to difpute; though it must ex-. clude from the lift of accomplished critics that intemperate cenfor of the great poet, who has endeavoured to destroy the reputation of his celebrated monody with the most infulting expreffions of farcaftic contempt; expreffions that no reader of a spirit truly poetical can perufe without mingled

emotions

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