abroad, even for the improvement of his mind, while his countrymen were contending for liberty at home. In preparing for his return to Rome, he was cautioned against it by fome mercantile friends, whofe letters intimated, that he had much to apprehend from the machinations of English jefuits, if he appeared again in that city; they were incensed against him by the freedom of his difcourse on topics of religion: "I had made it a rule (fays Milton) never to start a religious fubject in this country; but if I were questioned on my faith, never to dissemble, whatever I might fuffer. I returned, nevertheless, to Rome,' continues the undaunted traveller, "and, whenever I was interrogated, I attempted no disguise: if any one attacked my principles, I defended the true religion in the very city of the pope, and, during almost two months, with as much freedom as I had ufed before. By the protection of God I returned safe again to Florence, re-vifiting friends, who received me as gladly as if I had been reftored to my native home*." After a fecond refidence of almost two months in Florence, whence he made an excurfion to Lucca, a place In Siciliam quoque et Græciam trajicere volentem me, triftis ex Anglia belli civilis nuntius revocavit; turpe enim exiftimabam, dum mei cives domi de libertate dimicarent, ne animi caufâ otiofe peregrinari. Romam autem reverfurum, monebant mercatores fe didiciffe per literas parari mihi ab jefuitis Anglis infidias, fi Romam reverterem, eò quod de religione nimis liberè loquutus effem. Sic enim mecum ftatueram, de religione qui dem iis in locis fermones ultro non inferre ; interrogatus de fide, quicquid eflèm paffurus, endeared endeared to him by having produced the ancestors of his favourite friend Diodati, he extended his travels through Bologna and Ferrara to Venice. Here, he remained a month, and having sent hence a collection of books, and particularly of mufic, by fea, he proceeded himself through Verona and Milan to Geneva. In this city he was particularly gratified by the fociety and kindness of John Diodati, uncle of his young friend, whose untimely death he lamented in a Latin poem, of which we shall foon have occasion to speak. Returning by his former road through France, he reached England at a period that seems to have made a strong impreffion on his mind, when the king was waging, in favour of epifcopacy, his unprofperous war with the Scots. The time of Milton's abfence from his native country exceeded not, by his own account, a year and three months. In the relation that he gives himself of his return, the name of Geneva recalling to his mind one of the most flanderous of his political adversaries, he animates his narrative by a folemn appeal to heaven on his unspotted integrity; he protests that, during his refidence in foreign fcenes, where licentiousness was univerfal, his own conduct was perfectly irreproachable*. I dwell the more zealously on whatever may elucidate the moral character of Milton, because, even among those who love and revere him, the fplendor of the poet has in fome measure eclipfed the merit of the man; but in Quae urbs, cum in mentem mihi hind veniat Mori calumniatoris, facit ut deum hic rurfus teftem invocem, me his omnibus in locis, ubi tam multa licent, ab omni flagitio ac probro integrum atque intactum vixiffe, illud perpetuo cogitantem, fi hominum latere oculos poffem, dei certe non poffe. H 2 proportion proportion as the particulars of his life are ftudied with intelligence and candour, his virtue will become, as it ought to be, the friendly rival of his genius, and receive its due fhare of admiration and esteem. Men, indeed, of narrow. minds, and of fervile principles, will for ever attempt to depreciate a character so abfolutely the reverse of their own ; but liberal fpirits, who allow to others that freedom of sentiment, which they vindicate for themselves, however they disapprove or oppose the opinions of the fectary and the republican, will render honourable and affectionate justice to the patriotic benevolence, the industry, and the courage, with which Milton endeavoured to promote what he fincerely and fervently regarded as the true intereft of his country. We have now attended him to the middle stage of his life, at which it may not be improper to pause, and make a few remarks on the years that are passed, and those that are yet in profpect. We behold him, at the age of thirty-two, recalled to England, from a foreign excurfion of improvement and delight, by a manly sense of what he owed to his country in a season of difficulty and danger. His thoughts and conduct on this occafion are the more noble and becoming, as all his preceding years had been employed in forming, for the most important purposes, a firm and lofty mind, and in furnishing it abundantly with whatever might be useful and honourable to himself and others, in the various exigencies and viciffitudes both of private and public life. We have traced him through a long course of infantine, academical, domestic, and foreign study; we have seen him distinguished by application, docility, and genius; uncommonly attached. to to his inftructors, and most amiably grateful to his parents; in friendship, ardent and steady; in love, though tender not intemperate; as a poet, fenfible of his rare mental endowments, yet peculiarly modeft in regard to his own productions; enamoured of glory, yet as ready to bestow as anxious to merit praise; in his person and manners so fashioned to prepoffefs all men in his favour, that even foreigners gave him credit for those high literary atchievements, which were to shed peculiar luftre on his latter days, and confidered him already as a man, of whom his country might be proud. With fuch accomplishments, and fuch expectations in his behalf, Milton returned to England. The fubfequent portion of his life, however gloomy and tempeftuous, will be found to correfpond, at least in the close of it, with the radiant promise of his youth. We shall see him deserting his favourite haunts of Parnaffus to enter the thorny paths of ecclefiaftical and political diffention: his principles as a difputant will be condemned and approved, according to the prevalence of oppofite and irreconcilable opinions, that fluctuate in the world; but his upright consistency of conduct deferves applause from all honest and candid men of every perfuafion. The Mufe, indeed, who had bleft him with fingular endowments, and given him fo lively a sense of his being constituted a poet by nature, that when he wrote not verse, he had the ufe (to borrow his own forcible expreffion) "but of his left hand;" the Muse alone might have a right to reproach him with having acted against inward conviction; but could his muse have vifibly appeared to reprove his desertion of her service in a parental remon ftrance, |