Having paid what was due to friendship in his poetical capacity, he devoted his pen to public affairs, and entered on that career of controverfy, which eftranged him so long, and carried him so far from those milder and more engaging studies, that nature and education had made the darlings of bis mind. If to facrifice favourite purfuits that promifed great glory, purfuits in which acknowledged genius had qualified an ambitious spirit to excel; if to facrifice these to irksome disputes, from a fenfe of what he owed to the exigencies of his country; if fuch conduct deserve, as it affuredly does, the name of public virtue, it may be as difficult, per haps, to find an equal to Milton in genuine patriotism as în poetical power: for who can be faid to have facrificed fo much, or to have fhewn a firmer affection to the public good? If he mistook the mode of promoting it; if his fentiments, both on ecclefiaftical and civil policy, are fuch as the majority of our countrymen think it just and wife to reject, let us give him the credit he deserves for the merit of his intention; let us refpect, as we ought to do, the probity of an exalted understanding, animated by a fervent, steady, and laudable defire to enlighten mankind, and to render them more virtuous and happy.

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In the year 1640, when Milton returned to England, the current of popular opinion ran with great vehemence against epifcopacy. He was prepared to catch the spirit of the time, and to become an advocate for ecclefiaftical reformation, by having peculiar and domeftic grounds of complaint against religious oppreffion. His favourite preceptor had been reduced to exile, and his father difinherited, by intolerance

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lerance and fuperftition. He wrote, therefore, with the indignant enthusiasm of a man resenting the injuries of those, who are most entitled to his love and veneration. The ardour of his affections confpired with the warmth of his fancy to enflame him with that puritanical zeal, which blazes fo intensely in his controverfial productions: no less than four of these were published within two years after his return; and he thus fpeaks of the motives, that led him to this fpecies of compofition, in his Second Defence.

Being animated by this univerfal outcry against the bishops, as I perceived that men were taking the true road to liberty, and might proceed with the utmost rectitude from thefe beginnings to deliver human life from all base subjection, if their discipline, drawing its source from religion, proceeded to morals and political inftitutions; as I had been trained from my youth to the particular knowledge of what belonged to divine, and what to human jurisdiction; and as

Ut primum loquendi faltem cæpta eft libertas concedi, omnia in epifcopos aperiri ora; alii de ipforum vitiis, alii de ipfius ordinis, vitio conqueri - - - Ad hæc fane experrectus, cum veram affectari viam ad libertatem cernerem, ab his initiis, his paffibus, ad liberandam fervitute vitam omnem mortalium rectissime procedi, fi ab religione disciplina orta, ad mores. & inftituta reipublicæ emanaret, cum etiam me ita ab adolefcentia parâffem, ut quid divini, quid humani effet juris, ante omnia poffem non ignorare, meque confuluiffem ecquando ullius ufus effem futurus, fi nunc patriæ, immo vero ecclefiæ totque fratribus evangelii caufâ periculo fefe objicientibus deeffem, ftatui, etfi tunc alia quædam meditabar, huc omne ingenium, omnes induftriæ vires transferre. Pri

mumitaque de reformanda ecclefia Anglicana, duos ad amicum quendam libros confcripfi; deinde, cum duo præ cæteris magni nominis epifcopi fuum jus contra miniftros quofdam primarios affererent, ratus de iis rebus, quaз amore folo veritatis, & ex officii chriftiani ratione didiceram, haud pejus me dicturum quam qui de fuo quæftu & injuftiffimo dominatu contendebant, ad hunc libris duobus, quorum unus De Epifcopatu Prælatico, alter De Ratione Difciplinæ Ecclefiafticæ, infcribitur, ad illum fcriptis quibufdam animadverfionibus, & mox Apologia refpondi, et miniftris facundiam hominis, ut ferebatur ægre fuftinentibus, fuppetias tuli, & ab eo tempore, fi quid poftea refponderent, interfui.

I thought

I thought I should deferve to forfeit the power of being useful to mankind, if I now failed to affift my country and the church, and so many brethren, who for the fake of the gofpel were expofing themselves to peril, I refolved, though my thoughts had been pre-engaged by other designs, to transfer to this object all my talents and all my application : first, therefore, I wrote of reformation in England two books addreffed to a friend; afterwards, when two bishops of eminence had afferted their cause against the leading minifters of the opposite party, as I conceived that I could argue, from a love of truth and a sense of chriftian duty, not less forcibly than my antagonists (who contended for lucre and their own unjust dominion) I answered one of them in two books with the following titles, Of Prelatical Episcopacy, Of Church Government; and the other, firft in Animadverfions upon the Remonftrants Defence against Smectymnuus, and secondly, in my Apology. As the ministers were thought hardly equal to their opponent in eloquence, I lent them my aid, and from that time, if they made any farther reply, I was a party concerned."

I have inferted this paffage at full length, because it gives' us a clear insight into the motives of Milton on his firft engaging in controversy, and discovers the high opinion which he entertained, both of the chriftian purity and the argumentative powers of his own cultivated mind: the two bishops to whom he alludes were, Hall bishop of Norwich, famous as our first satirist, and the learned Ufher, primate of Ireland. Hall published, in 1640, “An humble Remonftrance to the High Court of Parliament in Behalf of Epifcopacy"

an answer to this appeared written by fix minifters, under the title of Smectymnuus, a word cafually formed from the initial letters of their respective names. This little band of religious writers included Thomas Young, the beloved preceptor of Milton; fo that perfonal attachment confpired with public enthusiasm to make our author vehement in his reply to the two bishops, who failed not to encounter the confederate antagonists of their order. He probably recollected the fufferings of his favourite inftructor, when he exclaimed in his treatife of reformation, "What numbers of faithful and free born Englishmen and good chriftians have been constrained to forfake their deareft home, their friends and kindred, whom nothing but the wide ocean, or the savage deferts of America, could hide and shelter from the fury of the bishops." SR

However furious the perfecution might be, which excited antipathy and abhorrence in Milton against the order of bishops, it must be confeffed that he frequently fpeaks with that intemperance of zeal, which defeats its own purpose. There are fome paffages in his controverfial writings, that must be read with concern by his moft paffionate admirers; yet even the gloom and feverity of these are compensated by fuch occafional flashes of ardent fancy, of found argument, and of fublime devotion, as may extort commendation even from readers who love not the author,

In his firft Ecclefiaftical Treatife of Reformation, he makes the following very folemn appeal to heaven on his integrity as a writer" And here withal I invoke the immortal

deity, revealer and judge of fecrets, that wherever I have

"in this book plainly and roundly, though worthily and "truly, laid open the faults and blemishes of fathers, mar

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tyrs, or christian emperors, or have otherways inveighed against error and fuperftition with vehement expreffions," "I have done it neither out of malice, nor lift to speak evil,' nor any vain glory, but of mere neceffity, to vindicate the fpotlefs truth from an ignominious bondage."

Towards the close of this performance he gives a dif-' tant mysterious hint of his great and unsettled poetical de-' figns, with a very ftriking mixture of moral, political, and' religious enthufiafm.

; “ Then, amidst the hymns and hallelujahs of faints, fome "one may, perhaps, be heard offering at high strains, in new 667 and lofty measures, to fing and celebrate thy divine mercies "and marvellous judgments in this land throughout all

ages.

In his fubfequent work, on the Reafon of Church Government, he gratifies us with a more enlarged view of his literary projects, not yet moulded into form, but, like the unarranged elements of creation, now floating at large in his capacious mind.) i

I tranfcribe the long paffage alluded to, because it illuftrates the mental character of Milton, with a mild energy, a folemn fplendor of fentiment and expreffion peculiar to himself, oh lun

Time ferves not now, and, perhaps, I might seem too "profuse to give any certain account of what the mind at "home, in the fpacious circuits of her mufing, hath liberty to-propofe to herself, though of higheft hope and hardeft "attempting;