be perpetual. In these lines, ingenium is to be rendered temper, nature, difpofition, rather than genius.

Aubrey fays, from the information of our author's brother Chriftopher, that Milton's "first tutor there [at Christ's college] was Mr. Chappell, from whom receiving some unkindneffe, (he whipt him) he was afterwards, though it seemed against the rules of the college, tranfferred to the tuition of one Mr. Tovell, who dyed parfon of Lutterworth.' MS. Mus. Ashm. ut fupr. This information, which stands detached from the body of Aubrey's narrative, feems to have been communicated to Aubrey, after Wood had feen his papers; it therefore does not appear in Wood, who never would otherwise have fuppreffed an anecdote which contributed in the leaft degree to expofe the character of Milton. I muft here obferve, that Mr. Chappell, from his original Letters, many of which I have feen, written while he was a fellow and tutor of Chrift's College, and while Milton was there, and which are now in the poffeffion of Mr. Moreton of Wefterhoe in Kent, by whom they have been politely communicated, appears to have been a man of uncommon mildness and liberality of manners."

To the authority of the preceding remarks Dr. Johnson has implicitly fubfcribed; not with

out adding, however, that it may be conjectured, from the willingness with which the poet has perpetuated the memory of his exile, that its cause was such as gave him no shame.

That flagellation might be performed upon offenders at Cambridge, (as well as at Oxford,) the Statutes of that Univerfity will show: That Milton fuffered this publick indignity, refts folely upon the testimony of Aubrey, which I am unable to controvert: But it is remarkable that it never should have been noticed by those who would have rejoiced in fuch an opportunity of expofing Milton to a little ridicule. The application also of cætera may be perhaps more general than Mr. Warton and Dr. Johnson have been pleased to confider it; instead of corporal punishment, it may fuggeft the idea of academical restrictions, to which a youth of Milton's genius could not fubmit; or merely of threats perhaps, which he thought he did not deserve; and, if he therefore acquiefced in a fhort exile from Cambridge, as fome biographers fuppofe, it should seem that, by his admiffion to the degree of Batchelor of Arts in 1628, he had incurred no lofs of terms; which, ruftication however muft have occafioned, and which the Register of his College, or of the University, would probably have noticed. His reply to an enemy, who in the violence of controverfy had afferted that he was ex

pelled, may here be cited. ""I must be thought, if this libeller (for now he shews himself to be fo) can find belief, after an inordinate and riotous youth Spent at the University, to have been at length vomited out thence. For which commodious lye, that he may be encouraged in the trade another time, I thank him; for it hath given me an apt occafion to acknowledge publickly, with all gratefull mind, that more than ordinary favour and refpect which I found above any of my equals at the hands of thofe courteous and learned men, the fellows of the College wherein I spent fome years; who at my parting, after I had taken two degrees, as the manner is, fignified many ways, how much better it would content them that I would stay; as by many letters, full of kindness and loving refpect, both before that time, and long after, I was affured of their fingular good affection towards me." And still more pointedly in another place : "Pater meCantabrigiam mifit: Illic difciplinis atque artibus tradi folitis feptennium ftudui; procul omni flagitio, bonis omnibus probatus, ufquedum magiftri, quem vocant, gra, dum, &c."

To oblige one of the fellows, his friends fo affectionately noticed, he wrote, in 1628, the

Apology for Smeftymnuus. Profe.Works, vol, i, p. 174. edit. 1698.

* Defenf, fec. Profe-Works, vol. iii. p. 95. edit. 1698,

comitial verses, entitled Naturam non pati fenium. I mention this in order to obviate a remark, made by Dr. Johnson, that the poet countenanced an opinion, prevalent in his time, "that the world was in its decay, and that we have had the misfortune to be produced in the decrepitude of nature." In the preceding year the following very learned work had been published, "An Apologie or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God in the Government of the World, by George Hakewill, D.D. and Archdeacon of Surrey, 1627." The young poet, I conceive, had been much pleased with this excellent work, which refutes, with particular felicity of argument, the abfurdity of fuppofing nature impaired. This forgotten folio has found an able advocate in modern days. "They," fays Dr. Warton, "whom envy, malevolence, discontent, or difappointment, have induced to think that the world is totally degenerated, and that it is daily growing worse and worse, would do well to read a fenfible, but too much neglected, treatise of an old Divine, written in 1630, [this is the fecond edition,] Hakewill's Apology &c." This work was commended by Archbishop Ufher. And a truly

Pope's Works, edit. 1797. vol. iv. p. 319.

See a Letter from Dr. Hakewill to Archbishop Ufher, in the Life and Letters of Uher by R. Parr, D.D. fol. 1686. Letters, p. 398.

amiable and learned author, to whom the literature of this country is peculiarly indebted, has clofed his Philological Inquiries with a chapter, well calculated, like the animated lines of Milton, to banish the timid and unbenevolent idea of nature's decrepitude.

Milton was defigned by his parents, and once in his own resolutions, for the Church. But his fubfequent unwillingness to engage in the office of a minifter was communicated to a friend, in a letter; (of which two draughts exist in• manufcript;) with which he fent his impreffive Sonnet, On his being arrived at the age of twenty three. The truth is, fays Dr. Newton, he had conceived early prejudices against the doctrine and difcipline of the Church. This, no doubt, was a disappointment to his friends, who though in comfortable were yet by no means in great circumstances. Nor does he feem to have been difpofed to any profeffion; it is certain that he alfo declined the Law. Dr. Newton thinks

* See Birch's Life of Milton. Dr. Newton's edit. of Milton, Sonnet vii. General Dictionary, 1738, vol. vii. And Biograph. Brit. 1760, vol. v. Art. Milton, where they are printed.

b His contempt of the Law, as well as of the Church, is pretty ftrongly marked. See the Note Ad Patrem, ver. 71. vol. vi. p. 338. To the ecclefiaftical lawyers he has shown no mercy; but alludes to "chancellours and fuffragans, delegates and officials, with all the hell-peftering rabble of fumners and apparitors," in the very fpirit of Quevedo. See his Animadverfions, &c. Profe Works, vol. i. p. 159. edit. 1698.