positively asserted to be contained in his own words; and the poet has been fummoned to prove his own flagellation and banishment in the following verses, in his first elegy: "Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revifere Camum, " Nec dudum vetiti me laris angit amor. " Nec duri libet usque minas perferre Magiftri, " Cæteráque ingenio non fubeunda meo." " Si fit hoc exilium patrias adiisse penates, " Et vacuum curis otia grata fequi, " Non ego vel profugi nomen fortémve recuso, " Lætus et exilii conditione fruor." On thefe lines Mr. Warton observes, that "the words vetiti laris, and afterwards exilium, will not fuffer us to determine otherwise, than that Milton was sentenced to undergo a temporary removal or ruftication from Cambridge. I will not suppose for any immoral irregularity. Dr. Bainbridge, the Master, is reported to have been a very active difciplinarian: and this lover of liberty, we may prefume, was as little disposed to fubmiffion and conformity in a college as in a state. When reprimanded and admonished, the pride of his temper, impatient of any fort of reproof, naturally broke forth into expressions of contumely and contempt against his governour. Hence he was punished. He is also said to have been whipped at Cambridge. See Life of Bathurst, p. 153. This has been reprobated and difcredited, as a most extraordinary and improbable piece of feverity. But in those days of fimplicity and fubordination, of roughness and rigour, this fort of punishment was much more common, and consequently by no means so disgraceful and unfeemly for a young man at the university, as it would be thought at present. We learn from Wood, that Henry Stubbe, a Student of Christ-Church Oxford, afterwards a partisan of fir Henry Vane, shewing himself too forward, pragmatical, and conceited,' was publickly whipped by the Cenfor in the college-hall. Ath. Oxon. vol. ii. p. 560. See alfo Life of Bathurst, p. 202. I learn from fome manufcript papers of Aubrey the antiquary, who was a student of Trinity college Oxford, four years from 1642, 'that at Oxford and, I believe, at Cambridge, the rod was frequently used by the tutors and deans: and Dr. Potter, while a tutor of Trinity college, I knew right well, whipt his pupil with his sword by his fide, when he came to take his leave of him to go to the inns of court.' In the Statutes of the faid college, given in 1556, the Scholars of the foundation are ordered to be whipped by the Deans, or Cenfors, even to their twentieth year. In the University Statutes at Oxford, compiled in 1635, ten years after Milton's admission at Cambridge, corporal punishment is to be inflicted on boys under fixteen. We are to recollect, that Milton, when he went to Cambridge, was only a boy of fifteen. The author of an old pamphlet, Regicides no Saints nor Martyrs, fays that Hugh Peters, while at Trinity college Cambridge, was publickly and officially whipped in the Regent-walk for his infolence, p. 81. 8vo. "The anecdote of Milton's whipping at Cambridge, is told by Aubrey. MS. Mus. Afhm. Oxon. Num. x. P. iii. From which, by the way, Wood's Life of Milton in the Fafti Oxonienfes, the first and the ground-work of all the lives of Milton, was compiled. Wood says, that he draws his account of Milton from his own mouth to my Friend, who was well acquainted with and had from him, and from his relations after his death, most of this account of his life and writings following.' Ath. Oxon. vol. i. Fasti, p. 262. This Friend is Aubrey; whom Wood, in another place, calls credulous, 'roving and magotie-headed, and fometimes little better than crafed. Life of A. Wood, p. 577. edit. Hearne, Th. Caii Vind. &c. vol. ii. This was after a quarrel. I know not that Aubrey is ever fantastical, except on the subjects of chemistry and ghosts. Nor do I remember that his veracity was ever impeached. I believe he had much lefs credulity than Wood. Aubrey's Monumenta Britannica is a very folid and rational work, and its judicious conjectures and observations have been approved and adopted by the best modern antiquaries. Aubrey's manufcript Life contains fome anecdotes of Milton yet unpublished. "But let us examine if the context will admit fome other interpretation. Cateraque, the most indefinite and comprehenfive of defcriptions, may be thought to mean literary tasks called impofitions, or frequent compulsive attendances on tedious and unimproving exercises in a collegehall. But cætera follows minas, and perferre feems to imply fomewhat more than these inconveniences, fomething that was fuffered, and feverely felt. It has been suggested, that his father's economy prevented his constant refidence at Cambridge; and that this made the college lar dudum vetitus, and his abfence from the university an exilium. But it was no unpleasing or involuntary banishment. He hated the place.. He was not only offended at the college-difcipline, but had even conceived a diflike to the face of the country, the fields about Cambridge. He peevishly complains, that the fields have no foft shades to attract the Muse; and there is fomething pointed in his exclamation, that Cambridge was a place quite incompatible with the votaries of Phœbus. Here a father's prohibition had nothing to do. He refolves, however, to forget all these difagreeable circumstances, and to return in due time. The dismission, if any, was not to be perpetual. In these lines, ingenium is to be rendered temper, nature, disposition, rather than genius. Aubrey says, from the information of our author's brother Christopher, that Milton's "first tutor there [at Christ's college] was Mr. Chappell, from whom receiving fome unkindnesse, (be whipt him) he was afterwards, though it seemed against the rules of the college, tranfferred to the tuition of one Mr. Tovell, who dyed parson of Lutterworth.' MS. Muf. Afhm. ut fupr. This information, which stands detached from the body of Aubrey's narrative, feems to have been communicated to Aubrey, after Wood had seen his papers; it therefore does not appear in Wood, who never would otherwise have fuppreffed an anecdote which contributed in the least degree to expose the character of Milton. I must here observe, that Mr. Chappell, from his original Letters, many of which I have seen, 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 Westerhoe in Kent, by whom they have been politely communicated, appears to have been a man of uncommon mildnefs and liberality of manners." To the authority of the preceding remarks Dr. Johnfon has implicitly subscribed; not with |