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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.

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That flagellation might be performed upon offenders at Cambridge, (as well as at Oxford,) the Statutes of that University will show: That Milton fuffered this publick indignity, rests solely upon the teftimony of Aubrey, which I am unable to controvert: But it is remarkable that it never fhould have been noticed by those who would have rejoiced in such an opportunity of expofing Milton to a little ridicule. The application alfo of catera may be perhaps more general than Mr. Warton and Dr. Johnfon have been pleased to confider it; instead of corporal punishment, it may suggest the idea of academical restrictions, to which a youth of Milton's genius could not submit; or merely of threats perhaps, which he thought he did not deserve; and, if he therefore acquiefced in a short exile from Cambridge, as fome biographers suppose, it should feem that, by his admission to the degree of Batchelor of Arts in 1628, he had incurred no lofs of terms; which, ruftication however must 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 controversy 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 respect which I found above any of my equals at the hands of those 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 me Cantabrigiam mifit: Illic difciplinis atque artibus tradi solitis septennium studui; procul omni flagitio, bonis omnibus probatus, ufquedum magiftri, quem vocant, gradum, &c."

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

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Apology for Smectymnuus. Profe-Works, vol. i. p. 1749 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 absurdity of fuppofing nature impaired. This forgotten folio has found an able advocate in modern days.

They," says Dr. Warton, y" whom envy, malevolence, discontent, or disappointment, 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 sensible, but too much neglected, treatise of an old Divine, written in 1630, [this is the second edition,] Hakewill's Apology &c." This work was commended by Archbishop - Usher. And a truly

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

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

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amiable and learned author, to whom the literature of this country is peculiarly indebted, has closed 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 designed by his parents, and once in his own resolutions, for the Church. But his subsequent unwillingness to engage in the office of a minister was communicated to a friend, in a letter; (of which two draughts exist in manuscript ;) with which he sent his impressive Sonnet, On his being arrived at the age of twenty three. The truth is, says Dr. Newton, he had conceived early prejudices against the doctrine and discipline 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 seem to have been disposed to any profession; it is certain that he alfo declined the Law. Dr. Newton thinks that he had too free a spirit to be limited and confined; that he was for comprehending all sciences, but professing none. His conduct, however, on these occafions is a proof of the fincerity with which he had refolved to deliver his sentiments.

* 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.

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

" For me, I have determined to lay up as the best treasure and folace of a good old age, if God vouchsafe it me, the honeft liberty of free speech from my youth."

Having taken the degree of d M.A. in 1632, he left the university, and retired to his father's house in the country; who had now quitted business, and lived at an estate which he had purchased at Horton near Colnebrooke, in Buckinghamshire. Here he resided five years; in which time he not only, as he himself informs us, read over the Greek and Latin authors, particularly the historians, but is also believed to have written his Arcades, Comus, L'Allegro and Il Penferoso, and Lycidas. The pleasant retreat in the country excited his most poetick feelings; and he proved himself able, in his pictures of rural life, to rival the works of Nature which he contemplated with delight. In the neighbourhood of Horton the Countess Dowager of Derby resided; and the Arcades was

• Profe-Works, vol. i. p. 220. edit. 1698.

4 He was admitted to the fame degree at Oxford in 1635. See Wood, Fafti, vol. i. p. 262.

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