MILTON. THE life of Milton has been already written in fo many forms, and with fuch minute enquiry, that I might perhaps more properly have contented myfelf with the addition of a few notes on Mr. Fenton's elegant Abridgement, but that a new narrative was thought neceffary to the uniformity of this edition. JOHN MILTON was by birth a gentleman, defcended from the proprietors of Milton, near Thame, in Oxfordshire, one of whom forfeited his eftate in the times of York and Lancaster. Which fide he took I know not; his descendant inherited no veneration for the White Rofe. His grandfather John was keeper of the foreft of Shotover, a zealous papift, who difinherited his fon because he had forfaken the religion of his ancestors. His father, John, who was the fon difinherited, had recourse for his fupport to the profeffion of a fcrivener. He was a man eminent for his skill in mufick, many of his compofitions being ftill to be found; and his reputation in his profeffion was fuch, fuch, that he grew rich, and retired to an eftate. He had probably more than common literature, as his fon addreffes him in one of his most elaborate Latin poems. He married a gentlewoman of the name of Cafton, a Welsh family, by whom he had two fons, John, the poet, and Chriftopher, who ftudied the law, and adhered, as the law taught him, to the King's party, for which he was a while perfecuted, but having, by his brother's intereft, obtained permiffion to live in quiet, he fupported himself fo honourably by chamber-practice, that, foon after the acceffion of King James, he was knighted, and made a judge; but, his conftitution being too weak for bufinefs, he retired before any difreputable compliances became neceffary. He had likewise a daughter Anne, whom he married with a confiderable fortune to Edward Philips, who came from Shrewsbury, and rofe in the Crownoffice to be fecondary: by him the had two fons, John and Edward, who were educated by the poet, and from whom is derived the only authentic account of his domeftic manners. John, the poet, was born in his father's houfe, at the Spread-Eagle, in Bread-ftreet, Dec. 9, 1608, between fix and feven in the morning. His father appears to have been very folicitous about his education; for he was inftructed at firft by private tuition under the care of Thomas Young, who was afterwards chaplain to the English merchants at Hamburgh, and of whom we have reafon to think well, fince his fcholar confidered him as worthy of an epiftolary elegy. He was then fent to St. Paul's School, under the care of Mr. Gill; and removed, in the beginning of his fixteenth year, to Chrift's College in Cambridge, where he entered a fizar*, Feb. 12, 1624. He was at this time eminently skilled in the Latin tongue; and he himself, by annexing the dates to his first compofitions, a boaft of which the learned Politian had given him an example, seems to com mend the carlinefs of his own proficiency to the notice of posterity. But the products of his vernal fertility have been furpaffed by many, and particu. larly by his contemporary Cowley. Of the powers of the mind it is difficult to form an eftimate ; many have excelled Milton in their firft effays, who never rofe to works like Paradife Loft, At fifteen, a date which he uses till he is fixteen, he tranflated or verfified two Pfalms, 114 and 136, which he thought worthy of the publick eye; but they raise no great expectations: they would in any numerous school have obtained praise, but not excited wonder. Many of his elegies appear to have been written in his eighteenth year, by which it appears that he had then read the Roman authors with very nice difcernment. I once heard Mr. Hampton, the tranflator of Polybius, remark, what I think is *In this affertion Dr. Johnson was mistaken. Milton was admitted a penfioner, and not a fizar, as will appear by the following extract from the College Regifter: "Johannes Milton "Londinenfis, filius Johannis, inftitutus fuit in literarum ele"mentis fub Mag'ro Gill Gymnafii Paulini præfe&to; admiffus eft "Penfionarius Minor Feb. 12°, 1624, fub M'ro Chappell, folvitq. વ pro Ingr. o. 1os. od." R. true true, that Milton was the firft Englishman who, after the revival of Letters, wrote Latin verfes with claffick elegance. If any exceptions can be made, they are very few: Haddon and Afcham, the pride of Elizabeth's reign, however they have fucceeded in profe, no fooner attempt verfe than they provoke derifion. If we produced any thing worthy of notice before the elegies of Milton, it was perhaps Alabafler's Roxana *. Of the exercifes which the rules of the Univerfity required, fome were published by him in his maturer years. They had been undoubtedly applauded, for they were fuch as few can perform; yet there is reason to fufpect that he was regarded in his college with no great fondness. That he obtained no fellowship is certain; but the unkindness with which he was treated was not merely negative. I am afhamed to relate what I fear is true, that Milton was one of the laft ftudents in either univerfity that suffered the publick indignity of corporal correction. It was, in the violence of controverfial hoftility, objected to him, that he was expelled: this he fteadily denies, and it was apparently not true; but it seems plain, from his own verfes to Diodaii, that he had incurred Ruftication, a temporary difmiffion into the country, with perhaps the lofs of a term: Me tenet urbs refluâ quam Thamefis alluit undâ, Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revifere Camum, Published 1632. R. Nec duri libet ufque minas perferre magiftri, 66 I cannot find any meaning but this, which even kindness and reverence can give the term vetitį laris, a habitation from which he is excluded;" or how exile can be otherwise interpreted. He declares yet more, that he is weary of enduring the threats of a rigorous mafter, and fomething else, which a temper like his cannot undergo. What was more than threat was probably punishment. This poem, which mentions his exile, proves likewife that it was not perpetual; for it concludes with a refolution of returning fome time to Cambridge. And it may be conjectured, from the willingness with which he has perpetuated the memory of his exile, that its cause was fuch as gave him no fhame. He took both the ufual degrees; that of Batchelor in 1628, and that of Mafter in 1632; but he left the univerfity with no kindness for its inftitution, alienated either by the injudicious feverity of his governors, or his own captious perverfenefs. The cause cannot now be known, but the effect appears in his writings. His fcheme of education, infcribed to Hartlib, fuperfedes all academical inftruction, being intended to comprise the whole time which men ufually spend in literature, from their éntrance upon grammar, till they proceed, as it is called, Mafters of Arts. And in his Difcourfe on the likelieft Way to remove Hirelings out of the Church, he inge nioufly |