enjoyed and well remembered. But above all we value frequent and long familiar talks with them in an easy manner, for all fixed and formal teaching, although at first it may be much appreciated, soon comes to have the irksomeness of a task." All this was said at the window, and as Joseph saw the lads walking in the garden, he called them up to the room where we were, and, referring to the dream they had just heard, said: "I will give you another song as an antidote to that of the Wanton Nymphs, for I think it needs one.” Our earth, if left untilled, Soon with thistles would be filled, Thorns and briars, too, would everywhere be found; Till the sweat drops off his brow, While the tares still show how faithless is the ground. 'Neath their little arid hill, Storing up in garners dark the grains of corn; They unite to bear their yoke, So the winter never finds them quite forlorn. Far preferring toil to ease, Ever gathering liquid odours from the flowers; When the blooms are in their prime, For they know they cannot brave the wintry showers. Fail his yearly course to run, Nor the moon to lead her tuneful choir on high; So man should everywhere Gladly labours learn to bear, For to him has God a fiery vigour given; All his troubles drive away, Conscious that within him dwells a pledge of Heaven. 1 Prov. v. 6; xxx. 25. Paradise Lost, ii. 665. 'Lat. igneus vigor. Cf. Samson Agonistes, 1690, and Excursus. Ch. III] AND ITS LESSON The seed must now be sown, While life's hours are yet our own, Till our harvest in God's garners bright be stored; To join the angelic choir. All earth's treasures fade before that great reward.1 131 He finished the song, and, to impress the lessons more deeply, he added these words: "Now you are of an age when one begins to look for manly studies and a severer training; therefore the greatest caution and counsel are necessary, in order to start with success." He then casually asked Auximus how old he was, who replied: "You know indeed better than I do, for you were here when I was born, but I neither remember my birth, nor my babyhood at the breast." "Yours is the right answer," said Joseph, "and it is indeed a fact which we all fail to remember sufficiently, whether it be from the natural incapacity of that period of life, or from our own dulness and inattention, just as if it were true, as the poets tell us, that we all have come forth from the waters of Lethe. Since however, one part of our existence is that which has preceded this life, and we can no more think it out than we can death and the other part of our existence that 1 This song as an antidote to a previous one is a thoroughly Miltonic touch. It bespeaks the author's high moral tone, a unique feature throughout all Milton's verse. He cannot let the praises of sensual love and idle joys be sung without a disclaimer. So here, as in Milton's acknowledged seventh elegy, the antidote is supplied close upon the poison. Elegy VII. was the most passionate love effusion that Milton has left on record, and it was founded on a real incidenthis love at first sight on May Day, 1628, when he was nineteen. He, however, felt it must not stand before the public gaze without some warning, or antidote, or recantation; and so in 1645, when he first published it with his other poems, the ten lines of postscript are added, and the Miltonic conscience is satisfied. Later on in this book our author a second time puts in a demur to a lyrical love piece, the O sistitote furem (0 stop her, stop the thief, I pray), when he suggests that any sensible man will see from it how foolish lovers are. Very few writers of amatory lyrics have first filled their votive vase with the precious spikenard of fervent passion, and then tried to put flies into the ointment to make it of ill odour. Milton did; so did our present author. Ergo shall follow, how clearly does it appear, if we give due attention to these two fast-bolted doors in the passage of life, what small and narrow limits ours are! For instance, you are eleven; what, think you, was your condition twelve years ago?" Struck by such a question, and looking steadily for some time at Joseph, he at last answered: "I was not what I am now-certainly I was not Auximus; and I begin now to wonder why I did not live in David's time or Herod's, or at least in some past century; and then again, how is it that I am who I am, and not some one else, not Joseph, not Augentius, nor another? Certainly these matters must be considered by me more carefully than they have been." "You can do nothing better," said Joseph; "and you will perceive that not a single day can be added to the end of your life any more than it can be added to the beginning; and so we live from day to day by a divine gift, and all our affairs depend on Him alone who, so to speak, gives to us as a free gift our very selves, and that always, everywhere. And this identity of person is a matter of deep import. Let me submit to you this one fact only at present, a fact sufficiently obvious-viz. that since you are Auximus and no other, and that you are entering into possession of yourself for ever, you are to see well to it that you yourself obtain the grace and eternal salvation of God, for if not, whatever may befall Joseph or Augentius, Auximus will perish. However, it does not follow that it is right to depend solely on your personal salvation, for since you are a man by birth, you ought to consider yourself a member of the great Brotherhood of Man; since you are a Jew by nationality, you are a partaker in the civil privileges, duties, and prosperity of your countrymen. When you consider your relation to your brother, it is that of one eye to the other, the very closest reciprocity. And last 1 The Latin is: arctissima officiorum conjunctio. As is well known, Confucius said that one word, viz. reciprocity, included all the duties of life. Ch. III] MILTON'S TRACTATE 133 of all, as a Christian, you should have the most complete union with your fellow-Christians in heart and intellect, in thought and purpose." It is by early discourse of this sort that the younger children are brought to have a relish for true religion, and a freedom of thought withal.1 1 Here ends the account of the author's system of training as regards younger children up to the age of ten or thereabouts. No allusion whatever to such early training is made in Milton's tractate on Education to Hartlib in 1644; but as we find a reference in that tractate to dividing and transposing "my former thoughts," is it not possible that we have some of Milton's original former thoughts in this chapter? But in any case, all through our Romance the educational part is of so similar a character, and of such high moral tone, that it may well be said to deserve the great though rather tardy praise that has at last been awarded by the best critics to Milton's tractate. Professor Masson finally endorses the opinion of modern experts, and says (Milton, iii. 252): "The noble moral glow that pervades the tract on Education, the mood of magnanimity in which it is conceived and written, and the faith it inculcates in the powers of the young human spirit, if rightly nurtured and directed, are merits everlasting." Oscar Browning tells a good tale about Milton's tractate. He says it had been a favourite study of his own for five-and-twenty years, and when he became an assistant master at Eton, it struck him, as an ardent Educational Reformer, that a cheap reprint of Milton's tractate would have a good effect in clearing the thoughts and opinions of his colleagues. He had even opened negotiations with the school bookseller, when, to his surprise and disgust, one of the masters senior to him set Milton as a subject for a Latin theme, and told his boys that they were to prove that Milton, like Burke, went mad in his old age. This was a new idea to Oscar Browning, and he went to ask the master on what grounds it rested. The senior master replied: "Did he not write a crack-brained book about education in his old age?" This was giving himself away pretty liberally, for Milton was by no means in his old age when he favoured Hartlib with his views. CHAPTER IV TERRIBLE ADVENTURES WITH BANDITTI FEW days later one of the servants came and told A come to Solyma, and was now in the house with the master, and wished to speak with him. Joseph went at once, little expecting such a visitor. As soon as Alcimus was told that Joseph had arrived to see him, he quickly ran towards him, and, kneeling down, humbly begged his pardon. But Joseph, unaware of any cause for this, simply replied that an offence must be known before pardon can be properly asked or prudently granted. "The truth is," said the suppliant, "I have done a very great wrong both to you and to my father." He said no more, for a sudden flow of tears, mingled with many sighs, stopped him. Such an amazing beginning startled Joseph, who bade him rise up on his feet and tell the whole history. So he began : "You will remember how, six months ago, you were travelling with my father and one attendant, a mere lad, in Sicily near Catania. I had, some time before this, as you know, run away from my father and betaken myself secretly to Sicily. After many adventures, and being reduced to the greatest privation, I became so lost to everything, except the desire to live, that I joined a band of noted robbers, who for security had quartered themselves in a neighbouring wood. "One morning you three came riding past our ambush. |