master, and something else, which a temper like his cannot undergo." Here, indeed, he translates with sufficient correctness; but, in the following sentence, this something else is changed into something more, and we are told that what was more than threat was evidently punishment!!! The story then of the corporal correction, which has been raised into so much false importance, seems to rest on too airy a foundation to be worthy of our regard 25.

Of its admission, however, as true, we cannot perceive that any injury to the reputation of our author would be the necessary result. While the rod continued to be an instrument of punishment at our Universities for the boys who then frequented them, its infliction would be followed by no more disgrace than it is at present in our schools; and, in either place, it must be the offense and not the chastisement which can properly be considered as the occasion of dishonor. With respect to Milton 26, we may be confident that no immorality could be the cause of his punishment. Religion, as we know, took early possession of his bosom; and he, who with weak eyes and an aching head could consecrate one half of the night to study, cannot be suspected of stealing the other half from repose for the purpose of confounding it with excess or of polluting

25 In a preceding note I have shown, that Milton, at the age of seventeen, could not have been subjected to this species of punishment, without a direct infringement of one of the University statutes.

26 Even Mr. Warton, averse as he is from any favorable mention of Milton as a man, is forced to say on the subject of the punishment, that he will not suppose that it was for any immoral irregularity. See note on Eleg. i. v. 12. in the ed. of Milton's Juvenile Poems.

it with debauch. A mind, indeed, like his, exulting in the exercise of its higher powers and intent on the pursuit of knowledge, could not, without a violation of its nature, submit to licentious indulgences. The cultivation of intellect not only diverts the attention from sensual pleasure, but inspires 27 a pride which subdues its fascination; and while the spectacle of the world exhibits innumerable instances of men of genius hurrying into excessive gratification, it scarcely presents us with one, under the influence of the same unfortunate error, among the assiduous votaries of knowledge.

But if Milton, the religious and the studious Milton, was not censurable for his immoral irregularities, by what means, it may be asked, could he become obnoxious to the governors of his college? We may answer without difficulty, that he might offend their prejudices by the bold avowal of his puritan opinions; or he might wound their pride by his exposure of their negligent or injudicious discharge of duty; or, lastly, he might

27 Milton talks in the same strain: he from feeling and I from observation. "These reasonings, together with a certain niceness of nature, an honest haughtiness and self-esteem either of what I was or what I might be (which let envy call pride), and lastly, a becoming modesty, all uniting the supply of their natural aid together, kept me still above those low descents of mind, beneath which he must deject and plunge himself that can agree to saleable and unlawful prostitutions." Apol. for Smect. P. W. 1. 224.

28 The following passage, which has been cited by more than one of the biographers of Milton, from the "Apology for Smectymnuus," P. W. 1. 221, may perhaps assist in solving the difficulty before us; and may show that a virtuous and religious young man might expose himself to the ill will and displeasure of his academical superiors, without any deviation from his moral rectitude, or any approach to the pollution of excess:-" when in the colleges so many of the young divines, and those in next aptitude to divinity, have been seen so often upon the stage, writhing and unboning their clergy limbs to all the antic and dishonest gestures of Trinculoes, buffoons, and bawds; prostituting the shame of that ministry, which either they had or were nigh having, to the eyes of courtiers and court ladies, with their

excite their displeasure by his haughty inattention to their rules, and by his refusing perhaps to quit the banquet of his intellect or his imagination, on the page of Plato or of Homer, for the barren fatigue of translating a sermon or of throwing on his memory some cumbrous pages of scholastic divinity. He had already, as we may fairly infer, imbibed from his presbyterian tutor, Young, a dislike to the discipline of our church; and we are assured, by more than one passage in his own works, that he looked with no friendly eye either on the plan of education 29 observed in the University, or on the learning 30 and the conducts of its members. We may conceive, therefore, that he might be excluded from the favor of his superiors in the college, and even be exposed to their censures without incurring the slightest loss of character, or sustaining the most trifling diminution of our esteem.

grooms and mademoiselles. There, while they acted and overacted, among other young scholars, I was a spectator. They thought themselves gallant men, and I thought them fools; they made sport, and I laughed; they mispronounced, and I misliked; and, to make up the atticism, they were out, and I hissed." Apol. for Smect. p. 221. ed. of 1806.

One of my objects in making this citation is to obtain an opportunity of enriching a page of mine with the valuable name of the Reverend James Tate, of Richmond in Yorkshire. In a letter, which I received in the last year (1820) from this truly estimable man, whose talents and erudition, combined with the virtues of his heart and his high-minded integrity, place him illustriously above the multitude of his species, there is a passage which I shall give to my readers. After quoting the latter part of what I have just transcribed from the page of Milton, my excellent correspondent says; "I know not whether Milton's allusion has been remarked before: but it is very clear where the atticism was got, if you will but read the following words of Demosthenes to Eschines in the bitter contrast of their respective fortunes : Εδίδασκες γράμματα, ἐγὼ δ ̓ ἐφοίτων. ἐτέλεις, ἐγὼ δ ̓ ἐτελούμην. ἐχόρευες, ἐγὼ δ ̓ ἐχορήγουν. ἐγραμμάτευες, ἐγὼ δ ̓ ἐκκλησίαζον. ἐτριταγωνίσεις, ἐγὼ δ ̓ ἐθεώρουν. ἐξέπιπτες, ἐγὼ δ ̓ ἐσύριττον.—Πέρι Στέφανου. p. 315. ex edit. Reiske. Lipsiæ, 1770.

29 Treatise on Ed. to Hartlib. 30 Epist. Alex. Gillio, Jul. 2, 1623. 31 Apology for Smectymnuus.

In his "Second Defense," published twelve years after the "Apology for Smectymnuus," he again asserts the purity of his college life; and ✓ affirms, in opposition to his adversary's calumnies, that he passed seven years at the University, pure from every blemish and in possession of the esteem of the good, till he took with applause his degree of master of arts: that he then retired to his father's house, and left behind him a memory which was cherished with affection and respect by the greater part of the fellows of his college, who had always been assiduous in cultivating his regard 32.

32

Here, therefore, we must finally rest; and, throwing from our fancies every idea which can suggest our author as the object of positive punishment, (of any thing more, we mean, than those impositions perhaps, which are enjoined for trivial omissions and trespasses against the college forms), we must decide that his morals at the University conciliated the general esteem, while his learning and his talents excited the general applause. Of his learning and his talents, indeed, he had exhibited, during this period, such decisive and brilliant proofs as to place above question his uncommon acquisitions and powers, and undoubtedly to draw on him the gaze and admiration of all who knew and were capable of appreciating his possessions,

32❝Illic (Cantabrigiâ) disciplinis atque artibus tradi solitis septennium studui; procul omni flagitio, bonis omnibus probatus usquedum magistri, quem vocant, gradum cum laude etiam adeptus, non Italiam, quod impurus ille comminiscitur, profugi, sed sponte meâ domum me contuli, meique etiam desiderium apud collegii plerosque socios, a quibus eram haud me, diocriter cultus, reliqui.”—Defen. secun. P. W. v. 230.

In the seven years of his academical life, however he might complain of "the rushy marshes and the naked banks of the Cam" as unfriendly to the Muses, he discovered that neither "soft shades," nor a retirement from "the murmur of the hoarse schools" were essentially necessary to his inspiration. In this space of time his vigorous and ardent genius broke out in frequent flashes, and evidently disclosed the future author of Comus and of Paradise Lost. We have already noticed, on the testimony of Aubrey, which may be received as to the fact in question, that Milton was a poet when he was only ten years old; and his translation of the 136th psalm, which we still possess, sufficiently evinces his progress in poetic expression at the early age of fifteen. When we read in this small work of "the golden-tressed sun," of the moon shining among "her spangled sisters of the night;" of the Almighty smiting the first-born of Egypt with "his thunder-clasping hand," we are forced to acknowledge the buddings of the rising poet, the first shootings of the infant oak which in later times was to overshadow the forest.

At the age to which we have now followed him, or from the commencement of his academic career, his genius rushed rapidly to its maturity; and, like the Neptune of his favorite Homer, he may be considered as having made only three 33

33 Tpis μèv ozékαt' iwv II. N. 20. If my subject had admitted of the fourth Neptunian step, it should have brought the poet, as it did the god, to his PALACE and his THRONE:

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