ways how much better it would content them that I would stay: as by many letters full of

kindness and loving respect, both before that time and long after, I was assured of their singular good affection towards me. Which, being likewise propense to all such as were for their studious and civil life worthy of esteem, I could not wrong their judgments and upright intentions so much as to think I had that regard from them for other cause than that I might be still encouraged to proceed in the honest and laudable courses of which they apprehended I had given good proof."

The evidence now before us seems to be conclusive; for I know not to what tribunal an appeal can be carried from the authority of the registers of an University, strengthened with assertions, publicly made and uncontradicted at a time when their falsehood would be jealously watched and might easily be detected. What interpretation then are we to assign to those expressions in the elegy to Deodati which certainly refer to some com

a The slander was repeated, with some additional circumstances, by Du Moulin in his "Regii sanguinis Clamor ad cœlum." "Aiunt hominem Cantabrigiensi academiâ ob flagitia pulsum, dedecus et flagitium fugisse et in Italiam commigrasse, p. 8. edit. printed 1652. This is the vague and baseless echo of the writer of the " Modest Confutation." We shall soon have occasion to cite our author's reply to this revived calumny,

pulsive absence of the young student from his college, and which discover no fondness in the poet for the society or the country of Cambridge? As we find from some lines in the conclusion of the same elegy that it was his intention to return to his college, we may fairly, as I think, impute the banishment, of which he speaks, to the want of pecuniary supplies for his maintenance at the University; and the example of Gray may instruct us, that it is possible for a man of genius and of taste to dislike the conversation of a college or the naked vicinity of the Cam without being impelled to that dislike by unpopularity or injurious treatment.

The absurd story of the corporal punishment, which Milton is asserted to have suffered, may be regarded as undeserving of notice. It was communicated, as we are informed, with the pretence that it came from himself or from some of his near relations, by Aubrey to Wood; but with Wood, ill-disposed as he is known to have been to the fame of Milton, it obtained so little credit as not to find admission into his page. Can the testimony then of Aubrey be received in this instance as possessing any weight? On the

Warton's Life of Dean Bathurst.

value of that confirmation of this tale which Mr. Warton, with dry positiveness, and Dr. Johnson, with the insult of affected concern, have pretended to discover in that expression of the last cited verses, Cæteraque,"

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&c. and other things," I shall leave to the reader to determine; suggesting only that Dr. Johnson, for the purpose of concealing the weakness of his inference, has intimated a false translation of the passage, or rather has drawn a conclusion not warranted by his premises. He He says that Milton declares himself weary of enduring "the threats of a rigorous 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.

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

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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 offence and not the chastisement which can properly be considered as the occasion of dishonour. With respect to Milton, 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 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 indulgencies. The cultivation of intellect not only diverts the attention. from sensual pleasure, but inspires a pride

Even Mr. Warton, averse as he is from any favourable 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.

4 Milton talks in the same strain: he from feeling and I from observation." These reasonings, together with a certain nice

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 were not censurable for his immoral irregularities, by what means, it may be asked, could he become obnoxious to the governours 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 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

ness 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,