who, in a short revolution of time, pass through our public schools to obscurity, we shall cease to be surprised that not one of Milton's small knot of pupils has asserted any very eminent place among the scholars or the writers of his country. We shall rather, indeed, wonder that two of them, the two Philips's, were authors, and of no despicable rank; one of them publishing a latin answer to an anonymous attack' on his uncle and his cause; and the other, besides that life, to which all the biographers of Milton are so greatly indebted, a respectable English work with the latin title of Theatrum Poëtarum, containing a list and character of the ancient and the modern poets. In honour of Milton's earnest and intelligent discharge of his duties as a teacher, it is recorded, that these two young men, who came under his care at the early ages of ten and nine, were so rapidly forwarded in their studies, as, in the course of one year, to be "able to understand a latin author at sight." Aubrey, who relates the circum-. stance, ought to have been more specific in his account. If he means by “a latin of Ascribed, but without sufficient grounds, to the pen Dr. Bramhall, bishop of Derry; and afterwards archbishop of Armagh. author" any latin author, the fact is certainly extraordinary, and reputable, in nearly an equal degree, to the master, and the scholars. But Milton's scheme extended, beyond the Roman and the Greek, to the Hebrew, with its dialects of Chaldee and Syriac, and to some of the modern languages. It comprehended, also, a certain acquaintance with the mathématics, and with their sublime application to the purposes of astronomy. While this various reading fully occupied six days of the week, the seventh had its appropriate and characteristic employment. On this day, the pupils, after reading to their master a chapter in the Greek testament, and hearing his explanation of it, wrote, as he dictated, on some subject of theology. As his plan of education could not be properly executed in his confined lodgings in St. Bride's church-yard, he soon removed to a house in Aldersgate-street, of which the size admitted his scholars into his family, and the situation, secluded by a court from the street, and opening into a garden, supplied the retirement and quiet It was one of those houses, which were called Garden M Et lare de Et vad Dicit 募 Massica fæcundam despumant pocula venam, Fundis et ex ipso condita metra cado. quoq; Thressa tibi cælato barbitos auro Percipies tacitum per pectora serpere Phœbum, Sæpius et veteri commaduisse mero. Et nunc sancta canit superum consulta deorum; Lumina Tiresian, Ogygiumq; Linon; age. Et lare devoto profugum Calchanta, senemq; Perq; tuas, rex ime, domos, ubi sanguine nigro Diis etenim sacer est vates, divûmque sacerdos, Then why of wine's enfeebling cup complain? And oft Aönia's hills have heard the Nine " Milton and Virgil disagree on the subject of Orpheus's ...... Spreto Ciconum quo munere matres Georg. lib. iv. 522. But each poet had a view, perhaps, in this instance, to his own particular purpose. Milton wished to insinuate that his diet had a tendency to promote longevity; and Virgil was aware that he could not, with any probability, make the women of Thrace so outrageous with an old man, for his neglect of them, as to tear him to pieces. Whether o'erwhelm'd the groaning axle lie, Or dark with Eliac dust the impetuous courser fly. Nay thou, whose thankless strain the boon disowns, For many a God o'er elegy presides, Its spirit kindles, and its numbers guides: And, with her beauteous boy, the Idalian queen: Drain the full bowl, and join the jocund throng. His thirst by Nature's limpid beverage chased; And His be Pure as The pr Twas t And Li Such t And b |