To a knowledge of the Greek and Latin writers," Milton added a cultivation of the eastern languages, the Chaldee, Syriack, and Hebrew: he made his pupils "go through the Pentateuch and gain an entrance into the Targum:"Nor were the beft Italian and French authors forgotten. One part of his method, fays Johnson, deferves general imitation, he was careful to inftruct his scholars in religion. Every Sunday was spent upon theology, of which he dictated a short scheme gathered from the writers, that were then fashionable in the Dutch univerfities.' The Medulla Theologie of William Ames,73 a Puritan, and the Compendium Theologia of Wollebius, were the books used. Pearce has obferved, that Fagius was Milton's favourite annotator on the Bible.

Once in three or four weeks he relaxed from his spare diet and hard study, and passed a day of indulgence with fome young sparks of his acquaintance, the chief of whom, his nephew fays, 'were Mr. Alphry and Mr. Miller, the beaux of those times, but nothing near fo bad as those now-a-days; with thefe gentlemen he made fo far bold with his body, as now and then to keep a gaudy day.'

I am now to pafs to that period of Milton's life, in which he first engaged in the controversies of the times; and published a Treatise on Reformation, in 1641, in two books, against the Bishops" and Established Church;

72 For the Greek and Latin writers read and admired by Milton, see Birch's Life of Milton, p. xxiii.

73 Ames's Medulla was a book much read, as was alfo Tileni Syntagma. See Life of Dr. Harris in S. Clarke's Lives, P. 314. 1662. 4to.

74 Dr. Symmons confiders Milton as the leader of the attack against the prelates; his tutor Young had been one of the victims of the primate's intolerance; and Milton entered in his career, with the blended feeling of private and public wrong, v. Life, p. 226. The fact was, the Puritans were probably not equal to fuch men as Ufher, Hall, Bramhall, and others of the established religion in theological learning and knowledge of Ecclefiaftical hiftory, as may be seen by reading the controverfy;

'being willing,' he fays, 'to help the Puritans who were inferior to the Prelates in learning;' in this, his earliest publication in profe, he throws out a hint of fomething like his great poem, that might hereafter be expected from him.75 Then amidst the hymns and hallelujahs of Saints, fome one may perhaps be heard offering at high ftrains, in new and lofty measures to fing, and celebrate thy divine mercies, and marvellous judgments in this land throughout all ages.'

In 1641, Hall, Bishop of Norwich, a learned, witty, and eloquent writer, at the request of Laud, published An Humble Remonftrance in Favour of Epifcopacy, and the King expreffed himself much gratified with this work. Five ministers, under the title of Smectymnuus76 (a word formed from the first letters of their names), wrote an answer, of which the learned and venerable Archbishop

and they were glad even of Milton's eloquence; for that was all he brought them: and all the young scholar could be expected to bring. Nec adhuc maturus Achilles.'

73 Dr. Johnson, (fays Mr. Gifford, quoting a paffage in the Treatise on Reformation against the Bishops,) uses the language of forbearance, when rifing from the perufal of this fiendlike curfing, he merely observed,— "Such was Milton's controverfial malignity, that hell grew blacker at his frown." v. B. Jonson's Works. vol. vi. P. 260.

76 Stephen Marshall, Edward Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurftow. In the Church Register of Great Hampden, Bucks, is the following entry :-Wm. Spurftow fucceeded to the Rectory of Great Hampden in 1637. He was one of those heroes who wrote against the Church Establishment. They were five in number, viz., Stephen Marshal, Edward Calamy, Thos. Young, Matthew Newcome, and the above-mentioned Wm. Spurftow. The initial letters of their names formed the cant word Smectymnus, (uus) as celebrated by Hudibras. This worthy continued till 1642, when, according to the phrafeology of the times, "God gave him a call to a far greater living." This entry was obligingly furnished to the writer by the Rector of the Parish, Rev. Charles Lloyd. See on this subject Bowler's Life of Bishop Ken. vol. i. p. 62-66.

78

Ufher" published a confutation, called The Apoftolical Inftitution of Epifcopacy; to this confutation Milton replied in his Treatife of Prelatical Epifcopacy. The point at iffue was the divine or human origin of epifcopacy, as a peculiar order in the church, invested with spiritual rights and powers, diftinct in kind, and preeminent in degree. He added to this reply another performance, called The Reafon of Church Government urged against Prelacy. Bishop Hall published a defence of the Humble Remonftrance, well written and closely argued; and Milton wrote animadverfions upon it. These treatises were published in the year 1641.79 It was in his Reafon of Church Government that he discovered, as Johnson obferves, his high opinion of his own powers, and promised to undertake something that may be of fervice and honour to his country. This (he faid) was not to be obtained but by devout prayer to the Eternal Spirit, that can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and send out his Seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases. To this must be added felect reading, fteady obfervation, and infight into all feemly and generous arts and affairs, till which in fome measure he compaffed, I represent to fuftain this expectation. From a promife like this,' fays his biographer, ' at once fervid, pious, and rational, might be expected the Paradife Loft.'

In 1642 he closed the controverfy which I have mentioned, by an Apology for Smetymnuus, in answer to the confutation of his animadverfions, written, as he supposed,

Usher, Gataker, and Reynolds, were the three Protestant divines in England, who had the greatest reputation on the continent for their learning; fee Calomies' Mel. Curieux. p. 834. Their three rivals abroad, among the Proteftants, for erudition, were Blondel, Petitus, and Bochart. 78 See Symmons's Life, p. 234.

79 See Hall's Works, ed. Pratt, vol. ix. p. 641.

80

by Bishop Hall or his fon. His friendship for Young 0 probably led him into the field of controverfy; for he owns that he was not disposed to this manner of writing, wherein knowing myself inferior to myself, led by the genial power of nature to another task, I have the use, as I may account it, but of my left hand.' Weapons,' fays one of his biographers, 'more effectual than pens were now drawn against the church, and exposed by the injudicious conduct of fome of its prelates, it fell under the affault. If argument and reafon could have prevailed, the refult would have been different. The learning of Ufher, and the wit of Hall, certainly preponderated in the contest, and they seem to have been felt not only by the Smeɛtymnan divines, but by Milton himself. If the church at this crifis could have been upheld by the ability of her fons, it would have been fupported by thofe admirable prelates, but numbers, exafperation and enthusiasm were against them.'81

The main purpose which Milton had in view in these different publications, was to alter the Epifcopal form of the church, and to affimilate it to the fimpler, and, as he deemed, the apoftolical model of the reformed churches in other countries; to join with them in exactness of difcipline, as we do in purity of doctrine. But as in these churches, the Presbyterian discipline was united to a republican form of government, he therefore attempts to prove that the existence of the hierarchy adds nothing to the security or the proper fplendour of the throne; that the fall of Prelacy could not shake the least fringe that

80 Toland fays of his Reason for Church Government, the eloquence is masculine, the method is natural, the fentiments are free, and the whole (God knows) appears to have very different force from what the nonconformist divines wrote in those days, or fince that time, on the fame fubject. v. Life, p. 31.

81 See Symmons's Life of Milton, p. 240.

borders the royal canopy. He denies the apoftolical inftitution of bishops, and, as he argues for the greatest degree of honeft liberty in religion, as in other institutions, he urges that prelacy is the natural agent and minifter of tyranny. He advocates the sweetest and mildest manner of paternal discipline, the independent miniftry of each congregation; and he wishes the Angel of the Gospel to ride on his way, doing his proper business, conquering the high thoughts and proud reasonings of the flesh. As long as the church (he fays), in true imitation of Christ, can be content to ride upon an ass, carrying herself and her government along in a mean and fimple guife, fhe may be, as she is, a lion of the tribe of Judah, and in her humility all men will, with loud hofannahs, confess her greatness.' When his opponents urged the learning of the University and the clergy, he said, that God will not suffer true learning to be wanting, when true grace and obedience to him abounds; for if he give us to know him aright, and to practise this our knowledge in right established difcipline, how much more will he replenish us with all abilities in tongues and arts, that may conduce to his glory and our good. He can ftir up rich fathers to bestow exquifite education on their children, and to dedicate them to the service of the Gofpel. He can make the fons of nobles his minifters, and princes to be his Nazarites.'

That Milton engaged in the heat and dust of these great controverfial queftions, from motives of conscience, and with intentions upright and pure, no one can reafonably doubt, but they were alien from his elegant and learned pursuits; 82 they were fcarcely congenial to his age; and himself, as well as his brethren whom he de

82 It will be matter of hearty regret to the republic of letters, that the greatest of these, I mean John Milton, had the misfortune to be born in an age when the study of fcholaftic theology was deemed an effential part of intellectual discipline.' Beattie's Essays, 4to. p. 261.