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 a college register, and from that of assertions, publicly made and uncontradicted at a time when their falschood 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 compulsive 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

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

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 told, 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 authority, then, of Aubrey be received in this instance as possessing any weight? On the 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," &c.

and other things besides threats, 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

Warton's Life of Dean Bathurst.

passage, or rather has drawn a conclusion not warranted by his premises. 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 truc, 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, 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

* 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 in the ed. of Milton's Juvenile Poems.

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 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

▾ Milton talks in the same strain: he from feeling and I from observation. "These reasonings, together with a certain nice"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. v. 1. 224.

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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 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 observed in the University, or on the learning and the conduct of its members. We may con

a

2 Treatise on Ed. to Hurtlib. Epist. Alex. Gallio, Jul. 2, 1628. Apology for Smectymnuus.

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