Mr. Godwin, in this respect; and we know not what 'sort of writer' Milton would have become, if he had always composed such verses as these :

Yet can I not perswade me thou art dead,

Or that thy coarse corrupts in earth's dark wombe,
Or that thy beauties lie in wormie bed
Hid from the world in a low delved tombe,
Could for pittie thee so strictly doom?
Oh, no! for something in thy face did shine
Above mortalitie, that shewed thou wast divine.

We do not pretend to know what is meant by these two last lines; and the two last of the other stanza are still more incomprehensible.

Then thou, the mother of so sweet a child,
Her false, imagined loss cease to lament,
And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild;
Think what a present thou to God hast sent,
And render him with patience what he lent;
This if thou do, he will an offspring give,
That till the world's last end shall make thy name to live,

Milton does not appear to have been, at first, a favourite in his college. He received no fellowship; and, on one occasion, was obliged, it seems, to undergo the chastisement of the rod.* 'Much controversy and spleen (says Mr. Godwint) have been expended upon this anecdote of Milton's having been whipped at college; and Dr. Johnson, with his characteristic malignity, professes himself "ashamed to relate, what he fears is true, that Mil

ton was one of the last students in either university that suffered the public indignity of corporal correction." Erratum, for fears is true, read hopes MAY BE true.' The reader now expects to see the stain wiped away; but, instead of endeavouring to invalidate the anecdote, Mr. Godwin proceeds to prove, beyond all doubt, what Dr. Johnson only feared' was true. For my part, (says he,) I am not disposed to controvert the anecdote. It is related by Aubrey, the sincere and affectionate lover of the person of Milton, upon the authority of Christopher Milton, Milton's brother, with whom the poet lived in friendship, and who attested it after his death. Then follows a note of two quarto pages; in which Mr. Godwin only shows, that he is chagrined at the indignity; and, though conscious that it was suffered, yet angry, that any body should mention it.*

From some Latin verses to Charles Diodati, one of his schoolfellows, Mr. Wharton, and Dr. Johnson after him, think it is, also, 'plain that Milton had incurred rustication, a temporary dismission into the country, with perhaps the loss of a term.' Mr. Godwin is again enraged; and, though he does not undertake to disprove the interpretation, he is, we think, much more entitled to be angry in this case, than in the former. Milton says,

Me tenet urbs reflua quam Thamisis alluit unda,
Meque nec invitum patria dulcis habet.
Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum,
Nec dudum vetiti me laris angit amor.
Nuda nec arva placent, umbrasque negantia molles.
Quam malè Phœbicolis convenit ille locus!
Nec duri libet usque minas perferre magistri,
Cæteraque ingenio non subeunda meo.
Si sit hoc exilium patrios adisse penates,
Et vacuum curis otia grata sequi,
Non ego vel profugi nomen, sortemve recuso
Laetus et exilii conditione fruor.
O utinam vates nunquam graviora tulisset
Ille Tomitano flibilis exul agro;
Non tune Ionis quicquam cessisset Homero,
Neve foret victo laus tibi prima, Maro!

From the frequent mention of exile, and from the use of the words vetiti laris, there is little doubt, that, when Milton wrote this elegy, he had quitted the university against his will. But he does not declare, as Dr. Johnson thinks, 'that he is weary of enduring the threats of a rigorous master: it is not 'some thing else, but some things else, that his genius could not undergo; nor can we admit, that, by these other things, besides threats, the author 'probably' meant 'punishment. His design seems to have been, to compare the pleasures of the country with those of a college; and, on this account, Dr. Johnson should not have omitted the two essential lines, beginning with nuda nec arva. The threats of a rigorous master are not intended for himself particularly; neither is it at all evident, that the other things' are designed to refer exclusively to those 'threats.' Milton begins to enumerate the miseries of Cambridge; and, after mentioning some of the most prominent, includes the rest under the comprehensive et cetera. The elegy closes with a resoIution of returning some time to Cambridge; and it is upon this combination of circumstances, that Dr. Johnson founds his conjecture of Milton's rustication. If Toland is to be credited, the interpretation is decisively contradicted by the fact, that this elegy was written after Milton had taken his second degree, and while he was residing with his father at Horton, in Berkshire. We believe Diodati, his schoolfellow, was then a student of medicine; and that he was himself at home, appears from the expression, patrios adisse penates.

We shall now propose our own conjecture. Milton 'went to the university (we prefer to use the language of Dr. Johnson) with a design of entering into the church, but in time altered his mind; for he declared, that whoever became a clergyman, must "subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which, unless he took with a conscience that could not retch, he must straight perjure himself. He thought it better to prefer a blameless silence before the office of speaking, bought and begun with servitude and forswearing." His unwillingness to engage in the ministry, perhaps not yet advanced to a settled resolution of declining it, appears in a letter to one of his friends, who had reproved his suspended and dilatory life, which he seems to have imputed to an insatiable curiosity, and a fantastic luxury of various knowledge. To this he writes a cool and plausible answer, in which he endeavours to persuade persuade suade him, hi that the delay proceeds not from the delights of desultory study, but from the desire of obtaining more fitness for his task; and that he goes on, not taking thought of being late, so it gives advantage to be more fit.'

We have before mentioned, that Milton came away without a fellowship; and perhaps the reader has already anticipated us in the supposition, that, to take the requisite oath and subscribe the thirty-nine articles, being among the things to which Milton's spirit could not submit, he was allowed to go home; examine the subject; and try to think better of these qualifications. It does not appear, that the disfavour of his first master extended to any other member of the faculty; and, when, as we have seen, they would condescend to violate the rules of college, by transferring him to another,* there can be little doubt, that he was highly esteemed by the majority. Indeed, it is well known, that, at both universities, a good Greek and Latin scholar could seldom do amiss; and, if any undergraduate might claim impunity in this respect, it was certainly John Milton. When he offered himself for a fellowship, therefore, there was probably no impediment to his success, but an unwillingness to sign the articles, and take the oath.

See above, page 4, note.