Meque nec invitum patria dulcis habet. IO Nuda nec arva placent, umbrafque negantia molles, 15 12. Nec dudum vetiti me Laris angit amor.] The words vetiti Laris, and afterwards exilium, will not fuffer us to determine otherwife, than that Milton was fentenced to undergo a temporary removal or ruftication from Cambridge. I will not fuppofe for any immoral irregularity. Dr. Bainbridge, the Mafter, is reported to have been a very active difciplinarian and this lover of liberty, we may prefume, was as little difpofed to fubmiffion and conformity in a college as in a ftate. When reprimanded and admonished, the pride of his temper, impatient of any fort of reproof, naturally broke forth into expreffions of contumely and contempt against his governour. Hence he was punished. See the next Note. He appears to have lived in friendship with the fellows of the college. See APOL. SMECTYMN. PROSE-WORKS, vol. i 108. Milton, in his profe, takes frequent opportunities of depretiating the conduct and cuftoms of the academical life. In one place he pleases himself with ridiculing the ceremonies of a college-audit. 15. Nec duri libet ufque minas perferre Magiftri, Cæteraque ingenio non jubeunda meo.] Milton is faid to have been whipped at Cambridge. See LIFE OF BATHURST, p. 153. This has been reprobated and difcredited, as a most extraordinary and improbable piece of feverity. But in thofe days of fimplicity and fubordination, of roughness and rigour, this fort of punishment was much more common, and confequently by no means fo difgraceful unfeemly for a young man at the univerfity, as it would be thought at prefent. We learn from Wood, that Henry Stubbe, a Student of Chrift-Church Oxford, afterwards a partifan of fir Henry Vane, " fhewing himself too forward, prag matical, and conceited," was publicly whipped by the Cenfor in the college-hall. ATH. OxON. ii. p. 560. See alfo LIFE OF BATHURST, p. 202. I learn from fome manufcript papers of Aubrey the antiquary, who was a ftudent of Trinity college Oxford, four years from 1642, that " at Oxford and, I believe, at Cambridge, the rod was frequently used by the tutors and deans: " and Dr. Potter, while a tutor of Trinity college, I knew right "well, whipt his pupil with his fword by his fide, when he << came to take his leave of him to go to the inns of court." In 66 the Si fit hoc exilium patrios adiiffe penates, Et vacuum curis otia grata fequi, the Statutes of the faid college, given in 1556, the Scholars of the foundation are ordered to be whipped by the Deans, or Cenfors, even to their twentieth year. In the University Statutes at Oxford, compiled in 1635, ten years after Milton's admiffion at Cambridge, corporal punishment is to be inflicted on boys under fixteen. We are to recollect, that Milton, when he went to Cambridge, was only a boy of fifteen. The author of an old pamphlet, Regicides no Saints nor Martyrs, fays that Hugh Peters, while at Trinity college Cambridge, was publicly and officially whipped in the Regent-walk for his infolence, p. 81. 8vo. The anecdote of Milton's whipping at Cambridge, is told by Aubrey. MS. MUS. ASHм. Oxon. Num. x. P. iii. From which, by the way, Wood's life of Milton in the FASTI OXONIENSES, the first and the ground-work of all the lives of Milton, was compiled. Wood fays, that he draws his account of Milton " from his own mouth to my Friend, who was well acquainted with and "had from him, and from his relations after his death, moft of "this account of his life and writings following." ATH. OXON. i. F. p. 262. This Friend is Aubrey; whom Wood, in another place, calls credulous, " roving and magotie-headed, and fometimes little better than crafed." LIFE of A. WOOD, p. 577. edit. Hearne, Th. Caii VIND. &c. vol. ii. This was after a quarrel. I know not that Aubrey is ever fantastical, except on the subjects of chemistry and ghofts. Nor do I remember that his veracity was ever impeached. I believe he had much less credulity than Wood. Aubrey's MONUMENTA BRITANNICA is a very folid and rational work, and its judicious conjectures and obfervations have been approved and adopted by the best modern antiquaries. Aubrey's manuscript Life contains fome anecdotes of Milton yet unpublished. But let us examine if the context will admit fome other interpretation. Cæteraque, the most indefinite and comprehensive of defcriptions, may be thought to mean literary tasks called impofitions, or frequent compulfive attendances on tedious and unimproving exercises in a college-hall. But cætera follows minas, and perferre feems to imply fomewhat more than these inconveniences, fomething that was fuffered, and feverely felt. It has been fuggefted, that his father's economy prevented his conftant refidence at Cambridge; and that this made the college Lar dudum vetitus, and his abfence from the university an exilium. But it was no unpleafing or involuntary banishment. He hated the place. He was not only offended at the college-discipline, but had even conceived a diflike to the face of the country, the fields about Cambridge. He Non ego vel profugi nomen fortemve recufo, 20 He peevishly complains, that the fields have no foft fhades to attract the Mufe; and there is fomething pointed in his exclamation, that Cambridge was a place quite incompatible with the votaries. of Phebus. Here a father's prohibition had nothing to do. He refolves, however, to forget all these disagreeable circumstances, and to return in due time. The difmiffion, if any, was not to be perpetual. In thefe lines, ingenium is to be rendered temper, nature, difpofition, rather than genius. Aubrey fays, from the information of our author's brother Christopher, that Milton's "first tutor there [at Chrift's college] " was Mr. Chapell, from whom receiving fome unkindneffe, (he whipt him) he was afterwards, though it seemed against the " rules of the college, transferred to the tuition of one Mr. Tovell, "who dyed parfon of Lutterworth." MS. Mus. ASH м. ut fupr. This information, which ftands detached from the body of Aubrey's narrative, feems to have been communicated to Aubrey, after Wood had feen his papers; it therefore does not appear in Wood, who never would otherwise have fuppreffed an anecdote which contributed, in the leaft degree to expofe the character of Milton. I must here obferve, that Mr. Chappell, from his original Letters, many of which I have seen, written while he was a fellow and tutor of Chrift's College, and while Milton was there, and which are now in the poffeffion of Mr. Moreton of Westerhoe in Kent, by whom they have been politely communicated, appears to have been a man of uncommon mildness and liberality of manners. Probably Mr. Tovell, here mentioned as Milton's fecond tutor, ought to be Tovey. Nathaniel Tovey figns his name in an AuditBook at Chrift's College, under the year 1633. He was originally of Sidney College, and there B. A. 1615, and M. A. 1619. It does not appear when he migrated to Chrift's. Again, Lutterworth fhould here perhaps be Kegworth, likewife in Leicestershire, which (and not Lutterworth) is a benefice in the patronage of Chrift's College. As it is a matter involved in the fubject of the prefent note, I muft here correct a mistake in the BIOGRAPHIA, p. 3106. Where Milton is faid to have been entered at Cambridge a SIZAR, which denominates the lowest rank of academics. But his admiffion thus ftands in the Register at Chrift's College. " "Johannes Milton, filius Johannis inftitutus fuit in literarum elementis fub magiftro "Gill Gymnafii Paulini præfecto, et admiffus eft Pensionarius Minor. 12°. feb. 1624." But Penfionarius minor is a Penfioner, or Commoner, in contradiftinction to a fellow-Commoner. And he is fo entered in the Matriculation-book of the University. O utinam O utinam vates nunquam graviora tuliffet Non tunc lonio quicquam ceffiffet Homero, Tempora nam licet hic placidis dare libera Mufis, Et vocat ad plaufus garrula scena fuos. 26 30 22. Ille Tomitano flebilis exul agro.] Ovid thus begins his Epiftles from Pontus, i. i. Į. Nafo TOMITANÆ jam non novus incola terræ, Hoc tibi de Getico litore mittit opus. See our author below, EL. vi. 19. And Ovid, TRIST. iii. ix. 33. i. ii. 85. iv. x. 97. v. vii. 9. feq. Ex PONT. i. ii. 77. i. vii. 49. iii. i. 6. iii. iv. 2. iv. ix. 97. iv. xiii 15. 23. feq. Again, ibid. iii. viii. 2. Dona TOMITAN US mittere poffet AGER. 23. Non tunc Ionio quicquam ceffiffet Homero, &c.] I have before obferved, that Ovid was Milton's favourite Latin poet. In these Elegies Ovid is his pattern. But he fometimes imitates Propertius in his prolix digreffions into the antient Grecian story. 27. Excipit hinc feffum finuofis pompa theatri, &c.] As in L'AL LEGRO, V. 131. Then to the well-trod stage anon, &c. The theatre feems to have been a favourite amusement of Milton's youth. 31. Sive decennali fæcundus lite patronus Detonat inculto barbara verba foro.] He probably means the play of IGNORAMUS. In the expreffion decennali fœcundus lite, there is both elegance and humour. Moft of the rest of Milton's comic characters are Terentian. He is giving a general view of comedy: but it is the view of a scholar, and he does not recollect that he sets out with describing a London theatre. Et Et nafum rigidi fallit ubiqué patris; Sæpe novos illic virgo mirata calores .35 Quid fit amor nefcit, 'dum quoque nefcit, amat. Sive cruentatum furiofa Tragoedia fceptrum Quaffat, et effufis crinibus ora rotat, Et dolet, et fpecto, juvat et fpectaffe dolendo, Interdum et lacrymis dulcis amaror ineft: puer infelix indelibata reliquit Seu 40 37. Sive cruentatum, &c.] See Note on IL PENS. v. 98. Ovid calls his MEDEA " Scriptum regale." TRIST. ii. 553. Et dedimus tragicis fcriptum REGALE Cothurnis. Again, Ex PONT. iv. xvi. 9. Quique dedit Latio carmen REGALE Severus. Where he means the Tragedies of Severus. In the Note on I PENSEROSO, the whole of Ovid's portrait of Tragedy fhould have been quoted. AMOR. iii. i. 11. Venit et ingenti.violenta Tragoedia paffu, Fronte come torva, PALLA jacebat humi : Here we trace Milton's PALL, as well as SCEPTER. 41. Seu puer infelix indelibata reliquit Gaudia, et abrupto flendus amore cadit, Seu ferus e tenebris iterat Styga criminiş ultor Confcia funereo pectora torre movens.] By the youth, inthe first couplet he perhaps intends Shakespeare's Romeo. In the. fecond, either Hamlet or Richard the Third. He then draws his illuftrations from the antient tragedians. The allufions, however, to Shakespeare's incidents do not exactly correfpond. In the first inftance, Romeo was not torn from joys untafted: although puer and abrupto amore are much in point. The allufions are loofe, or refulting from memory, or not intended to tally minutely Milton's writings afford a striking example of the ftrength and weakness of the fame mind. His warmeft poetical predilections were at laft totally abliterated by civil and religious enthufiafm. Seduced by the gentle eloquence of fanaticism, he listened no longer to the "wild and native woodnotes of fancy's fweeteft child." In his ICONOCLASTES, he cenfures king Charles for studying, "One, “whom we well know was the closet-companion of his folitudes, "WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE." PROSE-WORKS, vol. i. 368. This remonstrance, which not, only refulted from his abhorrence of a king, but from his difapprobation of plays, would have come VOL. I. Hhh with A |