then, perhaps, that grace of novelty which they are now often supposed to want by those who, having already found them in later books, do not know or inquire who produced them first. This treatment is unjust. Let not the original author lose by his imitators.

"Praise, however, should be due before it is given. The author of Waller's life ascribes to him the first practice of what Erythræus, and some late critics call alliteration, of using in the same verse many words beginning with the same letter. But this knack, whatever be its value, was so frequent among our early writers, that Gascoigne, a writer of the 16th century, warns the young poet against affecting it, and Shakespeare, in the Midsummer Night's Dream," is supposed

to ridicule it.

"Waller borrows too many of his sentiments and illustrations from the old mythology, for which it is vain to plead the example of the ancient poets; the deities which they introduced so frequently were considered as realities so far as to be received by the imagination, whatever sober reason might even then determine. But of these images time has tarnished the splendour. A fiction not only detected, but despised, can never afford a solid basis to any position, though, sometimes, it may furnish a transient allusion or slight illustration. No modern monarch can be much exalted by hearing that as Hercules had his club, he has his navy.

"But of the praise of Waller, though much may be taken away, much will remain; for it cannot be

denied that he added something to our elegance of diction, and something to our propriety of thought; and to him may be applied what Tasso said, with equal spirit and justice, of himself and Guarini, when, having perused the "Pastor Fido," he cried out," if he had not read Aminta, he had not excelled it.

MILTO N.

JOHN MILTON was, by birth, a gentleman, being descended from the proprietors of Milton, near Thame, in Oxfordshire, one of whom forfeited his estate in the times of York and Lancaster.

His grandfather John was keeper of the forest of Shotover, a zealous papist, who disinherited his son because he had forsaken the religion of his

áncestors.

His father John, who was the son disinherited, had recourse for his support to the profession of a scrivener. He was a man eminent for his skill in music, and his reputation in his profession was such that he grew rich and retired to an estate. He married a gentlewoman of the name of Caston, a Welch family, by whom he had two sons, John the poet, and Christopher who studied the law; and likewise a daughter, Anne.

John, the poet, was born in his father's house, at the Spread Eagle, in Bread Street, Dec. 9, 1608, between six and seven in the morning. His father had him instructed, at first, by private tuition, and

then sent him to St. Paul's school under the care of Mr. Gill. He was removed, in the beginning of his 16th year, to Christ College, Cambridge, where he entered a pensioner Feb. 12, 1624.

He was, at this time, eminently skilled in the Latin tongue; but the products of his vernal fertility have been surpassed by many, and particularly by his contemporary Cowley.

At fifteen, a date which he uses till he is sixteen, he translated, or versified, two psalms, 114, and 136, and many of his elegies appear to have been written in his eighteenth year. Milton is said to be the first Englishman who, after the revival of letters, wrote Latin verses with classic elegance.

He complains of the unkindness with which he was treated in the university. It is said that he was the last student, in either university, that suffered the public indignity of corporal correction; and 'tis certain, for what reason we know not, that he incurred rustication, a temporary dismission into the country, with, perhaps, the loss of a term.

Weary, as he declares, of enduring the threats of a rigorous master, and something else which a temper like his could not undergo, after taking both the usual degrees, that of Bachelor in 1628, and that of Master in 1632, he left the University with no kindness for its institution. He first went there with a design of entering into the church, but in time altered his mind, in consequence of thinking he could not, with a safe conscience, subscribe to some of the articles.

When he left the University, he returned to his father, then residing at Horton in Buckinghamshire, with whom he lived five years, in which time he is said to have read all the Greek and Latin writers. About this period he wrote "the Masque of Comus," which was presented at Ludlow, then the residence of the Lord President of Wales, in 1634, and had the honour of being acted by the Earl of Bridgewater's sons and daughter. His next production was "Lycidas," an elegy, written in 1637; and soon after, it is supposed, he wrote his "Árcadia.

دو

In 1638, his mother just dead, he left England, and went first to Paris. From thence he hasted to Italy, and staid, two months at Florence, where he was much noticed. At Rome, as at Florence, he staid only two months, a time too short for the contemplation of learning, policy or manners. From Rome he passed on to Naples; but instead of extending his travels, as he intended, he resolved to hasten home, hearing of the differences between the king and parliament, and being informed of plots laid against him by the Jesuits for the liberty of his conversation on religion. He came back to Rome, and staid there two months more, and afterwards went to Florence without molestation.

From Florence he visited Lucca, Venice, and Geneva, and came home through France, after an absence of a year and three months.

He first hired a lodging at the house of one Russel, a taylor, in St. Bride's Church Yard, and undertook the education of John and Edmund

Phillips, his sister's sons. Finding his rooms too little, he took a garden-house in Aldersgate Street. Here he received more boys to be boarded and instructed; for, his allowance from his father not being ample, he thus supplied his deficiencies by an honest and useful employment; and it is said that in the art of education he performed wonders.

He now began to engage in the controversies of the times. In 1641 he published a treatise on reformation, in two books, against the established church, and also another respecting episcopacy. His next work was "The Reason of ChurchGovernment urged against Prelacy, by Mr. John Milton, 1642. He published the same year two more pamphlets upon the same question.'

His father, after Reading was taken by Essex, came to reside in his house, and his school increased. At Whitsuntide, in his thirty-fifth year, he married Mary, the daughter of Mr. Powell, a justice of the peace in Oxfordshire. He brought her to town with him, where, however, she did not remain above a month before she requested to return to her friends, which was granted upon a promise of her coming back at Michaelmas. This, however, when the time came, she had no inclination to do, and after some vain attempts to make her comply Milton soon determined to repudiate her for disobedience. The lady and her relations now found that he was not an unresisting sufferer of injuries, and therefore resolved to endeavour a re-union, which was first effected in the