amiable and learned author, to whom the literature of this country is peculiarly indebted, has clofed his Philological Inquiries with a chapter, well calculated, like the animated lines of Milton, to banish the timid and unbenevolent idea of nature's decrepitude.

Milton was defigned by his parents, and once in his own refolutions, for the Church. But his fubsequent unwillingness to engage in the office of a minifter was communicated to a friend, in a letter; (of which two draughts exist in * manufcript;) with which he fent his impreffive Sonnet, On his being arrived at the age of twenty three. The truth is, fays Dr. Newton, he had conceived early prejudices against the doctrine and difcipline of the Church. This, no doubt, was a disappointment to his friends, who though in comfortable were yet by no means in great circumftances. Nor does he feem to have been difposed to any profeffion; it is certain that he alfo declined the b Law. Dr. Newton thinks

* See Birch's Life of Milton. Dr. Newton's edit. of Milton, Sonnet vii. General Dictionary, 1738, vol. vii. And Biograph, Brit. 1760, vol. v. Art. Milton, where they are printed.

b His contempt of the Law, as well as of the Church, is pretty ftrongly marked. See the Note Ad Patrem, ver. 71. vol. vi. p. 338. To the ecclefiaftical lawyers he has flown no mercy; but alludes to "chancellours and fuffragans, delegates and officials, with all the bell-peftering rabble of fumners and apparitors," in the very spirit of Quevedo. See his Animadverfions, &c, Profe Works, vol. i. p. 159. edit. 1698.

that he had too free a spirit to be limited and confined; that he was for comprehending all sciences, but profeffing none. His conduct, however,' on these occasions is a proof of the sincerity with which he had refolved to deliver his fentiments. "For me, I have determined to lay up as the best treasure and folace of a good old age, if God vouchsafe it me, the honest liberty of free speech from my youth."

Having taken the degree of a M.A. in 1632, he left the univerfity, and retired to his father's house in the country; who had now quitted bufinefs, and lived at an estate which he had purchased at Horton near Colnebrooke, in Buckinghamshire. Here he refided five years; in which time he not only, as he himself informs us, read over the Greek and Latin authors, particularly the historians, but is also believed to have written his Arcades, Comus, L'Allegro and Il Penferofo, and Lycidas. The pleasant retreat in the country excited his most poetick feelings; and he proved himself able, in his pictures of rural life, to rival the works of Nature which he contemplated with delight. In the neighbourhood of Horton the Countess Dowager of Derby refided; and the Arcades was

Profe-Works, vol. i. p. 220. edit. 1698.

d He was admitted to the fame degree at Oxford in 1635. See Wood, Fafti, vol. i. p. 262.

performed by her grand-children at this feat, called Harefield-place. It seems to me, that Milton intended a compliment to his fair neighbour, (for fair fhe was,) in his L'Allegro:

c

"Towers and battlements it fees
"Bofom'd high in tufted trees,
"Where perhaps fome Beauty lies,

"The Cynofure of neighbouring eyes."

The woody scenery of f Harefield, and the perfonal accomplishments of the Countess, are not unfavourable to this fuppofition; which, if admitted, tends to confirm the opinion, that L'Allegro and Il Penferofo were compofed at Horton.

The Mask of Comus, and Lycidas, were certainly produced under the roof of his father. It may be observed that, after his retirement to private ftudy, he paid great attention, like his mafter Spenfer, to the Italian fchool of poetry. Dr. Johnfon obferves, that "his acquaintance with the Italian writers may be discovered by the mixture of longer and fhorter verfes in Lycidas, according to the rules of Tufcan poetry." In Comus the fweet rhythm and cadence of the Italian language is no less obfervable. Of these poems, as of his other works, the reader will

See the preliminary Notes to Arcades, in the fifth volume of this edition, pp. 147, 148. and Arcades, ver. 14, &c. f See Lyfons's Middlesex, 1800. Harefield, p. 108,

find critical opinions in their respective places. I must here cbferve that the house, in which Milton drew fuch enchanting scenes, was about 8 ten years fince pulled down; and that, during his refidence at Horton, he had occasionally taken lodgings in London, in order to cultivate mufick and mathematicks, to meet his friends from Cambridge, and to indulge his paffion for books.

On the death of his mother in 1637, he prevailed with his father to permit him to vifit the continent. This permiffion Mr. Hayley fuppofes to have been "the more readily granted, as one of his motives for visiting Italy was to form a collection of Italian mufick." His nephew Philips indeed relates, that, while at Venice, he shipped a parcel of curious and rare books which he had collected in his travels; particularly a cheft or two of choice mufick-books of the best masters flourishing about that time in Italy. Having obtained fome directions for his travels from Sir Henry Wotton, to whom he had communicated his earnest defire of seeing

As I have been obligingly informed by letter from the prefent Rector of Horton.

h See Sir Henry Wotton's Letter to him, and the Notes, in the fifth volume of this edition, p. 177, &c. A romantick circumftance of Milton's juvenility, has been publickly mentioned, which has been fuppofed to have formed the first impulfe of his Italian journey. In the General Evening Pofts in the Spring of

foreign countries, he went in 1638, attended with a fingle fervant, to Paris; where, by the favour of Lord Scudamore, he was introduced

1789 it is fuppofed to have appeared; in which, however, I have not been fo fortunate as to discover it. Poffibly in fome other pub. lick Paper it may be found. The reader will be highly gratified in finding the anecdote clothed in the following elegant drefs : "In fultry noon when youthful MILTON lay,

"Supinely ftretch'd beneath the poplar fhade, "Lur'd by his Form, a fair Italian Maid "Steals from her loitering chariot, to survey "The flumbering charms, that all her foul betray. "Then, as coy fears th' admiring gaze upbraid, << Starts; and thefe lines, with hurried pen pourtray'd, "Slides in his half-clos'd hand;-and fpeeds away.

Ye eyes, ye human ftars!-if, thus conceal'd

By Sleep's foft veil, ye agitate my heart,
Ah! what had been its conflict if reveal'd

Your rays had fhone!'- Bright Nymph, thy strains impart
"Hopes, that impel the graceful Bard to rove,

"Seeking thro' Tufcan Vales his vifionary Love.

"He found her not;

-yet much the Poet found,

"To fwell Imagination's golden store,

"On Arno's bank, and on that bloomy fhore, "Warbling Parthenope; in the wide bound, "Where Rome's forlorn Campania ftretches round "Her ruin'd towers and temples; -claffick lore

"Breathing fublimer spirit from the power ❝. Of local confciousness.-Thrice happy wound, "Given by his fleeping graces, as the Fair

Hung over them enamour'd,' the defire

"Thy fond refult inspir'd, that wing'd him there, "Where breath'd each Roman and each Tuscan Lyre,

"Might haply fan the emulative flame,

"That rofe o'er DANTE's fong, and rivall'd MARO's

Original Sonnets &c. by Anna Seward, 1799, p. 76