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To entertaine me as a willing mate

In fhepherds life, which I admire and loue; Within these pleasant groues perchance my hart,

Of her discomforts, may vnload some part. 16.

If gold or wealth of most esteemed deare,
If jewels rich, thou diddest hold in prife,
Such ftore thereof, fuch plentie haue I seen,
As to a greedie minde might well fuffice;
With that downe trickled many filuer teare,
Two chriftiall ftreames fell from her watrie
eies;

Part of her fad misfortunes than she told,
And wept, and with her wept that shepherd
old.

17.

With fpeeches kind, he gan the virgin deare
Towards his cottage gently home to guide;
His aged wife there made her homely cheare,
Yet welcomde her, and plast her by her fide.
The Princeffe dond a poore paftoraes geare,
A kerchiefe courfe vpon her head fhe tide;

But yet her gestures and her lookes (I geffe)
Were fuch, as ill befeem'd a fhepherdeffe.

18.

Not thofe rude garments could obfcure, and hide,
The heau'nly beautie of her angels face,
Nor was her princely ofspring damnifide,
Or ought difparag'de, by thofe labours bace;
Her little flocks to pafture would fhe guide,
And milke her goates, and in their folds them
place,

Both cheese and butter could fhe make, and
frame

Her felfe to please the fhepherd and his dame.

MILTO N.

MILTON.

THE

HE Life of Milton has been already writ ten in fo many forms, with fuch minute enquiry, that I might perhaps more properly have contented myself with the addition of a few notes to Mr. Fenton's elegant Abridgement, but that a new narrative was thought neceffary to the uniformity of this edition.

JOHN MILTON was by birth a gen-. tleman, defcended from the proprietors of Milton near Thame in Oxfordshire, one of whom forfeited his eftate in the times of York and Lancaster. Which fide he took I know not; his defcendant inherited no veneration for the White Rose.

His grandfather John was keeper of the foreft of Shotover, a zealous papist, who difinherited his fon, because he had forfaken the religion of his ancestors.

His father, John, who was the fon difinherited, had recourfe for his fupport to the profeffion of a fcrivener. He was a man eminent for his fkill in mufick, many of his compofitions being ftill to be found; and his reputation in his profeffion was fuch, that he grew rich and retired to an eftate. He had probably more than common literature, as his fon addreffes him in one of his most elaborate Latin poems. He married a gentlewoman of

the

the name of Cafton, a Welsh family, by whom he had two fons, John the poet, and Christopher who studied the law, and adhered, as the law taught him, to the king's party, for which he was awhile perfecuted, but having, by his brother's intereft, obtained permiffion to live in quiet, he fupported himself by chamber practice, till, foon after the acceffion of king James, he was knighted and made a judge; but, his conftitution being too weak for bufinefs, he retired before any difreputable compliances became neceffary.

He had likewise a daughter Anne, whom he married with a confiderable fortune to Edward Philips, who came from Shrewsbury, and rose in the Crown-office to be fecondary: by him she had two fons, John and Edward, who were educated by the poet, and from whom is derived the only authentick account of his domeftick manners.

John, the poet, was born in his father's house, at the Spread-Eagle in Bread-street, Dec. 9, 1608, between fix and feven in the morning. His father appears to have been very folicitous about his education; for he was inftructed at firft by private tuition under the care of Thomas Young, who was afterwards chaplain to the English merchants at Hamburgh; and of whom we have reason to think well, fince his scholar confidered him as worthy of an epistolary Elegy.

He was then fent to St. Paul's School, under the care of Mr. Gill; and removed, in the beginning of his fixteenth year, to Chrift's College in Cambridge, where he entered a fizer, Feb. 12, 1624.

He

He was at this time eminently fkilled in the Latin tongue; and he himself, by annexing the dates to his firft compofitions, a boast of which the learned Politian had given him an example, feems to commend the earlinefs of his own proficiency to the notice of pofterity. But the products of his vernal fertility have been furpaffed by many, and particularly by his contemporary Cowley. Of the powers of the mind it is difficult to form an eftimate: many have excelled Milton in their first effays, who never rofe to works like Paradife Loft.

At fifteen, a date which he uses till he is fixteen, he tranflated or verfified two Pfalms, 114 and 136, which he thought worthy of the publick eye; but they raise no great expectations: they would in any numerous school have obtained praise, but not excited wonder.

Many of his Elegies appear to have been written in his eighteenth year, by which it appears that he had then read the Roman authors with very nice difcernment. I once heard Mr. Hampton, the tranflator of Polybius, remark what I think is true, that Milton was the first Englishman who, after the revival of letters, wrote Latin verfes with claffick elegance. If any exceptions can be made, they are very few: Haddon and Afcham, the pride of Elizabeth's reign, however they may have fucceeded in profe, no fooner attempt verses than they provoke derifion. If we produced any thing worthy of notice before the elegies of Milton, it was perhaps Alablafter's

Roxana.

Of

Of the exercises which the rules of the University required, fome were published by him in his maturer years. They had been undoubtedly applauded, for they were fuch as few can perform: yet there is reafon to suspect that he was regarded in his college with no great fondness. That he obtained no fellowThip is certain; but the unkindness with which he was treated was not merely negative. I am ashamed to relate what I fear is true, that Milton was the laft ftudent in either univerfity that suffered the publick indignity of corporal correction.

It was, in the violence of controverfial hoftility, objected to him, that he was expelled: this he fteadily denies, and it was apparently not true; but it feems plain from his own verfes to Diodati, that he had incurred Ruftication; a temporary difmiffion into the country, with perhaps the lofs of a term:

Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revifere Camum,

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Nec dudum vetiti me laris angit amor; Nec duri libet ufque minas perferre magiftri, Cæteraque ingenio non fubeunda meo. I cannot find any meaning but this, which even kindness and reverence can give to the term, vetiti laris, a habitation from which "he is excluded;" or how exile can be otherwife interpreted. He declares yet more, that he is weary of enduring the threats of a rigorous mafter, and fomething else, which a temper like his cannot undergo. What was more than threat was evidently punishment. This poem, which mentions his exile, proves likewife that it was not perpetual; for it concludes with

a refo

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