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Christ's College in Cambridge, where he entered a fizar *, Feb. 12, 1624.

He was at this time eminently skilled in the Latin tongue; and he himself, by annexing the dates to his first compofitions, a boast of which Politian had given him an example, feems to commend the earliness 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 estimate: many have excelled Milton in their firft effays, who never rose 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

In this affertion Dr. Johnfon was mistaken. Milton was admitted a penfioner, and not a fizar, as will appear by the following extract from the College Regifter: "Jo

hannes Milton Londinenfis, filius Johannis, inftitutus "fuit in literarum Elementis fub Mag'ro Gill Gymnafii "Paulini præfecto, admiffus eft Penfionarius Minor Feb.

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12, 1624, fub M'ro Chappell, folvitq. pro Ingr. L. 10s. od." R.

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the publick eye; but they raise no great expectations; they would in any numerous school have obtained praife, 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 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 Alabafter's Roxana *.

Of these 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

*Published 1632. R.

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as few can form: yet there is reafon to fufpect that he was regarded in his college with no great fondness. That he obtained no fellowfhip 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 one of the laft ftudents in either university that fuffered the publick indignity of corporal correction.

It was, in the violence of controverfial hoftility, objected to him, that he was expelled: this he steadily 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.

Me tenet urbs refluâ quam Thamefis alluit undâ,
Meque nec invitum patria dulcis habet.
Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum,
Nec dudum vetiti me laris angit amor.-
Nec duri libet ufque minas perferre magiftri,
Cæteraque ingenio non fubeunda meo.
Si fit hoc exilium patrias adiiffe penates,
Et vacuum curis otia grata fequi,

Non ego vel profugi nomen fortemve recufo,
Lætus et exilii conditione fruor.

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 elfe, which a temper like his cannot undergo. What was more than threat was probably punishment. This poem, which mentions his exile, proves likewife that it was not perpetual; for it con- . cludes with a refolution of returning some time to Cambridge. And it may be conjectured, from the willingness with which he has perpetuated the memory of his exile, that its cause was such as gave him no shame.

He took both the ufual degrees; that of Batchelor in 1628, and that of Mafter in 1632; but he left the univerfity with no kindness for its inftitution, alienated either by the injudicious feverity of his governors, or his own captious perverseness. The cause cannot now be known, but the effect appears in his writings. His fcheme of education, infcribed to Hartlib, fuperfedes all academical

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inftruction, being intended to comprise the whole time which men ufually spend in literature, from their entrance upon grammar, till they proceed, as it is called, mafters of arts. And in his Difcourfe on the likelieft Way to remove Hirelings out of the Church, he ingenuously propofes, that the profits of the lands forfeited by the act for fuperftitious uses, should be applied to fuch academies all over the land where languages and arts may be taught together; fo that youth may be at once brought up, to a competency of learning and an honest trade, by which means fuch of them as had the gift, being enabled to support themselves (without tithes) by the latter, may, by the help of the former, become worthy preachers.

One of his objections to academical education, as it was then conducted, is, that men defigned for orders in the Church were permitted to act plays, writhing and unboning their clergy limbs to all the antick and dishoneft geftures of Trincalos, buffoons and bawds, proftituting the

*

By the mention of this name, he evidently refers to Albumazar, acted at Cambridge in 1614. Ignoramus and other plays were performed at the fame time. The prac

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