the country it would seem, in which they were to amuse themselves with philosophic and literary discussions. He exhorts him to keep up his spirits and not change his mind, as the fine weather must soon re-appear. In the second, apparently written from Cheshire, he speaks with delight of the comforts he enjoyed where he was, and of the charms of the country at that season,-the month of May, it would seem,--with the single drawback, that he had no like-minded friend with whom he could communicate his ideas. He gently reproaches his friend with his disregard of the charms of nature, and his poring, without remission, day and night, over books; and exhorts him to live, laugh, and enjoy his youth, relaxing after the example of those old sages. "As for myself," he adds, "in all other things your inferior, in this of knowing how to moderate labour, I both think myself to be and am your superior." Milton addressed to Diodati two of his Latin Elegies; the first, when he was at home, in London, under sentence of rustication from the University, and when Diodati was in Cheshire, but it contains no date, or anything that would enable us to assign its date; and the sixth, written in December, 1629, in answer to a copy of verses sent him by Diodati from the country, that is of course from Cheshire,— in which he had pleaded in excuse for their inferiority to his usual efforts, the festivities he was partaking of with his friends. Milton also wrote to him two Latin epistles, in September, 1637. Diodati was probably at that time also in Cheshire, for his correspondent terms those he was residing among, Hyperboreans. In the second of these he gives him an account of his aspirations and his studies, and asks him to lend him a historian of Venice. It might appear, from the conclusion of this

epistle, that Diodati had settled in Cheshire. There is also reason to suppose that Milton had already introduced in his Comus the praises of his medical friend, under the character of the "certain shepherd lad, of small regard to see to, but well skilled in every virtuous herb," etc. On his return from Italy, Milton, in his beautiful Epitaphium Damonis, celebrated the virtues of his friend, and bewailed his own deserted condition, now that he was for ever deprived of his society.

HENRY LAWES.

Henry Lawes was the son of Thomas Lawes, a vicarchoral of Salisbury Cathedral, and it is probable that he was one of the choir-boys. At the charges of Edward, Earl of Hertford, he and his brother William were instructed in music by John Cooper, who, having been in Italy, had Italianized his name to Coperario. In January, 1625, Lawes was appointed, probably through his patron's interest, Pistoler* of the Royal Chapel; and in the November following, one of the Gentlemen of the Choir belonging to it, and, soon after, Clerk of the Cheque and one of the Court musicians. Lawes, who was a poet and vocalist, as well as a musician, was on terms of intimacy with the best poets of his time, whose verses he set to music, and with the more cultivated and intellectual of the nobility; the children of some of whom, such as the Earl of Bridgewater, he seems to have instructed. During the time of the Civil War and Commonwealth, he supported himself by teaching young ladies to sing and play on the lute. His chief patronesses, as Wood informs us, were Lady Carbury, and

* This is said to mean the person who read the Epistle.

Lady Herbert of Cherbury, the daughter of the Earl of Bridgewater. He was in general greatly respected for his virtues, and his polite and engaging manners. At the Restoration, he was re-established in his former places at Court, and he composed the Coronation Anthem. He died in 1662, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Lawes was the favourite composer of his day. He set to music all the songs in the mask of Cœlum Britannicum of that sweet poet Thomas Carew, and all the lyrics of Waller; he also composed all the airs and songs in the plays and poems of William Cartwright, and of the Christmas Odes in Herrick's Hesperides. He further composed tunes for Sandys' Paraphrase of the Psalms, published in 1638. He and his brother William also composed a volume of Psalms, which was not published, it is said, till 1648; though Milton's sonnet, prefixed to it, and addressed "To Mr. H. Lawes, on the publishing of his Airs," is dated February 9, 1645-6. Lawes published in 1653, Airs and Dialogues for One, Two, and Three Voices, etc., dedicated to those two illustrious ladies, his constant patronesses. After his death, in 1669, appeared a Second Part of these Airs and Dialogues.

Lawes was said to have been the introducer of the Italian style of music into England. His great merit as a composer would seem to have lain in his just adaptation of the music to the sense of the words; making it, as Milton expresses it, "span words with just note and accent." Dr. Burney however, in his History of Music, speaks slightingly of Lawes as a composer.

These were the only friends of the early years of Mil

ton of whom we have any account. Doubtless he had others, but their names are unknown, carent quia vate sacro. Of this we may be sure, that they were of his own rank in life; for, as we have already observed, and shall observe again, he sought not the society of the great in the estimation of the vulgar.

After his return from Italy, and when he was settled in a house of his own, and was known as an able controversial writer, his acquaintance was sought, and he obtained a new circle of friends. Of these the best known are the following.

SAMUEL HARTLIB.

Samuel Hartlib, to whom Milton dedicated his tractate on Education, was the son of an eminent Polish merchant who had settled at Elbing, in Prussia. His mother was an Englishwoman; and he came and settled in London, as Warton thinks, about the year 1640. While there, he occupied himself in editing tracts on agriculture, written by various persons; and his merits were deemed to be such that a handsome pension was settled on him by the Parliament. His own words, in one of his prefaces, are: "As long as I have lived in England, by wonderful providences I have spent yearly out of my own betwixt £300 and £400 a year sterling; and when I was brought to public allowances, I have had from the Parliaments and Councils of State a pension of £300 sterling a year, which as freely I have spent for their service and the good of many." He also says that he had "erected a little academy for the education of the gentry of this nation, to advance piety, learning, morality, and other exercises of industry, not usual in common schools." Hence we

see why it was to him that Milton addressed his treatise on education.

At the Restoration, as few of the engagements of the preceding Government were kept, Hartlib's pension remained of course unpaid. At the close of 1662 it was £700 in arrear; and in a letter to Lord Herbert he stated that "he had nothing to keep him alive, with two relations more, a daughter and a nephew, who were attending his sickly condition." He also petitioned the House of Commons, stating in his petition that "he, Samuel Hartlib, senior, had for thirty years and more exerted himself in procuring rare collections of manuscripts in all the parts of learning, which he had freely imported, transcribed, and printed, and sent to such as were most capable of making use of them; also the best experiments in husbandry and manufactures, which, by printing, he has published for the benefit of this age and posterity." What the fate of his petition was, we are uninformed; it probably met with neglect. We are also left in ignorance of the time of his death.

The statements given above of the condition of the family and fortune of Hartlib, seem hardly to accord with the following passages in the diary of Samuel Pepys:

"Home and called my wife, and took her to Clodins's, to a great wedding of Nan Hartlib to Mynheer Roder, which was kept at Goring House, with great state, cost, and noble company."--Diary, July 10, 1660.

"While I was at dinner, in came Samuel Hartlib and his brotherin-law, now knighted by the King, to request my promise of a ship for them to Holland."-Ib. August 7, 1660.

In 1667 he again notices Samuel Hartlib, as it would appear, as being of rather a gallant character.

Nan Hartlib was then evidently the niece, not the