nothing. If any one attacked me I defended in the most open manner, as before, the orthodox faith for nearly two months before, in the city even of the sovereign pontiff." The freedom of his strictures was not unattended by inconvenience, and even his liberal friend Manso was obliged to diminish his attentions towards him. His appearance and manner at this period are recorded in the eulogistic epigram addressed to him by Manso, who found nothing but a change of religion necessary to his perfection. dreadful Dr. Johnson has ridiculed the rapidity of Milton's return to England, but we learn from a manuscript entry in the Bible which is supposed to have been his companion in Italy, how deep an impression the troubles of the time had made upon his mind. "This year of very commotions and I weene will ensue murderous times of conflicting fight.” This remark is dated from Canterbury, and Mr. Todd conjectures it to have been written by the poet while on his road from Dovor to London. The fact of the Bible alluded to having belonged to Milton has been doubted, but the arguments against its genuineness are far from conclusive. The perilous condition of his native land was not his only affliction. The intelligence of the death of his schoolfellow and friend Charles Diodati also contributed to sadden his feelings. On this occasion he composed the Epitaphium Damonis, a poem condemned by Johnson for being written with the childish imitation of pastoral life. But the pastoral form he assumed after his Italian models, and in this instance its employment ought not to be regretted. The common topics, Warton observes, are recommended by a novelty of elegant expression; some passages wander * Second Defence of the People, p. 384, ed. Burnet. far beyond the bounds of bucolic song, and are in his own original style of the more sublime poetry. Cowper thought it equal to any of Virgil's Bucolics. On his arrival in London he hired a lodging in St. Bride's Churchyard, Fleet-street, at the house of a tailor named Russell, and took upon himself the education of his two nephews, John and Edward Philips, who remained with him between five and six years. His residence not proving sufficiently commodious for his library, which his journey to Italy had materially enlarged, he removed to a garden-house in Aldersgate-street, in those days one of the most quiet and retired situations in the metropolis. These garden-houses were generally chosen by the poet. Here he tells us that he renewed with rapture his literary pursuits. He also increased the number of his pupils, among whom was Sir Thomas Gardiner of Essex. The system of education he adopted has been considered by an excellent writer deep and comprehensive, and calculated to combine the acquirement of science with language; but surely the agricultural skill of Columella, the medical researches of Celsus, the military tactics of Frontinus, and the geography of Dionysius, could prove of small practical benefit, and as models of composition they were more than useless. Philips, with honourable enthusiasm, asks, if his pupils had received his instruction with the same acuteness of wit and apprehension, the same industry, alacrity, and thirst after knowledge, as the instructor was indued with, what prodigies of learning might they not have become! If we are to believe Aubrey, Philips and his brother did not discredit their master; they are said to have been enabled in the space of a year to interpret a Latin author at sight." The name of the author is not specified. One part of his method, the diligent instruc tion of his pupils in religion, cannot be too highly commended. Every Sunday was devoted to theology, of which he dictated a short scheme chiefly gathered from the writers then in use in the Dutch universities. explained a chapter in the Greek Testament. He also We are now entering upon a period of the poet's life which cannot be contemplated without sorrow. At the assembling of the Parliament in November, 1640, the animosity against the bishops began to assume a more threatening aspect. Milton, willing, as he says, to help the puritans, who were inferior to the prelates in learning, and impelled by the desire of introducing a new form of ecclesiastical government, published, in 1641, A Treatise of Reformation touching Church Discipline, relinquishing, he informs us in the Second Defence, all other pursuits,. and transferring all the force of his talents and industry to this one important object. The clamour of the puritans was directed principally against what they denounced as the innovations of Laud, although it has been clearly shown that all the ceremonies enforced by that unfortunate prelate were contained in the ritual of Bishop Andrews*. Laud, in the vindication of his conduct before the Star Chamber, ridiculed with indignation the ferocious outcry against innovations, raised by men who only sought to demolish the ancient institutions of the land that they might elevate their own fantastic structures upon their ruins. About the same time the learned Bishop Hall, a name dear to all who admire eloquence or revere piety, published, at the instigation of Laud, A Humble Remonstrance in favour of Episcopacy. To this appeal a reply was VOL. II. See Todd's Life of Milton, 2nd ed. p. 44. prepared by five ministers under the title of Smectymnuus, a word formed from the initial letters of their names*. Their answer was confuted by Archbishop Usher in the Apostolical Institution of Episcopacy, to which Milton replied in the Treatise of Prelatical Episcopacy. To this performance he added The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelacy; and a son of Bishop Hall having defended the Humble Remonstrance, Milton wrote animadversions upon it. These works appeared in the same year. The subject of dispute was the divine or human origin of episcopacy, and its consequent authority in the church t. Of all the combatants Usher alone seems to have preserved the benignity of his spirit unruffled. Even the patient charity of Hall rose up against the unjust accusations of Milton, who inveighed against the gluttony of one whose almost ascetic sobriety was universally known. Milton's conduct throughout the contest cannot be viewed without sorrow. From such a mind other arguments were to be expected; but from his "abstracted sublimities," and the purity of the "divine volume of Plato," he brought little against his opponents. His weapons were drawn from a different armoury. It might have been hoped that a character like that of Bishop Hall would have disarmed hostility; but the poet, the preacher, and the Christian, was forgotten in the author of the Humble Remonstrance. In his Meditations that admirable prelate had breathed a prayer that he might build his own monument, and write his own epitaph in honourable actions." His prayer has been abundantly 66 * Stephen Marshall, Edward Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow; the w in whose name is pronounced u to form the word. + See Mitford's luminous view of these treatises. answered. Perhaps the history of literature contains no dawn more radiant with promise than that of Hall. His satires, produced at the age of twenty-three, are wonderful efforts of youthful intellect combined with mature judgment and penetration: Gray, a learned and fastidious critic, thought them full of poetry and life; and Pope, who deemed them the purest specimen of satire in our language, once entertained the idea of clothing them in a modern dress, as he had previously presented the uncouth rhymes of Donne. Warton was informed by the Bishop of Gloucester that in Pope's copy the first satire of the sixth book was corrected in the poet's handwriting, and that he had written at the commencement “Optima Satira." Pope happily abandoned his design. Hall has many verses which even the English Boileau could not have improved,-lively, energetic, picturesque,—and altogether characteristic of an early Dryden. His pictures of manners are drawn with a firm and happy pencil; and the well-known sketch of an old mansion deserted, combines the hard reality of Crabbe with a deeper tone of colouring, and a more affecting pensiveness of sentiment. A deep conviction of the justice of his cause alone impelled this amiable bishop into polemical disputes, when, in his own most touching words, the goal was already within his view, and he was setting his "foot over the threshold of the house of his age." It had been his early boast, that he would strive not for victory but for truth; and in his declining years, when scorched by the flame of controversy, from which he said none could draw his hand uninjured, and driven into poverty, he exclaimed with a serene composure, and a sublime resignation, and an earnest gratitude for the “smarting remedies,” with which God had visited him, "Every man can say he |