backward into light, was never heard before, till that mysterious iniquity provokt and troubl'd at the first entrance of Reformation, sought out new Limbo's and new Hells wherein they might include our Books also within the number of their damned3. And this was the rare morsell so officiously snatcht "densum adiungebant spiritum, & rectè quidem in hac parte "græcissant nostri Walli:" &c.-De recta & emendata Linguæ Anglica Scriptione Dialogus; p. 25. Lutetiæ. 1665. As it is uniformly rime in MILTON's prefatory Advertisement to Par. Lost, while it is printed with an h through the Poem, there has been a difference of opinion among the Annotators, whether he did not by this diversity intend to Ovary the meaning? But I, for one, entirely agree with Mr. Todd, that this word was there in the same sense spelt both ways. And the omission of this letter in my text, coupled with what Sir T. Smith observes, will show that this Orthography was in adherence to the practice of the Greeks. Hence obviously it was, that Bentley, in his Edition of Par. Lost, dropped the h in rhyme. • Sought out new Limbo's and new Hells wherein they might include our Books also within the number of their damned.] The Papists gave the name of Limbo to Purgatory, and to the repository assigned in their Faith for the Souls of the Just, who lived before the advent of Christ, and to those of Infants who die un. baptized. This receptacle or conservatory for these departed Spirits was located in the centre of the Earth, and on the outward confines of Purgatory in this subterranean region they were to await the day of doom. The reader may learn further particulars, under LIMBUS, in Du Fresne; Gloss. ad. Script. Med. & Infim. Latinitatis. Phaer, in his version of the "fourth Booke of Aeneidos," renders "Stygioque caput damnaverat Orco"-by "Diana damned had her head to lake of Limbo-pit." Signat. G. 4. sm. 4to. 1620. up, and so ilfavourdly imitated by our inquisiturient Bishops, and the attendant Minorites their Chaplains. That ye like not now these most certain Authors of this licencing Order, and that all sinister intention was farre distant from your thoughts, when ye were importun'd the passing it, all men who know the integrity of your actions, and how ye honour Truth, will clear yee readily'. • Our inquisiturient Bishops and the attendant Minorites their Chaplains.] That is, "our inquisitorial Bishops and their Friar"like Chaplains." The Franciscans were called Friar-minors or Minorites, because it was one of the rules of their Order, says Du Fresne, "Nullus vocetur Prior, sed generaliter omnes vocentur Fratres minores."-Gloss. tom. 4. col. 792. Benedictine Edit. 1 How ye honour Truth, will clear yee readily.] When I cast my eye over the first Edition of this Oration, with a view to the present Republication, I thought that I discerned an intentional difference between our Authour's use of ye and yee; that he doubled the e where he gave this word an emphatical pronunciation; indifferently, whether it were the nominative or an oblique Case. But on confronting the respective passages, the distinction did not appear to me to be sufficiently preserved to justify particular notice. I am now disposed to believe this to have arisen from the Printer not having adhered with fidelity to the orthography of the Manuscript: having since found that the elder Richardson had drawn a like conclusion, from the same diversity through MILTON's Own Editions of Paradise Lost, in the spelling of this and the other pronouns, "He, We, Me, Ye, "which are (he adds) with a double or a single e, as the Emphasis lies upon them, or does not." Life of Milton prefixed to Notes and Remarks on Paradise Lost; p. CXXXI. 8vo. 1734. This will appear palpably in the following passage; But some will say, What though the Inventors were bad, the thing for all that may be good? It may so; yet if that thing be no such deep invention, but obvious, and easie for any man to light on, and yet best and wisest Commonwealths through all ages, and occasions have forborne to use it, and falsest seducers, and oppressors of men were the first who tooke it up, and to no other purpose but to obstruct and hinder the first approach of Reformation; I am of those who beleeve, it will be a harder alchymy then Lullius ever knew2, to subli And what will decisively ascertain, that these variations were not without a meaning, the same Biographer points out in the table of Errata to the first impression of this poem, a correction of the Press expressly to that effect. "Lib. 2. v. 414, for we. r. "wee." I have not in my recollection any specimen which would exemplify more clearly the Poet's scheme, to mark emphasis by varied spelling, than the close of Eve's pathetic supplication to Adam to pardon her transgression, and not forsake her, as we find it printed in the only copies of authority: see B. IX. v. 927. of the original Quartos; and p. 278 of the 8vo. 1674. "On me exercise not "Thy hatred for this miserie befall'n, "More miserable; both have sin'd, but thou " Against Goo onely, I against GOD and thee, "And to the place of judgment will return, "There with my cries importune Heav'n, that all A harder alchymy then Lullius ever knew,] i. e. Raymond Lully, who was an Hermetic Philosopher of high fame in his day, and a great adept in the occult sciences. mat any good use out of such an invention. Yet this only is what I request to gain from this reason, that it may be held a dangerous and suspicious fruit, as certainly it deserves, for the tree that bore it, untill I can dissect one by one the properties it has. But I have first to finish, as was propounded, what is to be thought in generall of reading Books, what ever sort they be, and whether be more the benefit, or the harm that thence proceeds? Not to insist upon the examples of Moses, Daniel and Paul, who were skilfull in all the Learning of the Ægyptians, Caldeans, and Greeks, which could not probably be without reading their Books of all sorts; in Paul especially, who thought it no defilement to insert into holy Scripture the sentences of three Greek Poets, and one of them a Tragedian; the question was, notwithstanding sometimes controverted among the primitive Doctors, but with great odds on that side which affirm'd it both lawfull and profitable, as was then evidently perceiv'd, when Julian the Apostat, and suttlest enemy to 'Paul thought it no defilement, &c.] See ILLUSTRATION, B. When Julian the Apostat, &c.] See Juliani Opera. p. 192, &c. part 2. 4to. Paris, 1630. Whether this Imperial edict prohibited to the Christians the study of Pagan Learning altogether? or whether it went no further than to interdict the teaching of it in their seminaries? were questions which had exercised the pens of Men of Parts in England and in other Countries. There were difficulties on each side of the controversy. Gibbon reconciled the seeming contradictions. "The Christians (he observed) were directly E our faith, made a decree forbidding Christians the study of heathen Learning: for, said he, they wound us with our own weapons, and with our owne arts and sciences they overcome us. And indeed the Christians were put so to their shifts by this crafty means, and so much in danger to decline into all ignorance, that the two Apollinarii were fain, as a man may say, to coin all the seven liberall Sciences out of the Bible, reducing it into divers forms of Orations, Poems, Dialogues, ev'n to the "forbid to teach, they were indirectly forbid to learn; since they would not frequent the Schools of the Pagans.” (Hist. ch.23 n. 89.) But the remark originally belonged to Warburton : see his Discourse of Julian's attempt to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem; p. 26. (n.) 8vo, 1750. 5 The two Apollinarii were fain, as a man may say, to coin all the seven liberall Sciences out of the Bible, reducing it into divers forms of Orations, Poems, Dialogues, &c.] To qualify himself for the defence of the anti-prelatical Party, MILTON had been not long before reading the ecclesiastical Historian Socrates, who furnished him with this anecdote, and he now remembered the following passage: Ο μέντοι το βασιλεως νόμος, ος τοις χρισιανοις ελληνικής παιδειας μετέχειν εκώλυε, τους απολλιναρίους, ων και πρότερον εμνημονεύσαμεν, φανερώτερους απέδειξεν ως γαρ αμφω ήτην επιστήμονες λογων, ο μεν πατηρ γραμματικών, σοφισικων δε ο υιος, χρειώδεις εαυτοις προς τον παροντα καιρόν τοις χρισιανοις απεδείκνυον ο μεν γαρ ευθύς γραμματικός ατε, την τέχνην γραμματικήν χρισιανικώ τύπω συνετατίε· τατε μωϋσεως βιβλια, δια το ηρωϊκός λεγομένου μετρα μετέβαλε, και όσα κατά την παλαιαν διαθήκην εν ισορίας τυπω συγγεγραπται και τέτο μεν τω δακτυλικων μετρω συνετατίε τετο δε και τω της τραγωδίας τυπω δραματικώς εξειργάζετο και παντι μετρω ρυθμικω έχρήτο, όπως αν μηδεις τρόπος της ελληνικης γλωτίης τοις χρισιανοις |