patronized the Plays of Shakespeare, and he is faid to have been affifted in Mafques, which he gave to the Court, by Ben Jonson. The name of Milton will be associated with the Egerton family, while the English is known or spoken as a dead language, but the Author of Comus was only nine years old at the death of the Chancellor, and although he was no doubt carried from Horton to Harefield before the old Peer, he could only have been patted by him on the head and sent into the buttery to have the wing of a capon or a glass of fack."-v. Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, vol. ii. p. 264.

P. xxvi. "Milton's Comus," fays the author of Egeria, "is analogous to the defign of Paradife Loft. In both these Poems, fupernatural Powers, good and evil, are intent to influence the tendency of human life. In one, Innocency is faved, it is reserved to the life of restoration. Samfon Agoniftes is an exhibition of the same conflict in which the fallen at last triumphs in the dutiful endurance of the Penalty of Tranfgreffion."-See vol. ii. p. 49.

P. xxvii. Took a larger house, where the Earl of Barrimore fent, by his aunt the Lady Ranelagh, Sir Thomas Gardiner of Effex, to be there with others (befides his nephew) under his tuition, but whether it were that the tempers of our gentry would not bear the strictness of his discipline, or for what other reasons I cannot tell, he continued that courfe but a while.-Wood's Ath. Ox. vol. ii. col. 483.

P. XXX. "Lord Keeper Guilford was a little but handsome man, and is faid to have had an ingenuous afpect; his motto being Il Volto Sciolto, i Penfieri Stretti." - See Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, vol. iii. p. 493.

P. xxxi. On Milton's Italian Sonnets, the opinion of an Italian fcholar may be quoted. "Milton in his imperfect attempts to write Italian Poetry, in which we may see though confufedly, that he had got a little glimmering of our peculiar notions about Female beauty."- See Baretti's Account of Italy, vol. i. p. 108.

In the Gent. Mag. Nov. 1836 (Retrosp. Review) fome remarks on the language of Milton's Italian Sonnets, may be seen; which were kindly given to me, by one, from whose decision on the critical niceties of his own Tongue, no appeal need be made. I may be permitted to mention Mr. Panizzi of the British Museum.

P. xxxv. Wherefore though he fent divers preffing invitations, yet he could not prevail with her to come back, till about four years after, when the garrison of Oxford was furrendered (the nighness of her father's house to which having for the most part

of the mean time hindered any communications between them); fhe of her own accord returned, and fubmitted to him, pleading that her mother had been the chief promoter of her forwardness. -Wood's Ath. Ox. vol. ii. col. 481.

P. xliii. On Science or Claffical Literature, as the foundation of education, fee Colebs, vol. ii. p. 190.—It has not been obferved, I believe, that Dr. Johnson in his Remarks on this Point in his Life of Milton is fomewhat indebted to Erafmus, C. i. 1. 63. I will give a fpecimen, which the reader may compare. "Proinde ftellas obfervent alii fi lubet, ego in terris quærendum exiftimo, quod nos felices aut infelices reddat. Cæteri negotium aufpicaturi, anxii confiderant, quâ figurâ Venus, Jupiter, et Mercurius fefe contueantur. Ego fatius effe duco, perpendere quibufcum agas. Socrates Athenienfis cujus eft illud celebratum apophthegma Quæ fupra nos, nihil ad nos, philofophiam a contemplatione rerum naturalium in mediam hominum vitam deduxit frequenter ufurpans illud Homericum ὅτι τοὶ ἐν μέγαροισι κακόν τ' ayabóνTE TETÚNTα-Et tamen de naturis fyderum, de natu cœleftium orbium, de fulminibus, de ventis, deinde, deque fimilibus rebus, quoniam ad id initia cognitionis fuppeditant, vel fenfu ipfi corporum, vel effectuum experientiâ multa certe deprehenduntur, et in primis jucunda cognitio eft, et in admirationem fimul et amorem opificis fubvehit, attamen quoniam vir fapiens animadvertit in hujufmodi ftudio totam ætatem hominis defidere, neglectis etiam his, quare proprius ad nos pertinent, a contemplatione rerum naturalium omne ftudium ad mores devocavit." The fame Homeric quotation is given by Johnson.

P. xliii. After fome remarks on Dr. Johnson's want of "Enthufiafm and lofty fentiment," and on the confequent defects in his estimation of Milton's character, and on Channing's Vindication, Mr. Lyell proceeds to fay, "But the American champion of the illuftrious bard fails to remark that Milton was also two centuries in advance of the age in which he lived, in his appreciation of the share which the study of nature ought to hold in the training of the youthful mind. Of Milton's Scheme for enlarging the ordinary system of teaching, prepared after he had himself been partially engaged in the task of a Schoolmaster. the lexicographer spoke as might have been anticipated in terms of difparagement bordering on contempt. He treated Milton, in fact, as a mere empiric, and vifionary projector, obferving "that it was his principle to teach boys fomething more folid than the common literature of schools, forwarding thofe authors that treat of phyfical fubjects." The Poet Cowley had framed a fimilar plan in his imaginary college: "but the knowledge of external nature and the sciences which that knowledge requires, are not the great

or the frequent business of the human mind; and we ought not," he adds, "to turn off attention from life to nature; as if we were placed here to watch the growth of plants or the motions of the ftars!" That a violent shock had been given in the fixteenth century to certain time-honoured dogmas by writers more flightingly called "watching the motions of the stars!" was an historical fact with which such persons were of course familiar, but if it had been adduced to prove that they who exercise their reasoning powers in interpreting the great book of nature, are conftantly arriving at new truths, and were occafionally required to modify preconceived opinions, or that when habitually engaged in fuch discipline, they often acquire independent habits of thought, applicable to other departments of learning, fuch arguments would by no means have propitiated the critic, or have induced him to moderate his disapprobation of the proposed innovation. In the mind of Johnson there is a leaning to fuperftition, and no one was more content to leave the pupil to tread for ever in the beaten pathway, and to cherish extreme reverence for authority, for which end the whole fyftem then in vogue in the English schools and colleges was admirably conceived. First it confined the studies of young men up to the age of twenty-two, as far as poffible to the non-progreffive departments of knowledge, to the ancient models of claffical elegance, whether in verfe or profe, to the history and philofophy of the ancients rather than the moderns, and to pure mathematics, rather than their application to phyfics. No modern writer was freer from fear of inquiry, more anxious to teach the million to think and reason for themselves, no other ever looked forward more enthusiastically to the future growth and development of the human mind, than Channing. If his own education had not been caft in an antique mould, he would have held up Milton as a model for imitation, not only for his love of claffical lore and poetry, but for his wifh to cultivate a knowledge of the works of nature. - Lyell's Second vifit to the United States, vol. i. p. 203.

P. xlvii. "Obadiah Sedgwick, though a noted Puritan, was deeply imbued with claffical learning. In the next generation, the Puritans in general undervalued human learning, but in the early part of the seventeenth century they could exhibit a greater number both of eminent mathematicians and of distinguished scholars than those who under Laud wifhed to approximate to Rome."-v. Lord Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices, vol. i. P. 513.

P. xlviii. Bishop Gauden addreffed three letters, Jan. 25, Feb. 20, March 6, 1661, to Lord Clarendon, in which he lays claim for services in the royal caufe; in one of his letters he says, "Nor

do I doubt but I fhall, by y' Lordship's favor, find the fruits as to fomething extraordinary, fince the service was foe; not as to what was known to the world under my name, in order to vindicate the crowne and the church, but what goes under the late blessed king's name, the Einov, or portraiture of hys majesty in hys folitudes and fufferings. This work and figure was wholly and only my invention, making and defigne; in order to vindicate the King's wifdome, honor, and piety. My wife indeed was confcious to it, and had an hand in disguising the letters of that Copy which I fent to the King in the Isle of Wight, by favour of the late Marquise of Hertford," &c. In anfwer to which, Lord Clarendon writes, March 13, 1661. "I do affure you I am more afflicted with you, and for you, then I can expreffe; and the more fenfibly, that it is the only charge of that kind is laid upon me, which in truth I do not think I do deserve. The particular which you often renewed, I do confesse was imparted to me under secrecy, and of which I did not take myself to be at liberty to take notice; and truly when it ceafes to be a fecret, I know nobody will be gladd of it but Mr. Milton; I have very often wished I had never been trufted with it."-Edinb. Rev. vol. xliv. art. 1. In one of the MS. Journals of Carte the hiftorian, there is a curious story of Gauden's wife's knowledge of the authorship of this book.

P. xlix. Since the prefent Life of Milton has been printed, the writer has seen Mr. Jofeph Hunter's learned Tract "Milton, a Sheaf of Gleanings," &c. being No. iii. of his Critical and Hiftorical Tracts, &c. He begs to refer the reader to it, particularly for the curious and interefting investigations relating to the Milton family-to the family of Milton's mother, and that of his three wives. These genealogical investigations conducted with Mr. Hunter's knowledge and care, will well repay the perufal. There is a note alfo, pp. 50-51, on the expreffion" Bayonna's hold" in Lycidas which may be confulted with advantage.

P. lii. On Milton's fonnet of "Tetrachordon," fee Scott's Legend of Montrose, in Tales of my Landlord, third series, vol. iv. p. 148, note.

"Milton only," he says, "intends to ridicule the barbarism of Scottish names in general, and quotes incidentally that of Gillefpie, one of the Apoftles of the Covenant, and that of Colkitto and M'Donnel (both belonging to one person), one of its bitterest enemies. Milton's book called Tetrachordon,' had been ridiculed by the divines affembled at Westminster and others, on account of the hardness of the title, and Milton in his Sonnet retaliates upon the barbarous Scottish names which the Civil War had made familiar to English ears."

P. liv. "It was the ufual practice of Marchmont Needham, a

great crony of Milton, to abufe Salmafius in his public Mercury, called Politicus (as Milton had done before him in his Defenfio), by faying, among other things, that Chriftina, Queen of Sweden, had cafhiered him her favour, by understanding that he was 'a pernicious parafite and promoter of tyranny.""-Wood's Ath. Ox. vol. ii. col. 484.

P. lxii. The Licensing Act, which had inadvertently been fuffered to expire in 1679, and had been revived by James the Second's Parliament in 1685, was in 1692 continued till the end of the next Seffion of Parliament. Was the experiment to be made, of trusting to the punishment of fuch as publish anything dangerous to the public, or injurious to individuals? William, who had known the harmleffnefs of a free prefs in his own country, took the liberal fide; but the few Tory members of the cabinet very plaufibly urged that prevention was better than punishment, and that it was the duty of the state to restrain, as far as poffible, from the publication of libels as from the commiffion of other crimes. Somers prevailed by pointing out not only the vexatiousness, but the utter inefficiency of the defired regulations, in fpite of which there had been more libels published upon the government and on private character fince the Revolution, than during any former period of our hiftory. Unlicenfed printing was then for ever eftablished in England, and now we have only to be watchful that the prefs be not itself formed into an engine of tyranny. (See Hallam's Conflitutional Hiftory, vol. iii. p. 236.)

P. Ixiv. Miscellaneous Notes by T. Park in Milton's Poems, 1645. Marshall's engraving before the poems, 1645, is the first head of Milton, fays Mr. Granger, ever published. Salmafius, in his Defenfio Regia, calls it "comptulam Iconem," and declares that it gave him a more advantageous idea of his person than he ever had before. But it appears from the Greek verses underneath, that Milton himself was not pleased with it.—Biog. Hift. vol. ii. p. 295. 1775.

"Will any say that this portrait was the work of an ingenious hand; my very friends looking at my own natural countenance know not whom it represents, and laugh at the awkward imitation of the idiotic artist.”—Translation.

Milton was undoubtedly far from being pleased, or he would not have directed the unwitting artist to stamp a satirical brand on the forehead of his own work. Nor is it natural to fuppofe that Milton, who at college was reputed eminently beautiful, could be gratified by seeing himself depicted like a furly featured old fellow at the age of thirty-fix. Hard ftudy might, however, have induced a feverity of aspect beyond what time had otherwife produced.

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