extraordinary and improbable piece of feverity. But in those days of fimplicity and fubordination, of roughness and rigour, this fort of punishment was much more common, and confequently by no means fo difgraceful and unfeemly for a young man at the university, as it would be thought at prefent. We learn from Wood, that Henry Stubbe, a Student of Chrift-Church Oxford, afterwards a partifan of fir Henry Vane, fhewing himself too forward, pragmatical, and conceited,' was publickly whipped by the Cenfor in the college-hall. Ath. Oxon. vol. ii. p. 560. See alfo Life of Bathurst, p. 202. I learn from fome manuscript papers of Aubrey the antiquary, who was a student of Trinity college Oxford, four years from 1642, that at Oxford and, I believe, at Cambridge, the rod was frequently ufed by the tutors and deans: and Dr. Potter, while a tutor of Trinity college, I knew right well, whipt his pupil with his fword by his fide, when he came to take his leave of him to go to the inns of court.' In the Statutes of the faid college, given in 1556, the Scholars of the foundation are ordered to be whipped by the Deans, or Cenfors, even to their twentieth year. In the University Statutes at Oxford, compiled in 1635, ten years after Milton's admiffion at Cambridge, corporal punishment is to be inflicted on boys under fixteen. We are to recollect, that Milton, when

he went to Cambridge, was only a boy of fifteen. The author of an old pamphlet, Regicides no Saints nor Martyrs, fays that Hugh Peters, while at Trinity college Cambridge, was publickly and officially whipped in the Regent-walk for his infolence, p. 81. 8vo.

"The anecdote of Milton's whipping at Cambridge, is told by Aubrey. MS. Mus. Ashm. Oxon. Num. x. P. iii. From which, by the way, Wood's Life of Milton in the Fafti Oxonienfes, the first and the ground-work of all the lives of Milton, was compiled. Wood fays, that he draws his account of Milton from his own mouth to my Friend, who was well acquainted with and had from him, and from his relations after his death, moft of this account of his life and writings following.' Ath. Oxon. vol. i. Fafti, p. 262. This Friend is Aubrey; whom Wood, in another place, calls credulous, roving and magotic-headed, and fometimes little better than crafed.' Life of A. Wood, p. 577. edit. Hearne, Th. Caii Vind. &c. vol. ii. This was after a quarrel. I know not that Aubrey is ever fantaftical, except on the fubjects of chemistry and ghofts. Nor do I remember that his veracity was ever impeached. I believe he had much lefs credulity than Wood. Aubrey's Monumenta Britannica is a very folid and rational work, and its judicious conjectures and obfervations have been

approved and adopted by the best modern antiquaries. Aubrey's manuscript Life contains fome anecdotes of Milton yet unpublished.

"But let us examine if the context will admit fome other interpretation. Cæteraque, the most indefinite and comprehenfive of defcriptions, may be thought to mean literary tasks called impofitions, or frequent compulfive attendances on tedious and unimproving exercises in a collegehall. But cætera follows minas, and perferre feems to imply fomewhat more than these inconveniences, fomething that was fuffered, and severely felt. It has been fuggefted, that his father's economy prevented his conftant refidence at Cambridge; and that this made the college lar dudum vetitus, and his abfence from the univerfity an exilium. But it was no unpleafing or involuntary banishment. He hated the place. He was not only offended at the college-difcipline, but had even conceived a diflike to the face of the country, the fields about Cambridge. He peevishly complains, that the fields have no foft shades to attract the Mufe; and there is fomething pointed in his exclamation, that Cambridge was a place quite incompatible with the votaries of Phoebus. Here a father's prohibition had nothing to do. He refolves, however, to forget. all these difagreeable circumstances, and to return in due time. The difmiffion, if any, was not to.

be perpetual. In thefe lines, ingenium is to be rendered temper, nature, difpofition, rather than genius.

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"Aubrey fays, from the information of our author's brother Chriftopher, that Milton's first tutor there [at Chrift's college] was Mr. Chappell, from whom receiving some unkindneffe, (he whipt him) he was afterwards, though it seemed against the rules of the college, tranfferred to the tuition of one Mr. Tovell, who dyed parfon of Lutterworth.' MS. Muf. Afbm. ut fupr. This information, which stands detached from the body of Aubrey's narrative, feems to have been communicated to Aubrey, after Wood had feen his papers; it therefore does not appear in Wood, who never would otherwise have fuppreffed an anecdote which contributed in the leaft degree to expose the cha racter of Milton. I muft here obferve, that Mr. Chappell, from his original Letters, many of which I have feen, written while he was a fellow and tutor of Chrift's College, and while Milton was there, and which are now in the poffeffion of Mr. Moreton of Wefterhoe in Kent, by whom they have been politely communicated, appears to have been a man of uncommon mildnefs and liberality of manners."

To the authority of the preceding remarks Dr. Johnson has implicitly fubfcribed; not with

out adding, however, that it may be conjectured, from the willingness with which the poet has perpetuated the memory of his exile, that its cause was such as gave him no fhame.

That flagellation might be performed upon offenders at Cambridge, (as well as at Oxford,) the Statutes of that University will show: That Milton fuffered this publick indignity, rests solely upon the testimony of Aubrey, which I am unable to controvert: But it is remarkable that it never should have been noticed by those who would have rejoiced in fuch an opportunity of expofing Milton to a little ridicule. The application also of cætera may be perhaps more general than Mr. Warton and Dr. Johnfon have been pleased to confider it; instead of corporal punishment, it may fuggeft the idea of academical restrictions, to which a youth of Milton's genius could not fubmit; or merely of threats perhaps, which he thought he did not deserve; and, if he therefore acquiefced in a fhort exile from Cambridge, as fome biographers suppose, it should seem that, by his admiffion to the degree of Batchelor of Arts in 1628, he had incurred no lofs of terms; which, ruftication however must have occafioned, and which the Register of his College, or of the University, would probably have noticed. His reply to an enemy, who in the violence of controverfy had afferted that he was ex