which his forces under lord Conway were de very b feated by general Lefley, in the month of Auguft 1639. In a Bible, faid to have been once in his poffeffion, (probably the constant companion of his travels,) is a manufcript remark, dated 1639 at Canterbury city, which may serve to show the powerful impreffion made on his mind, (admitting the authenticity of the remark,) by this eventful period. "This year of dreadful commotion, and I weene will enfue murderous times of conflicting fight." The date of the year and place may lead us to fuppofe that, having landed at Dover, he was on his return from his travels to London. The gentleman, who communicated the intelligence of this Bible to the publick, and had been indulged with a fight of it, felected other marginal obfervations which appeared to him remarkable; among which is the following poetical note on I. Maccab. xiv. 6. "Now when it was heard at Rome, and as far as Sparta, that Jonathan was dead, they were very forry:" "When that day of death fhall come, "Shall flourish on my fleeping fhade." The authenticity of the remarks, and of the Gentleman's Magazine, July 1792, p. 615. Bible having belonged to Milton, has indeed been questioned; but has been defended, not without confiderable force, by the communicator himself, and by other writers in the valuable miscellany, in which the information has been given; to the demonftrations and conjectures of whom I refer the reader. d Before we attend to the bufier fcenes of life, in which Milton, now returned to his native country, became engaged; let me be permitted/ to lament that he never executed the fcheme, which he once proposed to himself in his animated lines to Manfo, of embellishing original tales of chivalry, of clothing the fabulous achievements of the early British kings and champions in the gorgeous trappings of epick attire." The delight which he had derived from the romances of Italy now funk into neglect; not however into forgetfulness. In his latest poems he seems to look back, not without an eye of fond regard, to the more diftinguished compofitions of this kind; to the Innamoramento di Lancilotto, and Tristano, both by Agoftini; to the history of the fame heroes, with other knights of the round table, by Tramezzino; and to the Lan • Gent. Mag. September 1792, p. 789. Gent. Mag. Oct. 1792, p. 900. And Ibid. Gent. Mag. February 1793, p. 106. Gent. Mag. March 1800, p. 199. See Mr. Warton's Preface to the Smaller Poems. cilotto alfo of Valvafone, the author of L'Angeleida. At his return he heard of the death of his beloved friend and fchoolfellow, Charles Diodati. And he lamented his lofs in that elegant eclogue, the Epitaphium Damonis, which Mr. Warton has fuccefsfully defended against the cold remark of Dr. Johnfon. g He now hired a lodging in St. Bride's Churchyard, Fleet-street; where he undertook the education of his sister's fons, John and Edward Philips, "the first ten, the other nine years of age; and in a year's time made them capable of interpreting a Latin author at fight." Finding his house not fufficiently large for his library and furniture, he took a handfome i gardenhoufe in Alderfgate street, situated at the end of f See the Inquiry into the Origin of Paradife Loft, p. 280. Note at the end of the poem. Aubrey's MS. i From the Note figned H. in Dr. Johnfon's Life of Milton, Lives of the Poets, ed. 1794, vol. i. p. 130, it appears, that there were many of thefe garden-houses, i. e. houfes fituated in a garden, efpecially in the north suburbs of London; and that the term is technical, frequently occurring in the Athen. and Faft. Oxon. The annotator adds, that the meaning may be collected from the article Thomas Farnabe, the famous fchoolmafter; of whom the author fays, that he taught in Goldfmith's rents, in Cripplegate parish, behind Redcrofs-ftreet, where were large gardens and handfome houfes: Milton's houfe in Jewin-ftreet was also a garden-banje, as were indeed moft of his dwellings after his fettlement in London. an entry, that he might avoid the noise and difturbance of the street. Here he received into his house a few more pupils, the fons of his most intimate friends; and he proceeded, with cheerfulness, in the noblest employment of mankind, that of inftructing others in knowledge and virtue." As he was fevere on one hand," fays Aubrey, "fo he was most familiar and free in his converfation to those whom he must serve in his way of education." His younger nephew has related the method of his instruction, and the books employed. Of the Latin, the four authors concerning husbandry, Cato, Varro, Columella, and Palladius; Cornelius Celfus, the physician; a great part of Pliny's natural history; the Architecture of Vitruvius; the Stratagems of Frontinus; and the philofophical poets, Lucretius and Manilius. Of the Greek, Hefiod; Aratus's Phænomena and Diofemeia ; Dionyfius Afer de fitu orbis ; Oppian's Cynegeticks and Halieuticks; Quintus Calaber's poem of the Trojan war, continued from Homer; Apollonius Rhodius's Argonauticks; and in profe Plutarch's Placita philofophorum, and of the Education of children; Xenophon's Cyropædia and Anabafis; Ælian's Tacticks; and the Stratagems of Polyænus. Nor did this applica * See the Note on Lawes's Dedication of Comus to Lord Brackley, vol. v. p. 177. tion to the Greek and Latin tongues impede the cultivation of the chief oriental languages, the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriack, so far as to go through the Pentateuch, to make a good entrance into the Targum or Chaldee paraphrafe, and to understand several chapters of St. Matthew in the Syriack Teftament; befides the modern languages, Italian and French; and a knowledge of mathematicks and aftronomy. The Sunday exercife for his pupils was, principally, to read a chapter of the Greek Teftament, and to hear his learned expofition of it: to which was added the writing, from his dictation, some part of a fyftem of divinity, which he had collected from the ableft divines who had written upon the fubject. From the rigid attention which fuch a fyftem required he occafionally relaxed; and once in three or four weeks the hard study and fpare diet, of which he was an eminent example to his pupils, gave way to the regale of a gaudy day with fome young gentlemen of his acquaintance; the chief of whom, fays his nephew, 66 were Mr. Alphry and Mr. Miller, the beaus of those times, but nothing near fo bad as those now-a-days!" Thefe were the seasons in which Milton" refolved to drench in mirth that, after, no repenting draws," and in which he would not forfeit his pretenfions of admiffion into the train of the true Euphrosyne : |