"Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revifere Camum, "Si fit hoc exilium patrias adiiffe penates, "Et vacuum curis otia grata fequi, "Non ego vel profugi nomen fortémve recufo, "Lætus et exilii conditione fruor." On thefe lines I muft introduce Mr. Warton's obfervation. "The words vetiti laris, and afterwards exilium, will not fuffer us to determine otherwife, than that Milton was fen tenced to undergo a temporary removal or ruftication from Cambridge. I will not fuppofe for any immoral irregularity. Dr. Bainbridge, the Master, is reported to have been a very active difciplinarian: and this lover of liberty, we may pre. fume, was as little difpofed to fubmiffion and conformity in a college as in a state. When reprimanded and admonished, the pride of his temper, impatient of any sort of reproof, naturally broke forth into expreffions of contumely and contempt against his governour. Hence he was punished. He is also said to have been whipped at Cambridge. See Life of Bathurst, p. 153. This has been reprobated and difcredited, as a moft extraordinary and improbable piece of feverity. But in those days of fimplicity and subordination, of roughnefs 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 univerfity, as it would be thought at prefent. We learn from Wood, that Henry Stubbe, a Student of Christ Church, Oxford, afterwards a partifan of Sir Henry Vane, fhewing himfelf 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 used 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 Univerfity 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. Muf. Afhm. 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, most of this account of his life and writings following.' Ath. Oxon. vol. i. Fasti, p. 262. This Friend is Aubrey; whom Wood, in another place, calls credulous, roving and magotie-headed, and sometimes 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 fantastical, except on the fubjects of chemistry and ghosts. Nor do I remember that his veracity was ever impeached. I believe he had much less credulity than Wood. Aubrey's Monumenta Britannica is a very solid 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. z Mr. Warton is mistaken in this assertion. Milton, when he went to Cambridge, was in his feventeenth year. But this will presently be more largely confidered. "But let us examine if the context will admit fome other interpretation. Cæteraque, the most indefinite and compre→ henfive of defcriptions, may be thought to mean literary talks called impofitions, or frequent compulfive attendances on te dious and unimproving exercises in a college-hall. But cætera follows minas, and perferre seems to imply fomewhat more than these inconveniences, fomething that was fuffered, and feverely felt. It has been fuggefted, that his father's economy prevented his constant refidence at Cambridge; and that this made the college lar dudum vetitus, and his abfence from the university 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 dislike to the face of the country, the fields abont 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 circumftances, and to return in due time. The difmiflion, if any, was not to be perpetual. In these lines, ingenium is to be rendered temper, nature, dispofition, rather than genius. "Aubrey fays, from the information of our author's brother Christopher, that Milton's firft tutor there [at Chrift's college] was Mr. Chappell, from whom receiving fome unkindneffe, (he whipt him) he was afterwards, though it feemed against the rules of the college, transferred to the tuition of one Mr. Tovell, who dyed parfon of Lutterworth.' MS. Muf. Afhm, 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 otherwife have fuppreffed an anecdote which contributed in the a It fhould be Tovey. I have feen the fignature of his name to fome refolutions of his college. i leaft degree to expofe the character of Milton. I must here obferve, that Mr. Chappell, from his original Letters, many of which I have seen, 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 Wefterham in Kent, by whom they have been politely communicated, appears to have been a man of uncommon mildness and liberality of manners." To the authority of the preceding remarks Dr. Johnson has implicitly fubfcribed; not without 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 univerfity will fhow: That Milton fuffered this publick indignity, refts folely upon the teftimony of Aubrey, which I am unable to controvert: But it is remarkable that it never fhould have been noticed by thofe who would have rejoiced in fuch an opportunity of expofing Milton to a little ridicule. Yet further. It is related by Mr. Warton, that, "in the Univerfity 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." This is a mistake. Milton was in his feventeenth year, when he was admitted at Chrift's College. And if the fame exemption was granted See the Extract from the College Regifter, p. 8. to boys of firteen at Cambridge, as to thofe of the fame age at Oxford, the flagellation of Milton becomes ftill lefs entitled to credit. One of the statutes of Chrift's College, entitled Cap. 37. De Lectoris Authoritate in Difcipulos, feems to countenance the fuppofition of fimilar exemption: After prescribing that they, who abfent themselves from certain Lectures, shall be fined, the Statute fubjoins the following refervation; "fi tamen adultus fuerit; alioquin, virga corrigatur." The application alfo of cætera may be perhaps more general than Mr. Warton and Dr. Johnson have been pleased to confider it; instead of corporal punishment, it may fuggeft the idea of academical reftrictions, to which a youth of Milton's genius could not submit; or merely of threats perhaps, which he thought he did not deferve; and, if he therefore acquiefced in a fhort exile from Cambridge, as fome biographers fuppofe, it should seem that, by his admiffion to the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1628, he had incurred no lofs of terms; which, ruftication however must have occafioned, and which the Regifter 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 expelled, may here be cited. "I must be thought if this libeller (for now he fhews himself to be fo) can find belief, after an inordinate and riotous youth spent at the University, to have been at length vomited out thence. For which commodious • Apology for Smectymnuus. Profe-Works, vol. i. p. 174. edit. 1698. |