Quodque mihi lepidum tellus longinqua fodalem IO volume, entitled, POETICI CONATUS, 1632. 12mo. But he has other pieces extant, both in Latin and English. Wood had feen others in manufcript. In the church of faint Mary Magdalene at Oxford, in the neighbourhood of Trinity college, I have often seen a long profe Latin epitaph written by Gill to the memory of one of his old college friends Richard Pates, mafter of Arts, which I should not have mentioned, but as it fhews the writer's uncommon skill in pure latinity. He was not only concerned with faint Paul's fchool, but was an affiftant to Thomas Farnabie, the school-master of King, Milton's LYCIDAS. He is faid to have been removed from Saint Paul's school for his exceffive feverity. The laft circumftance we learn from a fatire of the times, "Verses to be reprinted with a fecond edition of Gon"dibert, 1653." P.54. 57. Alexander Gill here mentioned, Milton's friend, feems to be fometimes confounded with his father, whose name was alfo Alexander, who was also matter of Saint Paul's, and whofe LOGONOMIA published in 1621, an ingenious but futile scheme to reform and fix the English language, is well known to our critical lexicographers. 9. Me tenet urbs reflua quam Thamefis alluit unda.] To have pointed out London by only calling it the city wafhed by the Thames, would have been a general and, a trite allufion. But this allufion by being combined with the peculiar circumftance of the reflux of the tide, becomes new, poetical, and appropriated. The adjective REFLUA is at once defcriptive and diftinctive. Ovid has "refluum mare." METAM. Vii, 267. Et quas oceani REFLUUM mare lavit arenas. 12. Nec dudum vetiti me Laris angit amor.] The words vetiti Laris, and afterwards exilium, will not fuffer us to determine otherwise, than that Milton was fentenced to undergo a temporary removal or ruftication from Cambridge. I will not fuppofe for any immoral irregularity. Doctor Bainbridge, the Mafter, is reported to have been a very active disciplinarian: and this lover of liberty, we may prefume, was as little difpofed to fubmiffion and conformity in a college as in a ftate. When reprimanded and admonished, the pride of his temper, impatient Nuda nec arva placent, umbrasque negantia molles, Quam male Phœbicolis convenit ille locus ! Nec duri libet ufque minas perferre magiitri, 15 Cæteraque ingenio non fubeunda meo. impatient of any fort of reproof, naturally broke forth into expreffions of contumely and contempt against his governour. Hence he was punished. See the next Note. He appears to have lived in friendship with the fellows of the college. See APOL. SMECTYMN. PROSEWORKS, Vol. i. 108. 66 15. Nec duri libet ufque minas perferre magiftri, Cæteraque ingenio non fubeunda meo.] Milton is faid 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 thofe 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 univerfity, 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 publicly whipped by the Cenfor in the college-hall. АTH. OXON. ii. p. 560. See also LIFE OF BATHURST, p. 202. I learn from fome manufcript papers of Aubrey the antiquary, who was a ftudent in 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 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. The author of an old pamphlet, Regicides no Saints nor Martyrs, fays that Hugh Peters, while at Trinity college Cambridge, was publicly 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. ASHм. Oxon. Num. x. P. iii. From which, by the way, Wood's life of Milton in the FASTI OXONIENSES, the firit 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 66 " and Si fit hoc exilium patrios adiiffe penates, " and writings following." ATH. OxON. i. F. p. 262. This Friend is Aubrey; whom Wood, in another place, calls credulous, "roving "and magotie-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 fantastical, 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 beft modern antiquaries. Aubrey's manufçript 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 tafks called impofitions, or frequent compulfive attendances on tedious and unimproving exercifes in a college-hall. But cætera follows minas, and perferre feems to imply fomewhat more than these inconveniences, fomething that was juffered, and feverely 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 banifhment. He hated the place. He was not only offended at the collegedifcipline, 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 Phebus. Here a father's prohibition had nothing to do. He refolves, however, to forget all thefe difagreable circumftances, and to return in due time. The difmiflion, if any, was not to be perpetual. In thefe lines, ingenium is to be rendered temper, nature, difpofition, rather than genius. Aubrey fays, from the information of our author's brother Chriftopher, that Milton's "firft tutor there [at Chrift's college] was Mr. "Chapell, from whom receiving fome unkindneffe, (be 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. Mus. ASHм. ut fupr. This information, which ftands 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 Iii fuppreffed Non ego vel profugi nomen, fortemve recufo, Lætus et exilii conditione fruor. O utinam vates nunquam graviora tuliffet 20 Non tunc Ionio quicquam ceffiffet Homero, Excipit hinc feffum finuofi pompa theatri, 26 fuppreffed an anecdote which contributed in the leaft degree to expofe the character of Milton. As it is a matter involved in the subject of the present note, I muft here correct a mistake in the BIOGRAPHIA, p. 3106. Where Milton is faid to have been entered at Cambridge a SIZAR, which denominates the lowest rank of academics. But his admiffion thus ftands in the Register at Christ's College. "Johannes Milton, filius Johannis inftitutus fuit in literarum elementis sub magiftro Gill Gymnafii Paulini præ"fetto, et admiffus eft Penfionarius Minor. 12°. feb. 1624." But Penfionarius minor is a Penfioner, or Commoner, in contradistinction to a Fellow-Commoner. And he is fo entered in the Matriculation-book of the University. ་་ 22. Ille Tomitano flebilis exul agro.] Ovid thus begins his Epistles from Pontus. i. i. 1. Nafo TOMITANÆ jam non novus incola terræ, Hoc tibi de Getico litore mittit opus. See our author below, EL. vi. 19. And Ovid, TRIST. iii. ix. 33. i. ii. 85. iv. x. 97. v. vii. 9. feq. Ex PONT. i. ii. 77. i. vii. 49. iii.i.6. iii. iv. 2. iv. ix. 97. iv. xiii. 15. 23. feq. Again, ibid. iii. viii. 2. Dona TOMITANUS mittere poffet AGER. 23. Non tune Ionio quicquam ceffiffet Homero, &c.] I have before obferved, that Ovid was Milton's favourite Latin-poet. In thefe Elegies Ovid is his pattern. But he fometimes imitates Propertius in his prolix digreffions into the antient Grecian ftory. 27. Excipit bine fellum finuofi pompa theatri, &c.] As in L'ALLE GRO, V. 131. Then to the well-trod-ftage anon, &c. The theatre feems to have been a favourite amufement of Milton's youth. Et Et vocat ad plaufus garrula scena fuos. Sæpe novos illic virgo mirata calores 30 35 Quid fit amor nefcit, dum quoque nefcit, amat. Sive cruentatum furiofa Tragoedia fceptrum Quaffat, et effufis crinibus ora rotat, Et dolet, et fpecto, juvat et spectaffe dolendo, Interdum et lacrymis dulcis amaror inest : 40 31. Sive decennali fecundus lite patronus Detonat inculto barbara verba foro.] He probably means the play of IGNORAMUS. In the expreffion decennali fæcundus lite there is both elegance and humour. Most of the reft of Milton's comic characters are Terentian. He is giving a general view of comedy: but it is the view of a scholar, and he does not recollect that he fets out with defcribing a London theatre. 37. Sive cruentatum, &c.] See Note on IL PENS. v. 98. Ovid calls his MEDEA Scriptum regale." TRIST, ii. 553. Et dedimus tragicis fcriptum REGALE cothurnis. 1.9. Again, Ex PONT. iv. xvi. 9. Quique dedit Latio carmen REGALE Severus. Where he means the Tragedies of Severus. In the Note on IL PENSEROSO, the whole of Ovid's portrait of Tragedy fhould have been quoted. AMOR. iii. i. 11. Venit et ingenti violenta Tragædia passu, Fronte coma torva, PALLA jacebat humi: Here we trace Milton's PALL, as well as SCEPTER. |