errors of the conscientious Christian, and feel the impoffibility of a perfect unison of sentiment in rational beings who think for themselves.'9

In 1645 Milton collected his early poems, Latin and English, for the press; in which the Allegro 10 and Penferoso appeared for the first time. Of the picturefque imagery, the mufical verfification, and the brilliant language of these poems, praise too high cannot be heard. They have all the paftoral beauties, and sweet descriptions of our elder poets, embellished and heightened by a richer style, and a more refined combination. It has been more than once obferved, that these poems, fhort as they are, "have collected in one splendid view all that can be faid on their respective subjects."

Moseley the publisher fays in his preface, that the poems of Spenfer, in these English ones are as nearly imitated, as sweetly excelled.' It is to this edition that the portrait by Marshall is prefixed, which so much difpleased Milton; and which has transformed the youthful

See Sir Thomas Bernard's Comforts of Old Age, p. 106. See alfo John Hales' Sermon, Peace of the Church. Works, vol. iii. P. 11.

10 Mr. Peck's manner of giving the titles of these poems is ludicrously quaint. He calls them His Homo L'Allegro, or the lætans; and his Homo Il Penferofo, or the cogitans.' v. New Memoirs, p. 26. Comus had been printed in 1637, and Lycidas in 1638. Before Cartwright's Poems, 1651, is a copy of verfes by J. Leigh, enumerating the various Poets whose works had been published by Mofeley, but omitting the name of Milton.

11" This is Mab, the Mistress Fairy." On this line of Jonfon, Gifford fays, "This Faery Mythology which has been copied by Milton, and which has fufficient beauty to make it familiar to every reader of Poetry, is quoted by Mr. Brand from a scarce book in his poffeffion. This is also the case with many other paffages in Jonson, which are given with all due mystery at the hundredth hand from fome rare treatise in the author's collection." v. Works, vol. vi. p. 471.

bard into a puritanical gentleman of fifty; it is the first published portrait of the Poet.12

In 1647, as the relations of his wife had gradually left him, he removed into a smaller house in Holborn, which opened backward into Lincoln's Inn Fields, and continued the inftruction of a few scholars, chiefly the fons of gentlemen his friends. That there ever was a design of making him an adjutant general in the army of Sir William Waller may be doubted; for Phillips has expreffed his belief doubtfully, and Waller was confidered at that time the leader of the Prefbyterians, between whom and our Poet no amity could now exift.

His next publication in 1648-9, was the Tenour of Kings and Magiftrates.13 This was occafioned by the outcry of the Presbyterians against the death of Charles; 14 whereas Milton proves that they who fo much condemned depofing were the men themselves that deposed the king : and cannot, with all their shifting and relapfing, wash the guiltiness off their own hands. For they themselves, by their late doings have made it guiltiness, and turned their own warrantable actions into rebellion. He then pushes on his arguments against them till he fhows that they not only depofed, but how much they did toward the

12 Salmafius confidered this print as presenting not an unfavourable portrait of Milton. The paftoral view in the back ground is worthy of Oftade; but neat handed Phyllis' is, methinks, a little too free. She fhould have recollected that in a dance Junctæque nymphis Gratia decentes.'

13 This tract first published February 1648-9, republished with additions in 1650.

14 See Swift's Mifcellanies, vol. ix. p. 95. The Prefbyterians' Plea. See alfo Hall's Downfall of Maygames, 4to. p. 39. "Who were they who petitioned in print for the Life of the King? Presbyterian Ministers in London, one of them losing his head not long after on a Royal account," &c.

Were they not the

17

answer to the Icon Bafilike, it is fuppofed by a verbal command: for no written order of the council to that effect has been found. The grievous charge of having, in conjunction with Bradshaw, interpolated the book of the king,18 with a prayer taken from Sidney's Arcadia, and then of imputing the use of the prayer to the monarch, as a heavy crime, has been clearly and completely refuted.

It appears that the private prayers of the king were delivered by him to Dr. Juxon, Bishop of London, immediately before his death, and on the scaffold; that they were added to some of the earlier impreffions of the Icon; that the prayer was adopted by the king from the Arcadia, a book that he delighted to read, and that Juxon would not have been filent, had the prayer been inserted by the enemies of his lamented monarch, to calumniate his memory.

We must now pafs on to the celebrated controverfy with Salmafius; 20 Charles the Second employed that great

T. 5. p. 545. See fome curious inftances of the impoffibility of ufing the meaning of modern terms in Latin, in Leibnitz's Mifcellanies, p. 153.

17 Milton's Answer was printed in London in 1640 4to. again in 1650. Of the Icon Bafilike, forty-feven editions were circulated in England alone, and 48,500 copies fold. Toland fays, Milton was rewarded by the parliament for his performance with the present of a thousand pounds. v. Life, p. 32. The real fact is not ascertained. 18 See Newton's Life of Milton, p. xxxviii.

19 The books which Charles delighted to read, and which show his knowledge and taste, are given in Sir Thomas Herbert's Memoirs, p. 61, viz. Bp. Andrews' Sermons, Hooker's Eccl. Polity, Hammond's Works, Sandys's Pfalms, Herbert's Poems, Fairfax's Tasso, Harington's Ariofto, Spenfer's Fairy Queen, &c. The prayer from the Arcadia is a mere transcript, with the necessary alteration of a few words.

20 Un Anglais nommé Jean Milton a répondu à M. de Saumaife, pro Populo Anglicano ; je pense que M. de Saumaise lui répondra.” L'Esprit de Guy Patin, p. 171. Reimar in the Catalog. Biblioth. fuæ, vol. iii. p. 593 gives high praise to an article by Boecler in his Museum 1672 de

scholar to write a Defence of his Monarchy, and to vindicate his father's memory; to ftimulate his industry, it is faid," a hundred Jacobufes were given to him. Since the death of the illuftrious younger Scaliger, no scholar had acquired the reputation of Salmafius; partly, as Johnson afferted, for his skill in emendatory criticism, in which however he was equalled by fome of his contemporaries, but especially for his great knowledge of antiquity, the multiplicity of his attainments, and his immense research in antient languages." His Commentary on His Commentary on Solinus, and his

Miltono, p. 34-41, de Salmafio, p. 41-48, as written with a beauty of style, acuteness of perception, and weight of reafoning that would have done honour to Tacitus. On Salmafius's arguments fee Perizonii Difputationes, p. 643-648. A German writer of a life of Salmafius, acknowledges that Milton had the better in the conflict in these words-Hans, Jack, von, Milton-not to be compared in learning and genius with the incomparable Salmafius, yet a fhrewd and cunning lawyer," &c.

20 Wood afferts that Salmafius had no reward for his book. He says, the king fent Dr. Morley, then at Leyden, to the apologist with his thanks, but not with a purse of gold, as John Milton the impudent liar reported.' Wood's Ath. Ox. ii. p. 770. See alfo Salmon's Lives of the English Bishops (Dr. Morley) p. 344. See Voltaire's opinion of this Controverfy in Siecle de Louis XIV. Tom. i. p. 135, 234; vol. xxii. ed. 1785.

21 Toland fays, 'What is worse than all the reft, Salmafius appeared on this occafion fuch an abfolute ftranger, and bungler in his own province, as to open a large field for Milton to divert himself with his barbarous phrafes and folecifms,' p. 96. The fact is, Salmafius with all his vaft erudition, from a hafty impetuofity of mind, committed occafionally great mistakes. I have a work of his, in which he makes our Saviour born at Jerufalem. Autant de livres de fa façon, autant d'Impromptu,' (fays Vigneuil Marville) mais il ne digéroit affez bien les matières qu'il traitoit. Ce qu'il donnoit au public, il donnoit tout crû, avec dédain, et comme tout en colère. Il fembloit jetter fon Grec, fon Latin, et toute fa science à la tête des gens. Grotius au contraire confidère tout, digère tout, l'ordonne, et la range fagement. Il refpecte et ménage fon lecteur. Son érudition eft comme une grande fleuve qui fe répand largement, fait du bien à tout le monde. Crefcit cum amplitudine rerum, vis ingenii'—

f

Treatife de Re Hellenistica are imperishable monuments of his fame. Grotius alone could compete with him; and if Grotius were at all inferior, which I know not, in the

i. p. 9. D'autres ne peuvent écrire qu'à la hâte, et ne fauroient repaffer fur leurs ouvrages. M. de Saumaife étoit de ce caractère.' Gronovius (de Seftertiis, p. 46,) fays of him, Habebat hoc vir ille incomparabilis ut uberrimo ingenio nulla fufficeret manus, et ubi inftituerat fcribere, nec rerum, nec verborum modum noffet. Sic factum effet, ut multa illi exciderent, quæ norat ipfe melius, et rectius alio die tradiderat, tradebatque quæ, fi paululum attendiffet animum, facile vitaffet.' What the great Scaliger thought of Salmafius, then young, may be gathered from the beginning of one of his letters to him (Ep. ccxlviii.) nunquam ab Epiftolis tuis difcedo nifi doctior:'-a delightful character of Salmafius is given by the learned Huet, in his Commentar. de Rebus ad Eum (Se) pertin. p. 125-130, who fays, 'Si quis certe animum ejus atque mores ex fcriptis æftimare velit, arrogans fuiffe videatur, contumax, fibique prefidens; at in ufu, et confuetudine vitæ, nihil placidius nihil mitius, comis adhæc, urbanus, et officii plenus, verum benignitati ejus ac quieti multium officiebat uxor imperiofa Anna Mercera,' and then he proceeds to give an account how Salmafius's wife infifted, when he was prefented at the court of Christina, in dressing him in Scarlet breeches and gloves, with a black cap and white feather. Salmafius told him he was very ill with the gout the whole time he was in Sweden; that Christina used to come to his bed; and one morning found him reading Libellum Subturpiculum,' which the affrighted profeffor hid under the bedclothes; but Chriftina fearched for it and got it; and, being delighted with it, called in a young and beautiful lady of the name of Sparra,' whom she made to read aloud the paffages that pleafed her: and while the girl blushed at her task, the Queen and her attendants were convulfed with laughter. Huet faw at Salmafius' house the girl 'Pontia,' and fays fhe was fatis elegans.' His account of the amour of Morus with this girl is not fo unfavourable as Milton's; in fact, he made Morus fign a paper to marry her, but the paffion and intemperance of Salmafius' wife rendered all interference unfuccefsful. Morus was ill in Salmafius' houfe, and Pontia nurfed him, which was the beginning of the acquaintance. An epitaph on Salmafius is given in V. Paravicini Sing. de Viris Erud. (1713) p. 201, in the bombastic style of the time. Ingens exigua jacet hac fub mole fepultus Affertor Regum, numinis atque pugil Finivit Spade vitam Salmafius hofpes