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indicating a spirit similar to that displayed by the brave men who perished at Thermopyla and Marathon; or, like the few noble citizens of Calais, who devoted themselves to perish, in order to save their fellows from destruction! This was indeed to manifest the true Protestant, and the true patriot. Courage and philanthrophy indeed! which nothing short of " being valiant for the truth," even when fallen to the earth, and trampled beneath the feet of contemptuous men, could sustain which the votaries of high church, with their half papistical dogmas, flitting in the sun of courtly prosperity, could no more have displayed, than they could have emulated his powerful intellect; to have even attempted which, would only have manifested their folly, and exposed themselves in their spleen to the fate of Esop's "Proud Frogs."

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CHAPTER II.

1640-1644.

ARRIVING in London, as soon as he had received the congratulations of his friends and acquaintances, he hired a handsome lodging in St. Bride's Court, Fleet Street, at the house of Mr. Russel, a tailor, which might be an asylum for himself, and a safe depository for his library, in those uncertain and troublesome times. He soon after removed to Aldersgate-street, at the end of the passage, where he also commenced his work of tuition.* Whilst absent from England, his dearest friend and school-fellow, CHARLES DIODATI,

* Toland is very angry that some persons, "mean tutors in a university," in order to reproach Milton, had called him a schoolmaster. Not to interrupt the course of my narrative, I throw the vindication of Milton, by his biographer, into a note:-"But to return to his lodgings, where we had left him. There, both to be used in the reading of the best authors, and to discharge his duty to his sister's sons, that were partly committed to his tuition, he undertook the care of their education, and instructed them in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and other oriental dialects: likewise in several parts of

had been removed by death; and for a long time he continued inconsolable on that account. This

the mathematics, in cosmography, history, and some modern languages, as French and Italian. Some gentlemen of his intimate friends, and to whom he could deny nothing, prevailed on him to impart the same benefits of learning to their sons; especially since the trouble [of teaching the Latin] was no more with many than with few. He that well knew the greatest persons in all ages to have been delighted with teaching others the principles of knowledge and virtue, easily complied; nor was his success unanswerable to the opinion which is generally entertained of his capacity. And not content to acquaint his disciples with those books that are commonly used in the schools, whereof several, no doubt, are excellent in their kind, though others are as trivial or impertinent, he made them, likewise, read in Latin the ancient authors concerning husbandry; as Cato, Varro, Columella, and Palladius; also Cornelius Celsus the physician; Pliny's Natural History; the architecture of Vitruvius; the stratagems of Frontinus; and the philosophical poets, Lucretius and Manilius. To the usual Greek books, as Homer and Hesiod, he added Aratus, Dionysius Perigetes, Oppian, Quintus Calaber, Appolonius Rhodius, Plutarch, Xenophon, Ælian's Tactics, and the stratagems of Polyænus. It was this greatest sign of a good man in him, and the highest obligations he could lay upon his friends, without any sordid or mercenary purposes, that gave occasion to his adversaries with opprobiously terming him a schoolmaster," &c. &c. It is humorous to find his high church, pamphleteering university opponents, fixing upon such a charge as a matter of reproach! One amuses oneself in thinking, how many there might have probably been of these "jolly, plump, well-fed city dogs," whose "master fed them well, and brought the food himself, only on condition of their

even is commemorated by him in an eclogue, in the most pathetic strains that affectionate sorrow could suggest.

The state of the nation at this time he thus describes: "On my return from my travels, I found all mouths open against the Bishops; some complaining of their vices, and others quarrelling with the very order: and thinking, from such beginnings, a way might be opened to true liberty, I hastily engaged in the dispute, as well to rescue my fellow-citizens from slavery, as to help the Puritan ministers who were inferior to the Bishops in learning. One of his biographers, Birch, says: "His zeal for liberty in general therefore engaged him in a warm opposition to episcopal authority. He, in the first place, published two books on the Reformation from Popery, which were dedicated to a friend. In the first of these he proved, from the reign of Henry the Eighth, what had all along been the real impediments in the kingdom to a perfect Re

being tied up a day, and that to make them tame; and at night, just to guard the house and keep it from thieves." Who among them, even if they had been qualified, would have undertaken, upon Milton's terms, to have been his assistant? If Milton was poor and unknown, he had no crease in his neck."-See Esop's Fable, No. xix.

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* In a volume, entitled "Clarendon and Whitlocke compared," published in 1727, the author having repelled (p. 81) the mean and unsupported assertion of Clarendon, who has

formation. These he reduces to two heads; the first, the popish ceremonies which had been retained in the protestant church; and the second, the power of ordination to the ministry having been confined to diocesan Bishops, to the exclusion of the choice of ministers by the suffrages of the people. Our ceremonies,' he says, 'are senseless in themselves,

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said, "I am confident there was not, from the beginning of the Parliament, one orthodox or learned man recommended by them (the Assembly) to the Church of England," proceeds to mention some: four of them, who, after the Restoration, accepted of bishopricks-Dr. Seth Ward, Dr. John Gaudin, Dr. John Wilkins, and Dr. Edward Reignolds; also, Drs. John Conant, Cave, Usher, Gataker, Tuckney, Lightfoot, Wincop, Gouge, Twisse, Manton, Bolton, Pool, Jacomb, and Bates. Of the latter of these the writer (the author of the Critical History of England) remarks: "Dr Bates, for learning, eloquence, beauty of thought, style, and life, is without parallel, except we might compare with him his fast friend, the Most Reverend Dr. Tillotson, Archbishop of Canterbury. When such men as these are characterised, as by Lord Clarendon, seditious and schismatical, what must we think of those that are, in the same page, perhaps, termed orthodox and pious! Besides the deficiency here as to truth, how deficient is it in charity! How different from those truly orthodox Fathers aud Pastors of our Church, who maintained a brotherly temper with scrupulous Protestants, after the Uniformity Act had made their religion what the Earl makes it schism and sedition! I was infinitely pleased," adds this writer, "with a certificate, signed as follows: (Calamy, vol. ii. p. 10.) John Tillotson, Benjamin Whitchcock, Edward Stillingfleet, Matthew Pool, Thomas Gouge."

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