ask one another what he was that took place next their chief: none could resolve, whereat the wen, though unwieldy, with much ado gets up, and bespeaks the assembly to this purpose; that as in place he was second to the head, so by due of merit; that he was to it an ornament, and strength, and of special near relation; and that if the head should fail, none were fitter than himself to slip into his place; therefore he thought it for the honour of the body, that such dignities and rich endowments should be deemed him, as did adorn and set out the noblest members. To this was answered, that it should be consulted. There was a wise and learned philosopher sent for, that knew all the charters, laws, and tenures of the body ; on him it is imposed by all, as chief counsellor, to examine and discuss the claim and petition of right put in by the wen; who soon hearing the matter, and wondering at the boldness of such a swoln tumour; 'Wilt thou, (quoth he,) that art but a bottle of vitious and hardened excrements, contend with the lawful and free-born members, whose certain number is set by ancient and unimpeachable statute? Head thou art none, though

thou receive this huge offices bearest thou?

substance from it. What What good canst thou show done by thee to the common weal? The wen, not easily dasht, replies, that his office was his glory; for as oft as the soul would retire out

of the head, from over the steaming vapours of the lower parts to divine contemplations, with him she found the purest and quickest retreat, as being most remote from soil and disturbance. Lourdan,' quoth the philosopher, thy folly is as great as thy filth; know that all the faculties of the soul are confined of old to their several vessels and ventricles, from which they cannot part without dissolution of the whole body; and that thou containest no good thing in thee, but a heap of hard and loathsome uncleanness, and art to the head a foul disfigurement and burden. When I have cut thee off and opened thee, as by the help of these implements I will do, all men shall know."

66

Some minister, said by MILTON to be a son of Bishop Hall, in writing against his Animadversions on Bishop Usher's book, had called it a scurrilous libel;" and not content with this, had treated the author with the greatest contempt, using defaming language and personal reflections. In his reply, entitled, "Modest confutation of a slanderous and scandalous Libel, by JOHN MILTON, gent." he proves himself to have been a match for his antagonist even in scurrillity and calling hard names. Speaking of the university men, he says, "What with truanting and debauchery, what with false grounds, and the weakness of natural faculties in many of them

(it being a maxim with some men to send the simplest of their sons thither,) perhaps there would be found among them as many unsolid and corrupted judgments, both in doctrine and life, as in any other two corporations of the like bigness. This is undoubted, that if any carpenter, smith, or weaver, were such a bungler in his trade, as the greater number of them are in their profession, he would starve for any custom and should he exercise his manufacture as little as they do their talents, he would forget his art: or, should he mistake his tools as they do theirs, he would mar all the work he took in hand. How few among them that know how to write or speak in a pure stile, much less to distinguish the ideas and various kinds of stile. In Latin barbarous, and oft not without solecisms, declaiming in rugged and miscellaneous gear, blown together by the four winds; and in their choice preferring the gay rankness of APULEIUS, ARNOBIUS, or any modern Fustianist, before the native Latinisms of CICERO. In the Greek tongue most of them unlettered, or unentered to any sound proficiency in those Attic masters of wisdom or eloquence. In the Hebrew text, except it be some few of them, their letters are utterly uncircumcised. No less are they out of the way in philosophy, pestering their heads with the sapless dotages of old Pan's and Salamanca."

His antagonist had meanly insinuated that MILTON's early rising was for sensual pursuits. In reply, he says: "My morning haunts are, where they should be, at home; not sleeping or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up and stirring; in winter often before the sound of any bell awakens men to labour or devotion; in summer as oft as the bird that first rouses, or not much tardier, to read good authors, or cause them to be read till the attention is weary, or the memory have its full fraught. Then, with useful and generous labour, preserving the body's health and hardiness, to render a lightsome, clear, and not a lumpish, obedience of the mind, for the cause of religion and our country's liberty, when it shall require firm hearts in sound bodies, to stand and cover their stations, rather than see the ruin of our Protestation, [Protestantism,] and the inforcement of a slavish life."

He thus castigates collegians who were theatrical performers. "There, while they acted and overacted, among other young scholars, I was a spectator: they thought themselves gallant men, and I thought them fools; they made sport, and I laughed; they mispronounced, and I misliked; and to make up the Atticism, they were out, and I hist." He had to answer the charge of lewdness and sensuality from his reverend accuser! "These means, together with a certain niceness of nature,

an honest haughtiness and self-esteem, either of what I was, or what I might be, (which let envy call pride,) and lastly, a burning modesty, all uniting their natural aid together, kept me still above those low descents of mind, beneath which he must deject and plunge himself, that can agree to salvable and unlawful prostitution."-" If I should tell you what I learnt of chastity and love, (I mean that which is truly so,) whose charming cup is only virtue, which she bears in her hand to those who are worthy; the rest are cheated with a thick, intoxicating potion, which a certain sorceress, the abuser of love's name, carries about: and if I were to tell you how the first and chiefest office of love be-, gins and ends in the soul, producing those happy twins of the divine generation, knowledge and virtue, with such abstracted sublimities as these, it might be worth your listening, readers."

His most reverend antagonist indulged in the following advice to MILTON's acquaintances; that is, if they were genuine Christians. "You that love Christ," said he, "and know this miscreant wretch, stone him to death, lest you smart for his impunity." The following retort is too much in the stile of "rendering railing for railing;" though it is probable MILTON thought it to be "answering a fool according to his folly, lest he should be wise in his own conceit." "There be