The exception, in regard to his piety, relates to MILTON being a Protestant, and to the courage with which he had avowed, and doubtless defended, his principles. The marquis, indeed, told him, "he would have done him many other good offices, had he been more reserved in matters of religion" From this very brief mention of the frankness and courage of our Protestant poet, we may safely infer that his mind was at this time well informed as to the all-important principles of Protestantism, and that he felt a detestation of the idolatrous principles and superstitious practices of the Antichristian Church of Rome. It is fair to infer also, that his courageous conduct, even in the city upon seven hills, where Antichrist was seated in all his glory, and where his flattering, cringing sycophants were shouting, "who "who is like unto the Beast?" arose from his heart having been renewed by the Holy Spirit of God; for one can scarcely conceive it possible that any other principle than that of the fear of God having been put into his heart, could have produced such fearless confidence and such dauntless zeal. In return for the many favours which MILTON had received from a person of MANso's rank, he presented him, at his departure from Naples, notwithstanding the cautious scruples by which this kindness was qualified, with an incomparable Latin eclogue, entitled Mansus; which is extant among his occasional pieces.

He had intended, and was making preparations to pass over into Sicily and Greece, when he was recalled by the sad news of a civil war beginning at home; and "deeming it a thing," says his nephew Philips, "unworthy of him to be diverting himself in security abroad, when his countrymen were contending with an insidious monarch for their liberty, he resolved to give up his further travels,

and, with his noble compatriots, to jeopard his life on the high places of the field."

Before returning to England, however, he made up his mind again to visit Rome, though he was advised by some merchants to the contrary; for they had learned from their correspondents, that the English Jesuits were framing plots against him, on account of the great freedom he used in his conversations on the subject of religion. He therefore resolved not to commence any disputes with the Papists, but was determined, whatever might happen, not to dissemble his sentiments. He went again to the city of Antichrist, and continued there two months, neither concealing his name, nor declining to defend openly the truth, under the Pope's eye, when any thought fit to attack him; and notwithstanding his danger, he returned safely to his friends at Florence. Toland remarks, in connexion with the above statement: "I forgot all this while to mention, that he paid a visit to GALILEO, then an old man, and a prisoner in the Inquisition, for thinking contrary in astronomy, than pleased the Dominican and Franciscan friars."

Having spent two months more in Florence, and visited Lucca, Bononia, and Ferrara, he arrived in safety at Venice. Here he spent one month; and shipping off all the books which he had collected in his travels, he came through Verona, Milan, crossed the Alps, and proceeded by the lake Leman to Geneva. In this city he contracted an intimate acquaintance with GIOVANNI DIODATI, a noted professor of divinity, and became well known to several other eminent men; particularly to the celebrated critic and antiquary, EZEKIEL SPANHEMIUS, to whom he wrote the seventeenth of his familiar letters. So leaving Geneva, and passing again through France, after one year and three months' travels, he returned safely to England,

arriving at home about the time that king CHARLES the FIRST made his second expedition against the Scotch.

The reader will have observed the proofs of the highminded Protestant, which have been briefly stated, in the conduct of this noble youth-for he was scarcely more, being now only thirty-two years of age;-and if the reader is well acquainted with the state of society at that time, as regarded the Established Church of England when Laud* was persecuting the Puritans with such relentless and unheard-of cruelties, for daring to refuse worshipping the golden image of episcopacy which the king had set up ;-if he is acquainted, too, with the numerous instances in which this Arminian prelate sympathised with Popery; and how fast the Church of England was going back towards Rome, both in her ceremonies and the new exposition of her articles ;-if he know, also, how tyrannical were the decisions of the star-chamber and high-commission courts, in reference to any thing which approached to the assertion of either civil or religious liberty, he will then form some conception of the danger into which MILTON voluntarily ran, by returning at such a time to his beloved native country; indicating

* "Laud's superstition," says Mr. Wilson, Appendix 517, "however offensive to common sense, was tolerable, when named with his cruelties. These chill the blood with horror. No man, possessed of the common sympathies of human nature, can read the sufferings of Prynne, Lilburn, Burton, Bastwick, and Leighton, without being satisfied that the monster's heart was steeled against every feeling of humanity. These severities occasioned numbers to leave the kingdom, until the king ordered that none should depart without the permission of this miscreant." This witness is true; and to this I add, what proved to be the most marvellous providence, that Laud prevented Oliver Cromwell, John Hampden, and other patriots, from going to America, to which they had made up their minds, and had actually embarked, in order to transport themselves, but an order of council prevented them. The excellent Dr. Owen, too, would have gone, but for the same prevention.

a spirit similar to that displayed by the brave men who perished at Thermopylæ 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 philanthropy 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."

CHAPTER II.

1640-1644.

ARRIVING in London, as soon as he had receiving 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 time. He soon after removed to Aldersgate-street, at the end of the passage, where he also commenced his work of tuition.* Whilst

*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 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, Apollonius Rhodius, Plutarch, Xenophon, Elian's Tactics, and the stratagems of Polyænus. It was