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ing for liberty at home. He refolved therefore to return by the way of Rome, tho' he was advised to the contrary by the merchants, who had received intelligence from their correfpondents, that the English Jefuits there were forming plots against him, in cafe he fhould return thither, by reafon of the great freedom which he had ufed in all his difcourfes of religion. For he had by no means obferved the rule, recommended to him by Sir Henry Wotton, of keeping his thoughts clofe and his countenance open: He had vifited Galileo, a prifoner to the Inquifition for afferting the motion of the earth, and thinking otherwise in aftronomy than the, Dominicans and Francifcans thought: And tho' the Marquis of Villa had shown him fuch diftinguishing marks of favor at Naples, yet he told him at his departure that he would have fhown him much greater, if he had been more referved in matters of religion. But he had a foul above diffimulation and difguife; he was neither afraid, nor afhamed to vindicate the truth; and if any man had, he had in him the fpirit of an old martyr. He was fo prudent indeed, that he would not of his own accord begin any difcourfe of religion; but at the fame time he was fo honeft, that if he was queftioned at all about his faith, he would not diffemble his fentiments, whatever was the confequence. And with this refolution he went to Rome the second time, and ftayed there two months more, neither concealing his name, nor declining openly to defend the truth, if any thought proper to attack him and yet, God's good providence protecting him, he came fafe to his kind friends at Florence, where he was received with as much joy

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and affection, as if he had returned into his own country.

Here likewife he ftayed two months, as he had done before, excepting only an excurfion of a few days to Lucca and then croffing the Appennine, and paffing thro' Bologna and Ferrara, he came to Venice, in which city he spent a month; and having shipped off the books, which he had collected in his travels, and particularly a cheft or two of choice mufic books of the beft mafters florishing about that time in Italy, he took his courfe through Verona, Milan, and along the lake Leman to Geneva. In this city he tarried fome time, meeting here with people of his own principles, and contracted an intimate friendship with Giovanni Deodati, the most learned profeffor of divinity, whofe annotations upon the Bible are published in English. And from thence returning thro' France, the fame way that he had gone before, he arrived fafe in England, after a peregrination of one year and about three months, having feen more, and learned more, and converfed with more famous men, and made more real improvements, than most others in double the time.

His first bufinefs after his return was to pay his duty to his father, and to vifit his other friends; but this pleasure was much diminished by the lofs of his dear friend and fchoolfellow Charles Deodati in his abfence. While he was abroad, he heard it reported that he was dead; and upon his coming home he found it but too true, and lamented his death in an excellent Latin eclogue intitled Epitaphium Damonis. This Deodati had a father originally of Lucca, but his mother was English, and he was born and bred

in England, and ftudied phyfic, and was an admirable fcholar, and no lefs remarkable for his fobriety and other virtues than for his great learning and ingenuity. One or two of Milton's familiar epiftles are addreffed to him; and Mr. Toland fays, that he had in his hands two Greek letters of Deodati to Milton, very handfomely written. It may be right for fcholars now and then to exercife themselves in Greek and Latin; but we have much more frequent occafion to write letters in our own native language, and in that therefore we should principally ende

vor to excel.

Milton, foon after his return, had taken a lodging at one Ruffel's, a taylor, in St. Bride's Church-yard; but he continued not long there, having not fufficient room for his library and furniture; and therefore determined to take a houfe, and accordingly took a handsome garden-house in Alderfgate-ftreet, fituated at the end of an entry, which was the more agreeable to a ftudious man for its privacy and freedom from noife and disturbance. And in this house he continued several years, and his fifter's two fons were put to board with him, firft the younger and afterwards the elder : and fome others of his intimate friends requested of him the fame favor for their fons, especially fince there was little more trouble in inftructing half a dozen than two or three: and he, who could not eafily deny any thing to his friends, and who knew that the greatest men in all ages had delighted in teaching others the principles of knowledge and virtue, undertook the office, not out of any fordid and mercenary views, but merely from a benevolent difpofition, and a defire to do good. And

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his method of education was as much above the pedantry and jargon of the common schools, as his nius was fuperior to that of a common fchoolmaster. One of his nephews has given us an account of the many authors both Latin and Greek, which (befides thofe ufually read in the schools) thro' his excellent judgment and way of teaching were run over within no greater compafs of time, than from ten to fifteen or fixteen years of age. Of the Latin the four authors concerning hufbandry, Cato, Varro, Columella, and Palladius, Cornelius Celfus the phyfician, a great part of Pliny's Natural Hiftory, the Architecture of Vitruvius, the Stratagems of Frontinus, and the philofophical poets Lucretius and Manilius. Of the Greek Hefiod, Aratus's Phænomena and Diofemeia, Dionyfius Afer de fitu orbis, Oppian's Cynegetics and Halieutics, Quintus Calaber's poem of the Trojan war continued from Homer, Apollonius Rhodius's Argonautics, and in profe Plutarch's Placita philofophorum, and of the education of children, Xenophon's Cyropædia and Anabafis, Ælian's Tactics and the Stratagems of Polyænus. Nor did this application to the Greek and Latin tongues hinder the attaining to the chief oriental languages, the Hebrew, Chaldee and Syriac, fo far as to go thro' the Pentateuch or five books of Mofes in Hebrew, to make a good entrance into the Targum or Chaldee paraphrafe, and to understand several chapters of St. Matthew in the Syriac Teftament; befides the modern languages, Italian and French, and a competent knowledge of the mathematics and aftronomy. The Sunday's exercife for his pupils was for the most part to read a chapter of the Greek Teftament, and to

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hear his learned expofition of it. The next work after this was to write from his dictation fome part of fyftem of divinity, which he had collected from the ableft divines, who had written upon that fubject. Such were his academic inftitutions; and thus by teaching others, he in fome manner inlarged his own knowledge; and having the reading of fo many authors as it were by proxy, he might poffibly have preferved his fight, if he had not moreover been perpetually bufied in reading or writing fomething himself. It was certainly a very reclufe and ftudious life, that both he and his pupils led; but the young men of that age were of a different turn from those of the prefent; and he himself gave an example to thofe under him of hard ftudy and fpare diet; only now and then, once in three weeks or a month, he made a gaudy day with fome young gentlemen of his acquaintance, the chief of whom, fays Mr. Phi- · lips, were Mr. Alphry and Mr. Miller, both of Gray's-Inn, and two of the greatest beaus of those

times.

But he was not fo fond of this academical life, as to be an indifferent fpectator of what was acted upon the public ftage of the world. The nation was now in a great ferment in 1641, and the clamor ran high again the bishops, when he joined loudly in the cry, to help the puritan minifters, (as he fays himself in his fecond Defense) they being inferior to the bishops in learning and eloquence; and published his two books, Of Reformation in England, written to a friend. About the fame time certain minifters having published a treatise against episcopacy, in anfwer to the Humble Remonftrance of Dr. Jo

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