"fcents of mind, beneath which he muft deject "and plunge himself that can agree to falable and "unlawful proftitutions. Next, I betook me among thofe lofty fables and romances which "recount in folemn cantos the deeds of knight"hood founded by our victorious kings, and "from hence had in renown over all christendom. "There I read it in the oath of every knight, that <he fhould defend to the expence of his blood, or "of his life, if it fo befel him, the honor and

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chastity of virgin or matron: from whence even "then I learnt what a noble virtue chastity fure "must be, to the defence of which fo many wor"thies by fuch a dear adventure of themselves "had fworn; and if I found in the ftory after"wards any of them by word or deed breaking "that oath, I judg'd it the fame fault of the poet, 66 as that which is attributed to HOMER, to have "written undecent things of the Gods. Only "this my mind gave me, that every free and "gentle fpirit without that oath ought to be "born a knight, nor needed to expect the gilt fpur, or the laying of a fword upon his fhoul"der, to ftir him up both by his counfil and his

arm, to fecure and protect the weakness of any "attemted chastity. So that even those books, "which to many others have bin the fuel of wan

tonhefs and loofe living (I cannot think how, "unless by divine indulgence) prov'd to me fo many inticements, as you have heard, to the. "love and ftedfaft obfervation of that virtue " which abhors the fociety of bordellos. Thus " from the laureat fraternity of poets, riper years,

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"and the ceaflefs round of ftudy and reading led

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me to the shady walks of philofophy; but chiefly મંદ to the divine volumes of PLATO, and his equal "XENOPHON: where if I fhould tell you what I "learnt of chastity and love; I mean that which

is truly fo, whofe charming cup is only virtue, "which the bears in her hand to thofe who are "worthy (the reft are cheated with a thick in"toxicating potion, which a certain forcerefs, the "abufer of Love's name, carries about) and if I "fhould tell you how the first and chiefest office of "love begins and ends in the foul, producing "thofe happy twins of her divine generation, "knowlege and virtue, with fuch abftracted fub“limities as thefe, it might be worth your liften"ing, readers, as I may one day hope to have

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you in a ftill time, and when there fhall be no "chiding." Thus far our author, who afterwards made this character good in his inimitable poem of Paradife Loft and before this time in his Comus or mask presented at Ludlow castle, like which piece inthe peculiar difpofition of the ftory, the sweetness of the numbers, the juftness of the expreffion, and the moral it teaches, there is nothing extant in any language. But to procede with the reft of the Apology; he's in it very fevere upon the clergy, not only because in his judgment he condemn'd feveral of their maxims, but also provok'd by the ill usage he receiv'd. Certainly nothing more barbarous and inhuman ever proceded from the mouth of pope or mufti, than this faying of his antagonist, "You that "love Chrift, and know this mifcreant wretch, "stone him to death, left you smart for his impunity."

*punity." No wonder that fo many are scandaliz'd when they find the name of CHRIST most impudently alleg'd to countenance fuch devilish practices, when there is nothing more evident than that he exprefly injoin'd his followers to forgive their enemies, and not to purfue 'em with the spirit of revenge, but rather to reclame them from their errors, and to do them all the good they could. Our author, on the other hand, carries his refentments, no doubt, too far, when the following words could drop from his pen. "There be fuch "in the world, and I among thofe, who nothing "admire the idol of a bishoprick; and hold that "it wants fo much to be a bleffing, as that I deem "it the mereft, the falfeft, the moft unfortunat "gift of fortune and were the punishment and

mifery of being a bishop terminated only in the perfon, and did not extend to the affliction of "the whole diocefs, if I would wifh any thing in "the bitterness of my foul to an enemy, I fhould "wish him the biggest and fattest bishoprick." If MILTON had bin fuch a faint as never mist of a favorable answer to his prayers, I question not bus at this rate more would covet to be his enemies than his friends. Another mark of his good will to the prelats is this unpardonable fimile. "A bishop's foot, fays he, that has all its toes (maugre the gout) and a linen fock over it, is the apteft em"blem of the prelat himfelf; who, being a plura"lift, may under one surplice hide four benefices, "besides the great metropolitan to which sends a "foul ftench to heaven." And in another place he calls them," the gulfs and whirlpools of benefices,

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" but

"but the dry pits of all found doctrin." Agreable to these flowers is his defcription of chaplains fom-where in Iconoclafes. "Bishops or prefbyters we "know, fays he, and deacons we know; but what are chaplains? In ftate perhaps they may be "lifted among the upper ferving men of fom great "houshold, and be admitted to fom fuch place as

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may stile them the fewers or yeomenushers of "devotion, where the mafter is too refty, or too "rich to say his own prayers, or to blefs his own "table." How much he lov'd to divert himself in this manner, we may perceive by his apoftrophe to the prefbyterian minifters, who were heavily branded by king CHARLES the first, tho after his death they would fain be thought his very dutiful and good friends. "O ye ministers,

fays MILTON, read here what work he makes

among your gallypots, your balms, and your "cordials, and not only your fweet fippets in wi"dows houfes, but the huge gobbets wherwith he

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charges you to have devour'd houfes and all. "Cry him up for a faint in your pulpits, while he crys you down for atheists into hell." Nor is he more merciful to the liturgy, than to the readers of it, as appears by this character. "To contend "that it is fantastical, if not fenflefs in fom places

were a copious argument, fpecially in the re

fponfories. For fuch alternations as are there us'd "must be by several perfons; but the minifter and "the people cannot fo fever their interefts as to "fuftain feveral perfons, he being the only mouth "of the whole body which he prefents. And if "the people pray, he being filent, or they afk one

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thing and he another, it either changes the property, making the prieft the people, and the people the priest by turns, or else makes two

perfons and two bodies reprefentative, where there "fhould be but one: which, if there were nothing "elfe, must be a ftrange quaintnefs in ordinary prayer. The like or worse may be faid of the Litany, wherin neither priest nor people speak "any intire fenfe of themselves throout the whole (I know not what to name it) only by the timely contribution of their parted stakes, closing up as it were the fchism of a flic'd prayer, they pray not in vain; for by this means they keep life between them in a piece of gasping fenfe, "and keep down the fauciness of a continual rebounding nonfenfe. And hence it is that as it "has bin far from the imitation of any warranted prayer, fo we all know it has bin obvious to be the pattern of many a jig. And he who has but "read in good books of devotion, and no more, "cannot be fo either of ear or judgment unprac"tis'd to diftinguish what is grave, pathetical,

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devout, and what not; but he will presently "perceive this liturgy all over in conception lean "and dry, of affections emty, and unmoving of

paffion, or any height wherto the foul might "foar upon the wings of zeal, deftitute and barren. "Befides errors, tautologies, impertinences, as "thofe thanks in the woman's churching for her

delivery from funburning and moonblasting, as "if she had bin travelling, not in her bed, but in the deferts of Arabia. So that while fom men "cease not to admire the incomparable frame of our liturgy, I cannot but admire as faft what (66 they

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