(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 begins 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

those in the world, and I among those, who nothing admire the idol of a bishoprick; and hold that it wants so much to be a blessing, as that I deem it the merest, the falsest, the most unfortunate gift of fortune; and were the punishment and misery of being a bishop to be terminated only in the person, and did not extend to the affliction of the whole diocese, if I could wish any thing in the bitterness of my soul to an enemy, I should wish him the biggest and the fattest bishoprick."

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On this prayer his biographer quaintly remarks: "If MILTON had been such a saint as never missed a favourable answer to his prayers, I question not, but at this rate, more had coveted to be his enemies than his friends." "Another mark of MILTON's goodwill to the bishops," says Toland, "was this unpardonable simile: A bishop's foot, that has all its toes, (maugre the gout,) and a linen sock over it, is the aptest emblem of the prelate himself; who being a pluralist, may under one surplice hide four benefices, besides the great metropolitan toe which sends such a foul stench to heaven.' In another place, he calls their princely revenues the 'gulfs and whirlpools of benefices, but the dry pits of all sound doctrine.' And again, Bishops or presbyters we know, and deacons we know, but what are chaplains? In state, perhaps, they may be listed among the upper serving men of some great

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household, and be admitted to some such place as may stile them the servers or yeomen-ushers of devotion, where the master is too rusty or too rich to say his own prayers, or to bless his own table.'"

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His sarcasms upon worldly-minded ministers were not confined to Episcopalians; the Puritans, who had succeeded them in the parish livings, and, it should appear, in many instances, to their covetous and libidinous practices, came in for their full share. Oh, ye ministers," says he, "read here what work he makes among your gallipots, your balms, and your cordials; and not only your sweet sippets in widows' houses, but the huge goblets, wherewith he charges you to have devoured houses and all. Cry him up for a saint in your pulpits, while he crys you down for Atheists in hell."

All these elaborate works must have been written in little more than a year after his return, and when he was but little more than thirty-three years of age.

The judicious reader will have perceived, that MILTON's objections to the Episcopal Church of England, were founded upon the dissenting arguments of the sufficiency of the Scriptures alone, and the right of private judgment, in opposition to her acknowledged foundation, being the Creeds of the first four general councils, in addition to