—in parts, a noble panegyric; but in nowise a satisfactory life. Sir Egerton Brydges has written rather an ardent apology for his memory than a life. St John's is a piece of clever book-making. There is but, perhaps, one man in Britain, since Coleridge died, fully qualified for supplying this desideratum—we mean Thomas De Quincey. We have repeatedly urged it on his attention, and are not without hopes that he may yet address himself to a work which shall task even his learning, genius, and eloquence. We propose to refresh ourselves and others, by simply jotting down a few particulars of the poet's career, without professing to give, on this head, anything new.

John Milton was born in Bread Street, London—a street lying in what is called, technically, the City, under the shadow of St Paul's-on the 9th of December, 1608. His father was a scrivener, and was distinguished for his classical attainments. John received his early education under a clergyman of the name of Young; was afterwards placed at St Paul's School, whence he was removed, in his seventeenth year, to Christ's Church, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself for the facility and beauty of his Latin versification. We are not aware, although placed at such a mathematical university, that he ever excelled in geometry; it is uncertain whether he ever crossed the Pons asinorum, although it is certain that he was whipped for a juvenile contumacy, and that he never expresses any gratitude to his Alma Mater. Universities, in fact, have often proved rather stepmothers, than mothers, to men of genius, as the cases of Gibbon, Shelley, Coleridge, Pollok, and many others, demonstrate. And why? Because their own souls are to them universities; and they cannot fully attend to both, any more than they can be in two places at the same time. He originally intended to have entered the Church, but early formed a dislike to subscriptions and oaths, as requiring, what he terms, an "accommodating conscience"-a dislike which he retained

to the last. He could not stoop his giant stature beneath the low lintel of a test. He was too religious to be the mere partizan of any sect. From college he carried nothing with him but a whole conscience and the ordinary degree of A.M., for he never afterwards received another; indeed the idea of Dr Milton is ludicrous. As well almost speak of Dr Isaiah, Professor Melchisedec, or Ezekiel, Esq. His father, meanwhile, had retired from business, to Horton, Buckinghamshire, where the young Milton spent five years in solitary study. Of these years, little comparatively is known; but, to us, they seem among the most interesting of his life. Then the "dark foundations of his mind were laid ;" then, stored up those profound stores of learning, which were commensurate with his genius, and on which that genius fed, free and unbounded, as a fire feeds on a mighty forest. There, probably, much time was spent in the contemplation of natural scenery, and in the exercises of devotion; and there he composed those exquisite minor poems, which, alone, would have made his name immortal-“L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," Comus," and "Lycidas." At the age of thirty, having obtained leave from his father to travel, he visited Paris, Florence, Rome, and Naples. His name had gone before him, and his progress was a triumph. Public dinners and pieces of plate did not abound in those days; but the nobility of the country entertained him at their mansions, and the literati wrote poems in his praise.

We may conceive with what delight he found his dreams of the continent realised-with what kindling rapture his eye met the Alps, gazed on the golden plains of Italy, or perused the masterpieces of Italian art in the halls of Florence, or the palaces of Rome. Milton in the Coliseum, or standing at midnight upon Mount Palatine, with the ruins of Rome dim-discovered around him-it were a subject for a painting or a poem. At this time a little incident of romance occurred. In his youth he was extremely

handsome, so much so, that he was called the lady of his college. When in Italy, he had lain down to repose during the heat of the day in the fields. A young lady of high rank was passing with her servant; she was greatly struck with the appearance of the slumberer, who seemed to her eye as one of the angels whom he afterwards described reposing in the vales of heaven. She wrote a few extempore lines in his praise with a pencil, laid them down at his side, and went on her way. When Milton awoke, he found the lines lying, but the fair writer gone. One account says that he spent some time in searching for her, but in vain. Another (on which Bulwer has founded a poem) relates that she, still stung by the recollection of his beauty, followed him to England; and was so mortified at finding him by this time married that she died of a broken heart. Milton had intended to extend his tour to Sicily and Greece, but the state of affairs in England drew him home. "I deemed it dishonourable,” he said, "to be lingering abroad, even for the improvement of my mind, while my fellow-citizens were contending for their liberty at home." There spoke the veritable man and hero, John Milton, one who measured everything by its relation not to delight, but to duty; and felt himself " ever in his great Taskmaster's eye." The civil war had by this time broken out in flames which were not to be slaked for twenty years, and into which even a king's blood was to fall like oil. Milton, though an admirable fencer, and as brave as his own Michael, thought he might serve the popular cause better by the pen than by the sword. He calmly sat down, therefore, to write down royalty, prelacy, and every species of arbitrary power. At the same time, he opened a school for the education of the young. This has actually formed a count of indictment against him. Milton has been thought by some to have demeaned himself by teaching children the first elements of knowledge, although it be, in truth, one of the noblest avocations

although the fact of the contempt in which it is held, ought to be a count of indictment against an age foolish enough to entertain it—although it be an avocation rendered illustrious by other names besides that of Milton, the names of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Buchanan, Parr, Johnson, and Arnold--and although the day is coming when the titles of captain, or colonel, or knight-at-arms-yea, and those of king, kaiser, and emperor, will look mean and contemptible compared to that of a village-schoolmaster who is worthy of his trade. Louis Philippe, if we are not mistaken, once taught a school; and it is, perhaps, a pity that he ever did anything else. The ingenious Mr Punch lately proposed an asylum for discrowned continental monarchs; we think a better idea would be, if they would set up a joint-stock academy in the neighbourhood of London-Louis Philippe teaching French and fortification -the Emperor of Austria German and Italian-the King of Prussia metaphysics-and the King of Bavaria, assisted by Lola Montes, the elements of morality and religion; Nicholas might, by and by, be appointed president of the academy-Metternich would make a capital head usher; and the whole might be called the New Royal Institution.

Schoolmaster as he was, and afterwards Latin secretary to Cromwell, Milton found time to do and to write much in the course of the eighteen or twenty years which elapsed between his return to England and the Restoration. He found time for writing several treatises on divorce, for publishing his celebrated tractate on education, and his still more celebrated discourse on the liberty of unlicensed printing, for collecting his minor poems in Latin and English, and for defending, in various treatises, the execution of Charles I., and the Government of Cromwell, besides commencing an English History, an English Grammar, and a Latin Dictionary. Meanwhile, his first wife, who had born him three daughters, died in child-bed. Meanwhile, too, a disease of the eyes, contracted by intense

study, began gradually to eclipse the most intellectual orbs then glowing upon earth. Milton has uttered more than one noble complaint over his completed blindness. We could conceive him to have penned an expostulation to the advancing shadow, equally sublime and equally vain, for it was God's pleasure that this great spirit should, like himself, dwell for a season in the thick darkness. And scarcely had the last glimmer of light been extinguished, than, as if the coming calamities had been stayed and spell-bound hitherto by the calm look of the magician, in one torrent they came upon his head; but although it was a Niagara that fell, it fell like Niagara upon a rock. In an evil hour, as it seemed at the time at least, for Britain, for Milton, for the progress of the human race, the restored Charles arrived. The consequences were disastrous to Milton. His name was proscribed, his books burned, himself obliged to abscond, and it was what some would call a miracle that this blinded Samson was not led forth to give his enemies sport, at the place of common execution, and that the most godlike head in the world did not roll off from the bloody block. But, "man is immortal till his work be done." We speak of accidents and possibilities; but, in reality, and looking at the matter upon the Godside of it, Milton could no more have perished then than he could a century before. His future works were as certain, and inevitable, and due at their day, as 66 summer and winter, as seed-time and harvest."

Even after the heat of persecution had abated, and his life was, by sufferance, secure— -it was never more-the prospects of Milton were aught but cheering. He was poor, he was blind, he was solitary-his second wife dead; his daughters, it would appear, were not the most congenial of companions; his country was enslaved; the hopes of the Church and of the world seemed blasted ;- -one might have expected that disappointment, regret, and vexation would have completed their work. Probably his enemies