"Lucidum trudis properanter agmen : "At mare immenfum oceanufque Lucis "Hinc inexhaufto per utrumque mundum Milton's Latin poems may be juftly confidered as legitimate claffical compofitions, and are never disgraced with fuch language and fuch imagery. Cowley's Latinity, dictated by an irregular and unrestrained imagination, presents a mode of diction half Latin and half English. It is not fo much that Cowley wanted a knowledge of the Latin ftyle, but that he fuffered that knowledge to be perverted and corrupted by falfe and extravagant thoughts. Milton was a more perfect scholar than Cowley, and his mind was more deeply tinctured with the excellencies of ancient literature. He was a more just thinker, and therefore a more just writer. In a word, he had more tafte, and more poetry, and confequently more propriety. If a fondness for the Italian writers has fometimes infected his English poetry with falfe ornaments, his Latin verfes, both in diction and fentiment, are at least free from those depravations. Some of Milton's Latin poems were written in his first year at Cambridge, when he was only feventeen: they must be allowed to be very correct and manly performances for a youth of that age. And, confidered in that view, they difcover an extraordinary copioufnefs and command of ancient fable and history. I cannot but add, that Gray resembles Milton in many inftances. Among others, in their youth they were both strongly attached to the cultivation of Latin poetry. WARTON. i Standing ftill. ELEGIARUM LIBER. ELEG. I. AD CAROLUM DEODATUM. * TANDEM, chare, tuæ mihi pervenere ta bellæ, Pertulit et voces nuncia charta tuas ; * Charles Deodate was one of Milton's moft intimate friends. He was an excellent fcholar, and practifed phyfick in Cheshire. He was educated with our author at Saint Paul's fchool in London; and from thence was fent to Trinity college Oxford, where he was entered Feb. 7, in the year 1621, at thirteen years of age. Lib. Matric. Univ. Oxon. fub ann. He was born in London, and the name of his father, " in Medicina Doctoris," was Theodore. Ibid. He was a fellow-collegian there with Alexander Gill, another of Milton's intimate friends, who was fucceffively Ufher and Master of Saint Paul's school. Deodate has a copy of Alcaicks extant in an Oxford collection on the death of Camden, called Camdeni Infignia, Oxon. 1624. He left the college, when he was a Gentleman commoner in 1628, having taken the degree of Master of Arts. Lib. Caution. Coll. Trin. Toland fays, that he had in his poffeffion two Greek letters, very well written, from Deodate to Milton. Two of Milton's familiar Latin letters, in the utmost freedom of friendship, are to Deodate. Epift. Fam. Profe-works, vol. ii. 567, 568. Both dated from London, 1637. But the beft, certainly the most pleafing, evidences of their intimacy, and of Deodate's admirable character, are our author's first and fixth Elegies, the fourth Sonnet, and the Epitaphium Damonis. And it is highly probable, that Deodate is the fimple fhepherd lad in Comus, who is skilled in plants, and loved to hear Thyrfis fing, Pertulit, occiduâ Devæ Ceftrenfis ab orâ Vergivium prono quà petit amne falum. v. 619. feq. He died in the year 1638. See the firft Note, Epitaph. Damon. This Elegy was written about the year 1627, in answer to a letter out of Cheshire from Deodate: and Milton seems pleased to reflect, that he is affectionately remembered at fo great a dif tance, v. 5. "Multum, crede, juvat, terras aluiffe remotas "Pectus amans noftri, tamque fidele caput.' Our author was now refiding with his father a fcrivener in Bread.. ftreet, who had not yet retired from business to Horton near Colnebrook. I have mentioned Alexander Gill in this note. He was made Usher of St. Paul's school about the year 1619, where Milton was his favourite fcholar. He was admitted, at fifteen, a commoner of Trinity college Oxford, in 1612. Here at length he took the degree of doctor in divinity, about 1629. His brothers George and Nathaniel, were both of the fame college, and on the foundation. In a book given to the Library there, by their father, its author, called the Sacred Philofophie of the Holy Scripture, 1635, I find this infcription written by Alexander. "Ex dono authoris artium magiftri olim Collegii Corporis Chrifti alumni, Patris Alexandri Georgii et Nathanaelis Gillorum, qui omnes in hoc Studioforum vivario literis operam dedere. Tertio Kal. Junias, 1635." This Alexander gave, to the faid Library, the old folio edition of Spenser's Faerie Queene, Drayton's Polyolbion by Selden, and Bourdelotius's Lucian, all having poetical mottos from the clafficks in his own hand-writing, which fhow his taste and track of reading. In the Lucian, are the arms of the Gills, elegantly tricked with a pen, and coloured, by Alexander Gill. From Saint Paul's fchool, of which from the Ufherfhip he was appointed Mafter in 1635, on the death and in the room of his father, he fent Milton's friend Deodate to Trinity college, Oxford. He continued Mafter five years only, and died in 1642. Three of Milton's familiar Latin Letters to this Alexander Gill are remaining, replete with the ftrongeft teftimonies of esteem and 5 Multùm, crede, juvat terras aluiffe remotas Pectus amans noftrî, támque fidele caput, Quódque mihi lepidum tellus longinqua fodalem Debet, at unde brevi reddere juffa velit. friendship. Wood fays, "he was accounted one of the best Latin poets in the nation," Ath. Oxon. ii. 22. Milton pays him high compliments on the excellence of his Latin poetry and among many other expreffions of the warmest approbation calls his verses, "Carmina fane grandia, et majeftatem verè poeticam, Virgilia. numque ubique ingenium, referentia," &c. See Profe-works, ii. 565, 566, 567. Two are dated in 1628, and the last, 1634. Most of his Latin poetry is published in a small volume, entitled Poetici Conatus, 1632. 12mo. But he has other pieces extant, both in Latin and English. Wood had seen others in manufcript. In the church of St. Mary Magdalene at Oxford, in the neighbourhood of Trinity college, I have often seen a long profe Latin epitaph written by Gill to the memory of one of his old college friends Richard Pates, mafter of Arts, which I fhould not have men. tioned, but as it fhows the writer's uncommon skill in pure latinity. He was not only concerned with faint Paul's school, but was an affiftant to Thomas Farnabie, the school-master of Edward King, Milton's Lycidas. He is faid to have been removed from faint Paul's school for his exceffive severity. The laft circumstance we learn from a fatire of the times, "Verfes to be reprinted with a fecond edition of Gondibert, 1653." p. 54, 57. Alexander Gill here mentioned, Milton's friend, feems to be fometimes confounded with his father, whofe name was alfo Alexander, who was alfo mafter of faint Paul's, and whofe Logonomia, published in 1621, an ingenious but futile fcheme to reform and fix the English language, is well known to our critical lexicographers. WARTON. Ver. 4. Vergivium] Drayton has "these rough Vergivian feas," Polyolb. S. i. p. 656. vol. ii. The Irish fea. Again, "Vergivian deepe," Ibid. S. vi. vol. ii. p. 766. And in other places. Camden's Britannia has lately familiarifed the Latin name. WARTON, 10 Me tenet urbs refluâ quam Thamefis alluit undâ, Quàm malè Phœbicolis convenit ille locus! Non ego 20 Ver. 9. Me tenet urbs refluâ quam Thamefis alluit undâ,] To have pointed out London by only calling it the city washed by the Thames, would have been a general and a trite illufion. But this allufion by being combined with the peculiar circumstance of the reflux of the tide, becomes new, poetical, and appropriated. The adjective reflua is at once defcriptive and diftinctive. Ovid has "refluum mare," Metam. vii. 267. WARTON. But Milton had Buchanan perhaps in view, Silva, p. 48. edit. Ruddiman. "Oceanus refluis ut plenior undis &c.” Again, Pfalm xcvii. 3. "Quas vagus Oceanus refluis complectitur undis.” Ver. 12. Nec dudum vetiti me laris angit amor, Nec duri libet ufque minas perferre Magiftri, Cæteraque ingenio non fubeunda meo.] How far thefe lines may feem to countenance an opinion, that Milton was fentenced to undergo a temporary removal or ruftication from Cambridge, and that he was publickly whipped at his College, is minutely confidered in the Life of the poet, prefixed to this edition. |