ship in his poetical capacity, he devoted his pen to public affairs, and entered on that career of controversy, which estranged him. so long, and carried him so far from those milder and more engaging studies, that nature and education had made the darlings of his mind. If to sacrifice favorite pursuits in which acknowledged genius had qualified an ambitious spirit to excel; if to sacrifice these to irksome disputes, from a sense of what he owed to the exigencies of his country; if such conduct deserve, as it'assuredly does, the name of public virtue, it may be as difficult, perhaps, to find an equal to Milton in genuine patriotism, as in poetical power; for who can be said to have sacrificed so much, or to have shewn a firmer affection to the public good? If he mistook the mode of promoting it; if his sentiments both on ecclesiastical and civil policy, are such as the majority of our countrymen think it just and wise to reject, let us give him the credit he deserves for the merit of his intention; let us respect, as we ought to do, the probity of an exalted un

derstanding, animated by a fervent, steady, and laudable desire to enlighten mankind, and to render them more virtuous and happy.

In the year 1640, when Milton returned to England, the current of popular opinion ran with great vehemence against episcopacy. He was prepared to catch the spirit of the time, and to become an advocate for ecclesiastical reformation, by having peculiar and domestic grounds of complaint against religious oppression. His favorite preceptor had been reduced to exile, and his father disinherited, by intolerance and superstition. He wrote, therefore, with the indignant enthusiasm of a man resenting the injuries of those, who are most entitled to his love and veneration. The ardour of his affections conspired with the warmth of his fancy to enflame him with that puritanical zeal, which blazes so intensely in his controversial productions: no less than four of these were published within two years after his return; and he thus speaks of the mo

tives, that led him to this species of composition, in his Second Defence.

"Being animated by this universal

* Ut primum loquendi saltem cæpta est libertas concedi, omnia in episcopos aperiri ora; alii de ipsorum vitiis, alii de ipsius ordinis vitio conqueri—Ad hæc sane experrectus, cum veram affectari viam ad libertatem cernerem, ab his initiis, his passibus, ad liberandam servitute vitam omném mortalium rectissime procedi, sì ab religione disciplina orta, ad mores & instituta reipub licæ emanaret, cum etiam me ita ab adolescentia parassem, ut quid divini, quid humani esset juris, ante omnia possem non ignorare, meque consuluissem ecquando ullins usus essem futurus, si nunc patriæ, immo vero ecclesiæ totque fratribus evangelii causa periculo sese objicientibus deessem, statui, etsi tunc alia quædam meditabar, huc omne ingenium, omnes industriæ vires transferre. Primum itaque de reformanda ecclesia Anglicana, duos ad amicum quendam libros conscripsi; deinde, cum duo præ cæteris magni nominis episcopi suum jus contra ministros quosdam primarios assererent, ratus de iis rebus, quas amore solo veritatis, & ex officii christiani ratione didiceram, haud pejus me dicturum quam qui de sui quæstu & injustissimo dominatu contendebant, ad hunc libris duobus, quorum unus De Epis copatu Prælatico, alter De Ratione Disciplinæ Eccle siasticæ, inscribitur, ad illum scriptis quibusdam ani

outcry against the bishops, as I perceived that men were taking the true road to liberty, and might proceed with the utmost rec titude from these beginnings to deliver human life from all base subjection, if their discipline, drawing its source from religion proceeded to morals and political institutions; as I had been trained from my youth to the particular knowledge of what belonged to divine, and what to human jurisdiction; and as I thought I should deserve to forfeit the power of being useful to mankind, if I now failed to assist my country and the church, and so many brethren, who for the sake of the gospel, were exposing themselves to peril, I resolved, though my thoughts had been pre-engaged by other designs, to transfer to this object, all my talents and all my application: first, therefore, I wrote of reformation in England, two

madversionibus, & mox Apologia respondi, et ministris facundiam hominis, ut ferebatur ægre sustinentibus, suppetias tuli, & ab eo tempore, si quid postea responderent, interfui.

books addressed to a friend: afterwards, when two bishops of eminence had asserted their cause against the leading ministers of the opposite party, as I conceived that I could argue, from a love of truth and a sense of christian duty, not less forcibly than my antagonists, (who contended for lucre and their own unjust dominion) I answered one of them in two books with the following titles, Of Prelatical Episcopacy, Of Church Government: and the other, first in Animadversions upon the Remonstrants Defence against Smectymnuus, and secondly, in my Apology. As the ministers were thought hardly equal to their opponent in eloquence I lent them my aid, and from that time, if they made any farther reply, I was a party concerned."

I have inserted this passage at full length, because it gives us a clear insight into the motives of Milton on his first engaging in controversy, and discovers the high opinion which he entertained, both of the christian purity and the argumentative powers of his own cultivated mind; the twe