fcriptio terfiffima. De antiquis Anglorum Theologis, horumque in S. Scripturæ libros commentariis (ipfam eruditionem teftor) fanè doctiffimis durius faltem, fi non iniquius judicare judicium, omninò is mihi videbatur."-p. 483. Again, "Jo. Milton, celebris ille Populi Anglicani defenfor, olim et Areopagitica confignavit, A fpeech for the Liberty of unlicensed Printing to the Parlament of Engeland. i. Sermonem libertate five licentiâ imprimendi libros, ad Parlamentum Angliæ, contra hujus conftitutionem qua non nifi cum licentia approbatos imprimere permiffum erat. Percuriofus Scriptor ifte jam pridem hodiernam libertatem, hoc eft, A. C. 1644, in Areopagiticis fuis cogitasse mihi videtur.'-p. 491. This paffage was brought to my notice by Thos. Watts, Efq. of the British Museum, who alfo pointed out to me the paffage I have quoted from the Dutch Translation of Paradife Loft.

P. cxxx. On the influence of Plato on Milton's genius, fee Edinburgh Review, No. clxxvi. p. 335, &c.

P. cxxx. 17. I now add the Emendations, &c. in a Copy of ARATUS, in the hand writing of Milton, in the British Museum, Αρατου Σολεως φαινομενα καὶ Διοσεμεια, Θεωνος Σχολια, Λεοντιου ΜηXAVINOU Tεgi Agaτelas σpaigas. Parifiis 1559. 4° Apud G. Morelium.

[On the two fides of Morel's device this line.]
"Cum folê et luna femper Aratus erit."

Par. 11, 1. 17. βόες ἄροτρα.

Par. 11, 1. 29. τ ̓ ἐξείεσθε.

Par. 16, 1. 3. συνὸν.

Par. 19, 1. 8. προτέροισ'.

Par. 19, 1. 14. ἄκρως.

[in margin] legendum fortaffe καὶ ἄροτρα.

[in margin] τεξείεσθε Lugdun. a themate τέκω.

[in margin] οὔρανον Lugdun. προτέροις.

[in margin] ἄκρος Lugdun.

In the comment on paragraph 24 occurs this paflage : φησὶ φεύγειν τὴν Ἠλέκτραν του μὴ ὑπομεῖναι ιδεῖν τόν ἥλιον αλισκομένην καὶ τοὺς ἐκγονοὺς δυστυχοῦντας, &c. &c.—there is an afterifk after ἥλιον, and in the margin the words " fupple τρόιαν.

P. cxxxi. Dr. Ireland fays-" It may be observed here that Maffinger was not unknown to Milton. The date of fome of Milton's early poems indeed is not exactly ascertained; but if the reader will compare the speech of Paulo, with the Penferofo, he cannot fail to remark a fimilarity in the cadences, as well as in the measure, and the folemnity of the thoughts. On many other occafions, he certainly resembles Maffinger, and frequently in his representations of female purity, and the commanding dignity of virtue." See Gifford's Maffinger, v. iii. p. 107. Mr. Gifford had obferved, vol. i. p. 141, that Milton has the fame bold expreffion as Maffinger-" Sail-ftretched Wings.' To which I may add Par. Reg. vol. iv. p. 267. "To the famous orators repair."-See Emperor of the Eaft.-" The most famous orators, the nurse of learning, Athens."-Indeed Milton's Reading may be traced through many of our old Dramatic writers. I have in a former publication many years fince, remarked that the memorable and graphic expreffion in Par. Reg. 1.

-Satan bowing low

His grey Diffimulation thus began. is from Ford's Broken Heart, act iv. fc. 2.

Lay by thy whining grey Diffimulation.

"The ftyle of Maffinger's plays," fays Mr. Coleridge, "and the Samfon Agoniftes are the two extremes of the arc within which the diction of Dramatic Poetry may ofcillate. Shakespeare in his great Plays is the midpoint. In the Samfon Agonistes all colloquial language is at the greatest distance, yet something ofit is preserved to render the dialogue probable; in Maffinger the ftyle is differenced, but differenced in the smallest degree poffible from animated conversation by the vein of Poetry.-See Table Talk, vol. ii. p. 121.

P. cxxxiii. "It was the error of Milton, Sidney, and others of that age, to think it poffible to conftruct a purely ariftocratical government, defecated of all paffion and ignorance and fordid motives. The truth is, that the government would be weak from its utter want of fympathy with the people to be governed by it."-Coleridge's Table Talk, vol. ii. p. 54.

At a meeting of the Royal Society of Literature, Sir T. Philips prefented them with extracts from a MS. Letter of Milton to Cromwell, purporting to be the sketch of a republic which he had devised as a model of perfection.

P. cxxxvi. July 7. Three Judges, Powell, Holloway and Milton, difmiffed. This laft was Sir Chriftopher Milton, faid to have been the brother of the poet; in the letter Sir Christopher is thus mentioned,-" The laft [i. e. Milton], Catholic as he is, yet has the misfortune to be turned out, as fome fay, for infuf

ficiency and incapacity to discharge the duties of his place, though others give it out that he defired it himself by reason of his age and other infirmities."

P. cxxxvii. The following account of Christopher Milton has been obligingly furnished to the Editor by his friend D. E. Davy, Efq. of Ufford, Suffolk.

Sir Chriftopher Milton was a lawyer, of, I believe, no great credit for knowledge of his profeffion. He was a strong royalift and a profeffed Papift. On the 24th of April, 1686, he was appointed one of the Barons of the Exchequer, vice Neville. He did not hold his fituation long, and Dr. Johnfon admits that from weakness of conftitution he retired before he had done any difreputable act. He was knighted at Whitehall the 25th of April, 1686 he was then living at Rushmere; but it seems he afterwards refided at Ipfwich, where he died, and was buried in the church of St. Nicholas there, 22 March, 1692. He was baptized at All Hallows, Bread Street, London, 3 December, 1615. He married Thomafine, daughter of William Webber, of London, who died before her husband, and was buried in St. Nicholas church, Ipswich. They had one fon, Thomas Milton, Efq. Deputy Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, who by his wife, Martha, daughter of Charles Fleetwood, of Northampton (remarried to William Coward, M. D. of London and Ipfwich), had a daughter, of Grosvenor Street, London, housekeeper to Dr. Secker. She died 26 July, 1769.

The authorities for the foregoing account are, Evelyn's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 596; Beatfon's Pol. Index, vol. ii. p. 313; Le Neve's Knights made by James II.; MS. Brit. Muf.; Malcolm's London, vol. ii. p. 10; Todd's Life of Milton, 1809, p. 166; Newton's Life of Milton, vol. i. pp. Íxxvii. and lxxviii.; Gwillym, p. 210.

"Four new judges were appointed, who had taken the royal teft by declaring their belief in the unlimited, illimitable, and eternal nature of the difpenfing power. One of thefe was the brother of the author of Paradife Loft and of the Defence of the People of England for putting Charles I. to death. Sir Christopher Milton, recommended by Herbert, was in all respects a striking contraft to John, as he was not only a favourer of Popery, and a friend to arbitrary power, but the dulleft of mankind."-See Lord Campbell's Chief Juftices, vol. ii. p. 87. "Although not reconciled to Rome, he came fo near her, that he would not communicate with the Church of England."- See Echard's Hiftory, vol. iii. p. 797. Kennet, vol. iii. 451.

P. cxxxviii. In the preface to Paludanus's (or Vanden Broek's) Dutch tranflation of the Paradife Loft, published in 1730, there is a circumstantial account of Addison's vifit to Milton's daughter,

which Paludanus fays he had heard from an English gentleman. It occupies about an octavo page, and contains fome particulars which I have never feen in English.

"I fhall conclude this preface with fomething to the honour of Mr. Addison, which was told me by a gentleman who is a native of England. It is as follows:-Some years ago, Mr. Addifon, whose reputation is as high for virtue and genius as for the fervices he rendered the crown of Great Britain in various important stations, happened to hear that a daughter of Mr. Milton was ftill living and refident in London in one of the pooreft parts of the town. He fet off for the place in his carriage, and when on his arrival the door was knocked at and enquiry made if the daughter of Mr. Milton refided within, the person who opened the door replied that the herself was his daughter. Knowing from the biography of Milton, that sometimes in his studies and particularly in his blindness, during which his incomparable poem was compofed, he had had Greek and Latin authors read to him aloud by his daughters, in the fame manner as if they had been acquainted with the claffical languages, Mr. Addison asked Mrs. Milton if she happened to have a Greek Homer at hand, and on her anfwering in the affirmative, requested her to let him see it. She brought it to him, and read fome pages of the Iliad aloud in Greek, and in fuch a manner that a person who was completely mafter of the Greek language could not have done it better. Mr. Addison seeing from this that she was really a daughter of Milton's, expreffed his regret that the offspring of fo great a man fhould be reduced to narrow circumftances, almost to poverty, and gave her at the same time a handful of gold with the promise that he would continue to fupport her, a promise which this noble-minded man no doubt did not fail to perform till his own death or that of Mrs. Milton. This anecdote, reader, I thought myself bound to relate, in justice to Mr. Addifon's memory, and to fhow the ingratitude of the times which left in neglect the family of the most learned and perfect poet that England, or perhaps the whole world has ever produced."

P. cxlvi. Mr. Coleridge has protested against profaning the "awful name of Milton by affociating it with the epithet Puritan." Yet he would not have wholly departed from the opinion of a well known writer, now among us, who calls "this puritanism of ours,"—that is, the thing itself in its pure, rather than puritanical form, "among the nobleft heroisms that ever tranfacted itself on this earth."-v. Appendix to Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, vol. i. p. 11, p. 335. On the proper meaning of the word Puritan, fee Burnet's Life of Bedell, p. 361. "Perhaps you have met with fome more fanatical Brownifts or Anabaptifts, whom here you call Puritans. But these that are