to prevent, break in faster at other dores which cannot be shut.

And in conclusion, it reflects to the disrepute of our Ministers also, of whose labours we should hope better, and of the proficiencie which thir flock reaps by them, then that after all this light of the Gospel which is, and is to be, and all this continuall preaching, they should be still frequented with such an unprincipl'd, unedify'd, and laick rabble3, as that the whiffe of every new Pamphlet

it was a "mode of the Saxons, as among the Greeks, to have "two Negatives in their negative proposition as, Ne eom ic na Epift, I am not the Christ.-Maresc. Evang. Joh. 1. 20.

"In imitation of which Chaucer, has Ine said none ill. Some"times you will find the Saxons deny by three Negatives, as, " among the Laws of King Æthelstan, nan scýld pýɲhta na lecze "nan rceaper relle on rcyls; Let no maker of Shields, lay any Sheep Skin on my Shield.-Inter Leg. Æthelstan. 15.

66

"Nay, sometimes they have used four Negatives to deny "more strongly, as, Ne nan ne dorst of þam dæge hyne nan "ping mape axigean; Neither durst any Man from that day "ask him any more questions, speaking of our Saviour.-Maresc. "Evang. Matth. 32. 46. Hickes. Thes. 58."—p. 15. 3d edit. 1724.

3 Laick rabble-] is precisely the profanum vulgus of Horace; the illiterate or "swainish multitude;" our Authour's phrase in another work. In the Latinity of the lower ages, "Laica Lingua" signified the vulgar tongue. (Du Fresne; Gloss. med. & infim. Lat. in v. LAICA.) "We have learnt (says MIL"TON in another Tract) the scornfull terme of Laick, the con"secrating of Temples, carpets, and table-clothes, the railing "in of a repugnant and contradictive Mount Sinai in the Gos"pell, as if the touch of a lay Christian who is never the lesse "GODS living Temple, could profane dead Judaisms." The Reason of Church Government; p. 54. 4to. 1641.

The "lay gents" is the term with the old Reporters of adjudged Cases, for the uninitiated in the mysteries of our Law.

should stagger them out of thir catechism, and Christian walking. This may have much reason to discourage the Ministers when such a low conceit is had of all their exhortations, and the benefiting of their hearers, as that they are not thought fit to be turn'd loose to three sheets of paper without a Licencer, that all the Sermons, all the Lectures preacht, printed, vented in such numbers, and such volumes, as have now well-nigh made all other Books unsalable, should not be armor anough against one single enchiridion, without the Castle St. Angelo of an Imprimatur“.

Not be armor anough against one single enchiridion, without the Castle St. Angelo of an Imprimatur.] MILTON must from local knowlege have been well acquainted with the situation of the Castle St. Angelo; and no doubt he surveyed the Pope's State Prison with emotions that left no momentary impression on his mind. But it is extraordinary, that he should not have bestowed a thought on how few of his Readers would know that this Citadel, whose site was the mole of Hadrian, (see Plates 51 and 52 in the Roma Eterna of Schenkius) commanded the main access to Rome. The Historian tells us in his concluding Chapter, that "could the Romans have wrested from the Popes the "Castle of St. Angelo, they had resolved by a public decree to "annihilate that monument of servitude." Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Yet without some such knowlege this far-fetched metaphor presents no determinate idea: to preserve the integrity of which we must moreover carry in mind that there is a double power couched under Enchiridion. MILTON delighted in enigmatical meanings. We are to understand it to signify both a Manual and a Dagger; which latter sense it appears by E. Philipps's English Dictionary, (The New World of Words, fol. 1706.) to have

And lest som should perswade ye, Lords and Commons! that these arguments of lerned mens discouragement at this your Order, are meer flourishes, and not reall, I could recount what I have seen and heard in other Countries, where this kind of inquisition tyrannizes; when I have sat among their lerned men5, for that honor I had, and bin counted happy to be born in such a place of Philosophic Freedom, as they suppos'd England was, while themselvs did nothing but bemoan the servil condition into which Lerning amongst them was brought; that this was it which had dampt the glory of Italian wits; that nothing had bin there writt'n now these many years but flattery and fustian. There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo grown old, a prisner to the Inquisition, for thinking in Astronomy otherwise then the

still retained from the Greek.-Erasmus sports with this word in the same way: alluding to his work, intitled "Enchiridion Mi"litis Christiani," he writes-" Dedi Enchiridion-ille contra "dedit gladiolum, quo non magis adhuc sum usus quam ille. "libro." Life by Jortin. I. 358. (n.) 8vo.

5 I have sat among their lerned men, &c.] See ILLUSTRATION, M.

• There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo grown old, a prisner to the Inquisition-] Mr. Hayley, from the interest Grotius appears to have taken in the fate of Galileo, ingeniously conjectures, that Grotius might have warmly recommended MILTON on his departure from Paris for Italy to do every kind office in his power to the illustrious Precursor of Sir Isaac Newton, then suffering under Inquisitorial persecution. In the proportion that we scrutinize MILTON's Writings with cri

Franciscan and Dominican Licencers thought. And though I knew that England then was groaning loudest under the Prelaticall yoak, neverthelesse I took it as a pledge of future happines, that other Nations were so perswaded of her Liberty. Yet was it beyond my hope that those Worthies were then breathing in her air, who should be her leaders to such a deliverance, as shall never be forgott'n by any revolution of time that this world hath to finish. When that was once begun, it was as little in my fear, that what words of complaint I heard among lerned men of other parts utter'd against the Inquisition, the same I shou'd hear by as lerned men at home utterd in time of Parlament against an Order of Licencing; and that so generally, that when I had disclos'd my self a companion of their discontent, I might say, if without envy, that He whom an honest Questorship had in

tical minuteness, the higher we shall set his punctual accuracy. It is the prevalent though an unfounded notion, that this Astronomer was immured in a dungeon of the Holy Office for imparting to mankind his discoveries relative to the diurnal revolution of our own planetary orb on its axis. To admonish us therefore how vain to its possessor is the superiority of intellectual qualifications, "Galileo's end" has been paralleled in misfortune with the life of an eminent Scholar who oppressed by want passed many of his days in a prison. Our Authour is strictly accurate. The "Tuscan Artist" was, it is true, put into circumscription and confine for his heretical Philosophy; that is, he was "a prisoner to the Inquisition;" but not actually imprisoned. See Mr. Todd's "Account of the Life and Writ "ings of MILTON;" p. 31. sec. edit.

dear'd to the Sicilians, was not more by them importun'd against Verres, then the favourable opinion which I had among many who honour ye, and are known and respected by ye, loaded me with entreaties and perswasions", that I would not despair to lay together that which just reason should bring into my mind, toward the removal of an undeserved thraldom upon Lerning. That this is not therefore the disburdning of a particular fancie, but the common grievance of all those who had prepar'd their minds and studies above the vulgar pitch to advance Truth in others, and from

I might say, if without envy, that He whom an honest Quastorship had indear'd to the Sicilians, was not more by them importun'd against Verres, then the favourable opinion which I had among many who honour ye, and are known and respected by ye, loaded me with entreaties and perswasions, &c.] If without envy -after the Latin formulary-" absit invidia verbo."-Recourse was before had to MILTON, when the faculties of an energetic and well-informed advocate were wanting to sustain the Antiprelatical Party on points of Learning against the defenders of our Hierarchy. Neither would the Commonwealthsmen, had he not stood high among the Writers of his time, have solicited the exertions of his pen to counteract the impression made on the public mind by the Icon Basilike; as they would also have sought some other vindicator of the trial and execution of Charles. These repeated applications to MILTON for assistance on emergent occasions are unequivocal demonstrations of the powers of his Prose-writings, and that they were not on their first appearance neglected, as Mr. Warton was far from reluctant to suggest. Men do not voluntarily trust their cause in hands which are regarded as feeble or inefficient. Tracts, moreover, were ascribed to him which unquestionably were not of his production. This was unlikely to have happened if his name as an Authour had been slighted.