mat any good use out of such an invention. Yet this only is what I request to gain from this reason, that it may be held a dangerous and suspicious fruit, as certainly it deserves, for the tree that bore it, untill I can dissect one by one the properties it has. But I have first to finish, as was propounded, what is to be thought in generall of reading Books, what ever sort they be, and whether be more the benefit, or the harm that thence proceeds? Not to insist upon the examples of Moses, Daniel and Paul, who were skilfull in all the Learning of the Egyptians, Caldeans, and Greeks, which could not probably be without reading their Books of all sorts; in Paul especially, who thought it no defilement to insert into holy Scripture the sentences of three Greek Poets, and one of them a Tragedian ; the question was, notwithstanding sometimes controverted among the primitive Doctors, but with great odds on that side which affirm'd it both lawfull and profitable, as was then evidently perceiv'd, when Julian the Apostat, and suttlest enemy to 3 Paul thought it no defilement, &c.] See ILLUSTRATION, B. When Julian the Apostat, &c.] See Juliani Opera. p. 192, &c. part 2. 4to. Paris, 1630. Whether this Imperial edict prohibited to the Christians the study of Pagan Learning altogether? or whether it went no further than to interdict the teaching of it in their seminaries ? were questions which had exercised the pens of Men of Parts in England and in other Countries. There were difficulties on each side of the controversy. Gibbon reconciled the seeming contradictions. "The Christians (he observed) were directly E our faith, made a decree forbidding Christians the study of heathen Learning: for, said he, they wound us with our own weapons, and with our owne arts and sciences they overcome us. And indeed the Christians were put so to their shifts by this crafty means, and so much in danger to decline into all ignorance, that the two Apollinarii were fain, as a man may say, to coin all the seven liberall Sciences out of the Bible, reducing it into divers forms of Orations, Poems, Dialogues, ev'n to the "forbid to teach, they were indirectly forbid to learn; since “ they would not frequent the Schools of the Pagans.” (Hist. ch.23 n. 89.) But the remark originally belonged to Warburton : see his Discourse of Julian's attempt to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem; p. 26. (n.) 8vo, 1750. 5 The two Apollinarii were fain, as a man may say, to coin all the seven liberall Sciences out of the Bible, reducing it into divers forms of Orations, Poems, Dialogues, &c.] To qualify himself for the defence of the anti-prelatical Party, MILTON had been not long before reading the ecclesiastical Historian Socrates, who furnished him with this anecdote, and he now remembered the following passage: Ο μεντοι τε βασιλεως νόμος, ος τοις χρισιανοις ελληνικής παιδειας μετέχειν εκώλυε, τους απολλιναριούς, ων και πρότερον εμνημονεύσαμεν, φανερωτέρους απέδειξεν ως γαρ αμφω ηςην επιστήμονες λόγων, ο μεν πατηρ γραμματικών, σοφισικων δε ο υιος, χρειώδεις εαυτοις προς τον παροντα καιρον τοις χρισιανοις απεδείκνυον ο μεν γαρ ευθύς γραμματικός ατε, την τεκνην γραμματικήν χρισιανικώ τύπω συνετατίε· τατε μωύσεως βιβλια, δια το ηρωϊκοι λεγομενου μετρα μετέβαλε, και όσα κατά την παλαιαν διαθηκην εν ισορίας τυπω συγγεγραπται· και τετο μεν τω δακτυλικω μετρω συνετατίε τετο δε και τω της τραγωδίας τυπω δραματικώς εξειργάζετο και παντι μετρω ρυθμικω έχρητο, όπως αν μηδεις τρόπος της ελληνικης γλωτίης τοις χρισιανοις calculating of a new Christian Grammar. But saith the Historian Socrates, the providence of GOD provided better then the industry of Apollinarius and his Son, by taking away that illiterat law with the life of him who devis'd it. So great an injury they then held it to be depriv'd of Hellenick Learning; and thought it a persecution more undermining, and secretly decaying the Church, then the open cruelty of Decius or Dioclesian". And ανήκοος η ο δε νεωτερος απολλινάριος ην προς το λεγειν παρεστ κευασμένος, τα ευαγγελια, και τα αποςολικα δογματα, εν τυπω διαλόγων εξέθετο, καθα και πλατων παρ' ελλησιν· ετω μεν εν τω χρισιανισμο χριωδεις φανέντες, το βασιλεως το σοφισμα δια TWV οικείων πόνων ενικησαν· αλλ' η προνοια το θεό κρείσσων εγενετο, και της τετων σπεδης, και της το βασιλεως ορμής. Socrat. Hist. Ecclesiast. Lib. III. cap. 16. Parisiis. 1668. One sense of calculate then was to model or frame. • So great an injury they then held it to be depriv'd of Hellenick Learning; and thought it a persecution more undermining, and secretly decaying the Church, then the open cruelty of Decius or Dioclesian.] The same observation had been made by Lord Bacon. "Many of the antient Bishops and Fathers of the "Church were excellently read and studied in all the Learning " of the Heathen, insomuch, that the Edict of the emperor Ju"lianus whereby it was interdicted unto Christians to be ad"mitted in Schools, Lectures, or exercises of Learning, was "esteemed and accounted a more pernicious ..gine and machi"nation against the Christian faith, than were all the san"guinary prosecutions of his predecessors." Works; I. 24. 4to. 1765. We can scarcely doubt that Bacon's Treatise of the Advancement of Learning was well known to MILTON. These passages, like some other which I have brought together under view from the two Writers, bear an obvious similitude. perhaps it was the same politick drift that the Divell whipt St. Jerom in a lenten dream, for reading Cicero; or else it was a fantasm bred by the feaver which had then seis'd him. For had an Angel bin his discipliner, unlesse it were for dwelling too much upon Ciceronianisms, and had chastiz'd the reading, not the vanity, it had bin plainly partiall; first, to correct him for grave Cicero, and not for scurrill Plautus" whom he confesses to have bin. The Divell whipt St. Jerom, &c.] See ILLUSTRATION, C. Scurrill Plautus-] Our Authour is not accustomed to curtail scurrilous. In the present instance there is a local propriety for it: scurrilous Plautus would have been a monotonous termination of these final and consecutive syllables. A curious example this to show the attention he paid to niceties of composition in this piece ;-that he preserved the rhythmus of his sentences with the anxiety of an Athenian Rhetor. When vindicating blank Verse against the jingling sound of like endings, he remarks, that this was a fault avoided by the "learned Antients both in Poetry, and all good Oratoury." To escape from the same close recurrence of corresponding sounds in Horace; Epist. 1. 2, 17. "Rursus, quid Virtus, & quid Sapientia possit;" Bentley boldly advanced rursum into his text, which lection he would defend by observing "Suavius hic sonat rursum, et evitatur homoeteleuton rursus, virtus." Our Authour launched a sarcasm at Hall, the Satirist, for an offensive negligence of this kind. "The Remonstrant when he was as young as I, (says MILTON) could "Teach each hollow grove to sound his love, reading not long before; next, to correct him only, and let so many more antient Fathers wax old in those pleasant and florid studies without the lash of "And so he well might, and all his auditory beside, with his "teach each."-Pr. W. I. 191. ed. Toland. We learn from himself that he possessed an ear cultivated to fastidiousness. His words well merit transcription. "This "good hap I had from a careful Education to be inur'd and sea"son'd betimes with the best and elegantest Authours of the "learned Tongues, and thereto brought an Eare that could measure a just cadence and scan without articulating; rather "nice and humourous in what was tolerable than patient to read "every drawling Versifier." ubi sup. I. 186. A Scholar of high qualifications has confirmed the Poet's representation of himself. "There is no kind or degree of Harmony "of which our Language is capable (observes Dr. Foster), which "may not be found in numberless instances thro' MILTON'S "writings; the excellency of whose Ear seems to have been "equal to that of his Imagination and Learning." Essay on the different Nature of Accents and Quantity; p. 67. sec. Edit. Strange! that any one so alive to musical and poetical numbers should have chosen to enumerate the preeminent accomplishments of Eve in a line to which it would not be easy to find a parallel for harshness throughout the ample range of English Poetry : "what she wills to do or say, "Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best." P. L. VIII. 549. To this verse I could never reconcile myself. Surely the subject called for the most mellifluous modulation. It was not so that Homer described Penelope. To represent her resplendent Beauty, he combined the sweetest and most flowing sounds (Odyss. XVII. 36.), as a Critic of Antiquity has remarked. We are less offended with a succession of these Superlatives, when he is recounting the propensities of an evil Spirit : |