been bold in our vulgar phrase to mend my draught (for you left me with an extreme thirft) and to

LIB, reprinted at the end of his Poems in 1673. It was written at Hartlib's defire, and after feveral converfations between them both, on a fubject much agitated in this age of innovation. Sir William Petty wrote in 1647, Advice to Mr. Samuel Hartlib for the Advancement of fome particular parts of Learning.. Hartlib took great pains to frame a new system of education, anfwerable to the perfection and purity of the new common wealth.

Milton's plan of education to Hartlib has more show than value. He does not recommend those ftudies to boys, which, as Cicero fays, in a paffage fuperficially understood, Adolefcentiam ALUNT, adverfas res ornant, profperis perfugium et folatium præbent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, peregrinantur nobifcum, rufticantur. Instead of laying a ftrefs on fuch authors as open and enlarge a young understanding, he prefcribes an early acquaintance with geometry and phyfics. But there will teach no generous fentiments, nor inculcate fuch knowledge as is of ufe at all times and on all occafions. Mathematics and astronomy do not enter into the proper improvement and general bufinefs of the mind. Such fciences do not apply to the manners, nor operate upon the cha racter. They are extraneous and technical. They are useful, but useful as the knowledge of his art is to the artificer. An excellent writer. obferves, "We are perpetually moralifts, but we are goemetricians only by chance. Our intercourfe with intellectual nature is nccef"fary; our fpeculations upon matter are voluntary and at leifure. Phyfical knowledge is of fuch rare emergence, that one man may "know another half his life, without being able to estimate his skill "in hydrostatics or aftronomy: but his moral and prudential charac "ter immediately appears. Those authors, therefore, are to be read "at fchools, that fupply moft axioms of prudence, moft principles of "moral truth, and moft materials for converfation: and thefe pur"poses are beft ferved by POETS, ORATORS, and HISTORIANS," Milton afterwards reasoned better on this fubject, PARAD. L. B. viii. 191.

Not, to know at large of things remote

From ufe, obfcure or subtle, but to know
That which before us lies in daily life,
Is the prime wisdom: what is more is fume,
Or emptiness, or fond impertinence ;

And renders us in things that most concern
Unpractic'd, unprepared, and skill to seek.

Perhaps it was by Hartlib's fuggeftion, if not from those puritanical English minifters who had fled into Holland before the Rebellion, that Milton lectured his scholars in the theologifts that were fashionable in the Dutch Universities. See Note on EL, iv. 86.

Hartlib's

have begged your converfation again, joyntly with your faid learned friend, at a poor meal or two, that we might have banded together fom good authors of the antient time: among which, Iobferved you to have been familiar.

Since your going, you have charged me with new obligations, both for a very kinde letter from you dated the fixth of this month, and for a dainty peece of entertainment which came therwith. Wherin I should much commend the Tragical part, if the Lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Dorique delicacy in your fongs and odes,

Hartlib's chief pursuits feem to have been in natural and mechanical fcience. He published, in octavo, "A Legacie or enlargement of "the Difcourfe of Husbandry used in Brabant and Flanders, Lond. "1652." And, in octavo, "The Reformed Commonwealth of Bees, "with the Reformed Virginian Silk-worm, Lond. 1655." So that he extended his politics into phyfics. In 1655, he was confulted in a book called Chimical, medical, and chirurgical addreffes to Samuel Hartlib. Again, in a pamphlet on Motion by Engines, 1651. There are some religious pieces under his name. He carried on a learned correfpondence abroad, and his opinions on various topics appear to have obtained univerfal refpect and authority. The late Mr. Walter Harte intended to republish Hartlib's Tracts, and those with which he was concerned. His collection of them I have seen. It should be noticed, that pieces fometimes attributed to Hartlib are written by others, and had only his recommendation or affiftance. See manufcripts of Hartlib and Dury in the British Museum, SL.1465. 4364. 4365. Prynne's LAUD, p. 301. Kennet's REGISTER, p. 870. Spratt, in the Hiftory of the Royal Society, fays nothing of Hartlib, who feems to have been an active promoter of that inftitution. Nor is it lefs remarkable, that he never mentions Milton's TRACTATE OF EDUCATION, although he difcuffes the plan of Cowley's philofophical college. Edit. 1734. P. 59. 60.

"If the lyrical part did not ravish me with a certain Dorique * delicacy in your fongs and odes."] Sir Henry Wootton, now provoft of Eton college, was himself a writer of English odes, and with fome degree

Fletcher's paftoral comedy, of which more will be said hereafter, is characterised by Cartrwight, "Where SOFTNESS reigns," POEMS, p. 269. edit, 1651.

of

wherunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our language: Ipfa mollities. But I must not omit to tell you, that I now onely owe you thanks for intimating unto me (how modeftly foever) the true artificer. For the work it self, I had viewed fom good while before, with fingular delight, having received it from our common friend Mr. R. in the very close of the late R's Poems, printed at Oxford, wherunto it was added (as I now suppose) that the accessory

*

of elegance. He had also written a tragedy, while a young ftudent at Queen's College Oxford, called TANCREDO, acted by his fellowftudents. See his LIFE by Walton, p. 11. Cowley wrote an Elegy on his death. Donne has teftified his friendship for Wootton in three copies of verses. p. 61. 77. 104. He is celebrated, both as a scholar and a patron, by Bastard the epigrammatift. Lib. ii. EPIGR. 4. p. 29. edit. 1598. He was certainly a polite scholar, but on the whole a mixed and defultory character. He was now indulging his ftudious and philofophic propenfities at leifure. Milton, when this letter was written, lived but a few miles from Eton.

* “Having received it from our common friend Mr. R. in the very close of the late Mr. R.'s Poems, printed at Oxford, whereunto it was added, &c."] I believe "Mr. R." to be John Roufe, Bodley's librarian, of whom I have more to fay hereafter. "The late Mr. R." is unqueftionably Thomas Randolph the poet. It appears from his monument, which I have seen, in the church of Blatherwyke in Northamptonfhire, that he died on the feventeenth day of March, in 1634. In which year COMUS was performed at Ludlow-castle on Michaelmafnight. In the year 1638, Randolph's POEMS were printed at Oxford, viz. "POEMS, with the MUSES LOOKING GLASS and AMYNTAS. "By Thomas Randolph, M. A. and late fellow of Trinity college "Cambridge. Oxford, Printed by L. Litchfield printer to the Vni"verfitie for Fr. Bowman, 1638." In quarto. Containing one hundred and fourteen pages. But who has ever seen a copy of this edition of Randolph's Poems with CoмUs at the end? Sir Henry fuppofes, that COMUS was added to the close of these poems, "that the accef"fory might help out the principal, according to the art of ftationers, "and to leave the reader Con la bocca dolce." Randolph's poems were published by his brother, who would not think fuch a recommendation was wanted; and who surely did not mean to include the works

of

might help out the principal, according to the art of stationers, and to leave the reader Con la bocca dolce.

of others. It was foreign to his purpofe. It marred the integrity of his defign. He was not publishing a mifcellany. Such an extraneous addition would have been mentioned in a preface. Nor were Randolph's pieces fo few or fo fmall, as to require any fuch acceffion to make out the volume. A fecond edition of Randolph's Poems much enlarged, appeared at Oxford in duodecimo, in 1640, and with recommendatory verfes prefixed, by the fame printers and publishers. Here we are equally disappointed in feeking for Comus; which, one might expect, would have been continued from the former edition. I think this perplexity may be thus adjusted. Henry Lawes the mufician, who compofed Coмus, and of whom I fhall fay more in a proper place, being wearied with giving written copies, printed and published this drama, about three years after the prefentation, omitting Milton's name, with the following title. "A Mafke prefented "at Ludlow caftle, 1634, on Michaelmaffe night, before the right "honorable the Earle of Bridgewater, Vicount Brackly, Lord Prefi"dent of Wales, and one of his maiefties moft honorable privie "counfell.

"Ebeu! quid volui mifero mibi? Floribus auftrum

"Perditus."

"London. Printed for Hvmphrey Robinfon at the figne of the three "Pidgeons in Pauls church-yard, 1637." In quarto. Now it is very probable, that when Roufe tranfmitted from Oxford, in 1638, the firft or quarto edition of Randolph's Poems to Sir Henry Wootton, he very officiously ftitched up at the end Lawes's edition of Comus, a flight quarto of thirty pages only, and ranging, as he thought, not improperly with Randolph's two dramas, the MUSES LOOKING-CLASS and AMYNTAS, the two concluding pieces of the volume. Wootton did not know the name of the author of CoмUS, the Mask which he had feen at the end of Randolph, till Milton, as appears by the Letter before us, fent him a copy" intimating the name of the true ar"tificer," on the fixth day of April, 1638. I have before obferved, that Lawes's edition had not the name of the author. This, we may prefume, was therefore the Coмus, which Wootton had feen at the end of Randolph.

I take this opportunity of remarking, that the Dedication to Lord Brackley, prefixed by Lawes to his edition of 1637, afterwards transferred to the edition of 1645, containing other poems of Milton in Latin and English, but omitted in 1673, confirms, among other particulars, what has been before faid, that, Lord Brackley was a mere boy when he acted in Comus, from these paffages, written indeed

when

Now Sir, concerning your travels, wherin I may chalenge a little more priviledge of difcours with you; I fuppofe you will not blanch Paris in your way; therfore I have been bold to trouble you with a few lines to Mr. M. B. whom you shall easily find attending the young Lord S. as his Governour, and you may furely receive from him. good directions for the shaping of your farther jourley into Italy, where he did refide by my I choice fom time for the king, after mine own recefs from Venice.

I should think that your best line will be thorow the whole length of France to Marseilles, and thence by fea to Genoa, whence the paffage into Tuscany is as diurnal as a Gravefend barge : I haften as you do to Florence, or Siena, the rather to tell you a short story from the interest you have given me in your fafety.

At Siena I was tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipioni an old Roman courtier in dangerous

when he was now three years older, that is, about fifteen; in which, Lawes mentions the "faire hopes, and rare endowments of your much-promifing youth, which give a full affurance to all that know "you of a future excellence." He then calls him Sweet Lord, wishing him to live long, "to be the honour of your name, &c." In the beginning of the Dedication, he fays, "This poem, which received "its firft occafion of birth from yourfelf, and others of your noble "family, and much honour from your own person in the performance, &c." He then adds, that Milton was unwilling to acknowledge himself as the author. See above, p. 115. It never appeared under his name till the year 1645. The motto, from the fecond Eclogue of Virgil, implies his fears of expofing his work to the eye of the world; in which he metaphorically laments, that he had rafhly trufted his tender blooms with the rude blafts of popular applaufe. Lawes's edition of Camus is feldom to be found.

66