seen, he so bitterly animadverts, was sound and comprehensive. Dr. Johnson, and other critics, have severely censured his method of instruction. But it is really more open to criticism on account of its extensive and expensive character than in any other respects. Dr. Johnson has the bad taste to go out of his way, in his elaborate assault upon Milton's educational theory, to launch a sneer at the great poet's condescension in becoming what he terms a "schoolmaster." Since Johnson was himself a sometime schoolmaster, the slur comes with a bad grace from him. But did he not remember that the noblest intellects God has lent the world have stooped to be the teachers of mankind? Did he not recall Socrates in the old Athenian streets? Did he not remember Plato in the groves of the Academy? Did he forget Abélard, who shone so brightly in the middle ages? Had he forgotten the sublimest of all teachers, Christ himself, on the plains of Palestine?

To a thoughtful mind, Milton's occupation, that of conducting young minds into the temple of knowledge, and pointing out to their appre

ciation the wise actions of the past, the treasured lore of antiquity, the memorable deeds of present days, the thrilling legends of sufferings endured for truth's sake or for justice, and, best of all, of accompanying them into the "holy of holies" of religious sentiment, will seem a fitting and fine absorption of a portion of his time.

To a knowledge of the Greek and Latin authors, Milton's plan added the cultivation of the Asiatic tongues, "the Chaldee, the Syriac, the Hebrew;" he made his pupils "go through the Pentateuch, and gain an entrance into the Targum;" nor did he banish from his theory the modern languages, but he insisted upon an intimate acquaintance with the best Italian and French writers. Every Sunday was spent in theological study; he himself was wont to dictate, from commentators then in vogue, short schemes of the theological system. Pearce has observed that Fagius was Milton's favorite annotator on the Bible.*

But his pupils did not wholly engross him. Milton was then-1640-thirty-two years of

* Mitford's Life of Milton, p. 30.

age, fully ripe, his mind enlarged by travel, and singularly learned. From his return to England in 1639 up to the middle of 1642, when the civil war was commenced in earnest, was a remarkably prolific period in Milton's life, many of his most elaborate writings being penned in that time. It witnessed the birth of several of his polemical works.

One phase of the national condition on his return from the continent, he has himself described. "On my return from my travels, I found all mouths open against the bishops; some complaining of their vices, and others quarrelling with the very order; and thinking, from such beginnings, a way might be opened to true liberty, I hastily engaged in the dispute, as well to rescue my fellow-citizens from slavery, as to help the Puritan ministers, who were inferior to the bishops in learning."

One of his biographers, Birch, says, "He, in the first place, published two books on the Reformation from Popery, which were dedicated to a friend. In the first of these he proved, from the reign of Henry VIII., what had all along been the real impediments in the

kingdom to a perfect reformation. These he reduces to two heads: the first, the Popish ceremonies which had been retained in the Protestant church; and the second, the power of ordination to the ministry having been confined to diocesan bishops, to the exclusion of the choice of ministers by the suffrages of the people. 'Our ceremonies,' he says, 'are senseless in themselves, and serve for nothing else but either to facilitate our return to Popery, or to hide the defects of better knowledge, and to set off the pomp of prelacy.""

This "Treatise on the Reformation" was published in 1641. It abounds in stirring passages, and was written with a purity of motive which Milton solemnly invokes the Deity to witness. He attempts to show in it, that the prelates of the English church had always been the foes of liberty; and though he "denied not but many of them had been good men, though not infallible, nor above all human frailties," he yet "affirmed that, though at the beginning they had renounced the Pope, yet they had hugged the Popedom, and shared the authority among themselves;

by their six bloody articles persecuting the Protestants no slacker than the Pope would have done."

In contemplating the glorious event of the Reformation, he rises into the highest eloquence: "How the bright and glorious Reformation, by divine power, shone through the black and settled night of ignorance and antichristian tyranny; methinks a sovereign and reviving joy must needs rush into the bosom of him that reads or hears, and the sweet odor imbue his soul with the fragrancy of heaven. Then was the sacred Bible brought out of the dusty corners where profane falsehood and neglect had thrown it; the schools opened, divine and human learning raked out of the embers of forgotten tongues; princes and cities trooping apace to the new-erected banner of salvation; the martyrs, with the irresistible might of weakness, shaking the powers of darkness, and scorning the fiery rage of the old red dragon."

After tracing with singular acumen the influence of prelacy, and displaying the antiliberal character of its politics, he turns to the