phrastus are open before them, and, as I may say, under contribution. The like access will be to Vitruvius, to Seneca's natural questions, to Mela, Celsus, Pliny, or Solinus. And having thus passed the principles of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and geography, with a general compact of physics, they may descend in mathematics to the instrumental science of trigonometry, and from thence to fortification, architecture, enginery, or navigation. And in natural philosophy they may proceed leisurely from the history of meteors, minerals, plants, and living creatures, as far as anatomy.

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practical man.' In order to insinuate into the reader's mind that Milton made little or no account of moral philosophy, he draws a sort of parallel between "the knowledge of external nature," and the science of ethics, and gives, as every wise man must, the preference to the latter. He then proceeds: "Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence, most principles of moral truth, and most materials for conversation; and these purposes are best served by poets, orators, and historians. Let me not be censured for this digression as pedantic or paradoxical; for, if I have Milton against me,” (observe that,)" I have Socrates on my side. It was his labour to turn philosophy from the study of nature to speculations upon life; but the innovators whom I oppose," (he represents Socrates as an innovator in his day,) "are turning off attention from life to nature. They seem to think that we are placed here to watch the growth of plants, or the motions of the stars: Socrates was rather of opinion, tha what we had to learn was, how to do good, and avoid evil." Before we inquire whether Socrates would know his own features in Johnson's picture, it is necessary to remark that the biographer was altogether mistaken in imagining he had against him Milton; who, both in this treatise, and in his life, made it abundantly manifest that he considered the study of the sciences, nay, of poetry itself, of very inferior importance compared with that philosophy which embraces the knowledge of virtue, public and private, and leads to an active defence of the rights and dignity of human nature. He was very far, however, from supposing that watching "the growth of plants," or " the motions of the stars," necessarily constitutes any impediment in the way to an acquaintance with the principles of ethics; and, accordingly enumerates the knowledge of nature among the things which might very advantageously engage the attention of youth, before coming to the master-sciences of morals and politics. But then will be required," says he, "a special reinforcement of constant and sound indoctrinating, to set them right and firm, instructing them more amply in the knowledge of virtue and the hatred of vice," &c. vide p. 471, 472. Now let us see whether Socrates be for Milton or Johnson. In the Phædrus, where he exalts the wisdom and eloquence of Pericles above those of his contempo.aries, he is led to explain to his enthusiastic companion by what arts and pursuits the great statesman had acquired his power, and the consummate skill with which he wielded it; and amongst those means, next after the vast genius which nature had bestowed on him, Socrates reckons the knowledge of physics acquired under Anaxagoras of Clazomenæ. "For. from

Then also in course might be read to them, out of some not tedious writer, the institution of physic,* that they may know the tempers, the humours, the seasons, and how to manage a crudity; which he who can wisely and timely do, is not only a great physician to himself and to his friends, but also may, at some time or other, save an army by this frugal and expenseless means only; and not let the healthy and stout bodies of young men rot away under him for want of this discipline; which is a great pity, and no less a shame to the commander.+ To set forward all these proceedings in nature and mathematics, what hinders but that they may procure, as oft as shall be needful, the helpful experience of hunters, fowlers, fishermen, shepherds, gardeners, apothecaries; and in the other sciences, architects, engineers, mariners, anatomists; who doubtless would be ready, some for reward, and some to favour such a hopeful seminary. And this will give them such a real tincture of natural knowledge, as they shall never forget, but daily augment with delight. Then also those poets § which are now counted most hard, will be both facile and pleasant, Orpheus, Hesiod, Theocritus, Aratus, Nicander, Oppian, Dionysius; and in Latin, Lucretius, Manilius, and the rural part of Virgil.

By this time, years and good general precepts, will have furnished them more distinctly with that act of reason which these studies," says he, "proceed loftiness of mind, and the power to accomplish whatever may be undertaken:” τὸ γὰρ ὑψηλόνουν τοῦτο καὶ παντῇ τελεσιουργὸν ἔοικεν ἐντεῦθεν ποθεν εἰσιεναι. Platon. Oper. i. 87 edit. Bekk. He undoubtedly considered civil wisdom superior to scientific knowledge, and so did Milton.-ED.

* Like Locke, Milton is said to have been fond of the study of medicine, and, by unskilfully tampering with it, to have injured his sight. But this report appears to rest on no good foundation.-ED.

†That quaint and enthusiastic soldier, Le Cointe, in his "Commentaire sur la Retraite des Dix Mille," enumerating the studies of a military man, does not set down a knowledge of medicine, unless, indeed, it be included in the word "physique," which strictly signifies "natural philosophy." In the early ages of the world, before science had branched off into numerous divisions, a good general was both a physician and a soldier; and, to say the least, the knowledge of physic might not be wholly useless to the commander of an army even in our own days.-ED.

Baron Fellenberg has, to a certain extent, realized Milton's system at Hoffwyll.-ED.

§ These poets, though they seem to make up a formidable list of authors, might in reality, by any one familiar with the Greek and Latin languages, be read in a very short time. None of them are voluminous; and several, the language once mastered. might be read in a day.-ED.

in ethics is called Proairesis; that they may with some judgment contemplate upon moral good and evil. Then will be required a special reinforcement of constant and sound indoctrinating, to set them right and firm, instructing them more amply in the knowledge of virtue and the hatred of vice; while their young and pliant affections are led through all the moral works of Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, Plutarch, Laertius, and those Locrian remnants; but still to be reduced in their nightward studies wherewith they close the day's work, under the determinate sentence of David or Solomon, or the evangelists and apostolic scriptures. Being perfect in the knowledge of personal duty, they may then begin the study of economics. + And either now or before this, they may have easily learned, at any odd hour, the Italian tongue. And soon after, but with wariness and good antidote, it would be wholesome enough to let them taste some choice comedies, Greek, Latin, or Italian; those tragedies also, that treat of household matters, as Trachiniæ, Alcestis, and the like.

The next removal must be to the study of politics; to know the beginning, end, and reasons of political societies;↓ that they may not, in a dangerous fit of the commonwealth, be such poor, shaken, uncertain reeds, of such a tottering conscience, as many of our great counsellors have lately shewn themselves, but steadfast pillars of the state. After this, they are to dive into the grounds of law, and legal justice; delivered first and with best warrant by Moses; and as far as human prudence can be trusted, in those extolled remains of Grecian lawgivers, Lycurgus, Solon, Zaleucus, Charondas, and thence to all the Roman edicts and tables with their Jus

• Timæus of Locris, who flourished about 390 B. C., was one of the masters of Plato. There remains, under his name, a treatise written in the Doric dialect, Περὶ ψυχᾶς κοσμου καὶ φύσιος : that is, “ On the Soul of the World, and Nature." Its authenticity has been much disputed. In 1762, the Marquis d'Argens published at Berlin the Greek text, accompanied by a French translation, with philosophical dissertations.-Ed.

The works here alluded to are, 1, the Oikovvμikos λóyoç, of Xenophon, a Socratic dialogue, containing instructive details on Greek agriculture, and several anecdotes of the younger Cyrus. Cicero translated the work into Latin. 2. The Oikovoμixà, attributed to Aristotle, but falsely, according to Schneider, who published a new edition of it, in 1815, at Leipsic. And, 3. The гεwπоviкd of Cassianus Bassus, which, amidst much that is worthless, contains many curious and interesting particulars.-ED.

Politics were studied as a science in Milton's age; and the taste appears to be reviving in England.—ED.

tinian and so down to the Saxon and common laws of England, and the statutes.

Sundays also and every evening may be now understandingly spent in the highest matters of theology, and church history, ancient and modern; and ere this time the Hebrew tongue at a set hour might have been gained, that the scriptures may be now read in their own original; whereto it would be no impossibility to add the Chaldee and the Syrian dialect.* When all these employments are well conquered, then will the choice histories, heroic poems, and Attic tragedies of stateliest and most regal argument, with all the famous political orations, offer themselves; which if they were not only read, but some of them got by memory,+ and solemnly pronounced with right accent and grace, as might be taught, would endue them even with the spirit and vigour of Demosthenes or Cicero, Euripides or Sophocles.

And now, lastly, will be the time to read with them those organic arts, which enable men to discourse and write perspicuously, elegantly, and according to the fittest style, of lofty, mean, or lowly. Logic, therefore, so much as is useful, is to be referred to this due place with all her well-couched heads and topics, until it be time to open her contracted palm into a graceful and ornate rhetoric, taught out of the rule of Plato, Aristotle, Phalereus, Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus.§ To which poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, as being less subtile and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate. I mean not here the prosody of a verse, which they could not but have hit on before among the rudiments of grammar; but that sublime art which in Aris

* He here recommends nothing but what he himself understood.-Ed. + From the Phædrus we learn it was the practice among the young men of Athens to commit entire speeches to memory. Xenophon, in the Memorabilią, introduces a youth who could repeat the whole Iliad; Cicero, De Oratore, speaks with commendation of this kind of mental exercise; and it may be observed, generally, that the science of mnemonics was cultivated much more carefully among the ancients than it has ever been in modern times.-ED.

In 1672, Milton himself published a work on Logic, entitled " Artis Logica Plenior Institutio, ad Petri Rami Methodum Concinnata, Adjecta est Praxis Analytica, et Patri Rami Vita. Libris Duobus."-Ed.

To these should undoubtedly be added Quinctilian and Vossius, the latter of whom has, by his compendious Rhetoric, done good service to the cause of eloquence. Of this work the second and best edition was published at Leyden, 1637.—En.

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totle's poetics, in Horace, and the Italian commentaries of Castelvetro, Tasso, Mazzoni, and others, teaches what the laws are of a true epic poem, what of a dramatic, what of a lyric, what decorum is, which is the grand masterpiece to observe. This would make them soon perceive what despicable creatures our common rhymers and play-writers be; and shew them what religious, what glorious and magnificent use might be made of poetry, both in divine and human things.

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From hence, and not till now, will be the right season of forming them to be able writers and composers in every excellent matter, when they shall be thus fraught with an universal insight into things. Or whether they be to speak in parliament or council, honour and attention would be waiting on their lips. There would then also appear in pulpits other visage, other tures, and stuff otherwise wrought than what we now sit under, ofttimes to as great a trial of our patience as any other that they preach to us. These are the studies wherein our noble and our gentle youth ought to bestow their time, in a disciplinary way, from twelve to one and twenty: unless they rely more upon their ancestors dead, than upon themselves living. In which methodical course it is so supposed they must proceed by the steady pace of learning onward, as at convenient times, for memory's sake, to retire back into the middle ward, and sometimes into the rear of what they have been taught, until they have confirmed and solidly united the whole body of their perfected knowledge, like the embattling of a Roman legion. Now will be worth the seeing, what exercises and recreations may best agree, and become these studies.

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The course of study hitherto briefly described is, what I guess by reading, likest to those ancient and famous schools of Pythagoras, Plato, Isocrates, Aristotle, and such others, out of which were bred such a number of renowned philosophers, orators, historians, poets, and princes all over Greece, Italy, and Asia, besides the flourishing studies of Cyrene and Alexandria. But herein it shall exceed them, and supply *Piccolomini and Beni deserve also to be enumerated among the excellent commentators of the Poetics.-ED.

The reader will here doubtless call to mind the splendid idea given by Crassus (De Oratore, 1. i.) of the education and accomplishments of an orator. Both Cicero and Milton looked solely to the developement of great minds; and from the system of the latter, as from the school of Isocrates, which Cicero compares to the Trojan horse, none but princes in eloquence, had it ever been fully put in practice, would have issued.-ED.