answered. Perhaps the history of literature contains no dawn more radiant with promise than that of Hall. His satires, produced at the age of twenty-three, are wonderful efforts of youthful intellect combined with mature judg ment and penetration: Gray, a learned and fastidious critic, thought them full of poetry and life; and Pope, who deemed them the purest specimen of satire in our language, once entertained the idea of clothing them in a modern dress, as he had previously presented the uncouth rhymes of Donne. Warton was informed by the Bishop of Gloucester that in Pope's copy the first satire of the sixth book was corrected in the poet's handwriting, and that he had written at the commencement "Optima Satira." Pope happily abandoned his design. Hall has many verses which even the English Boileau could not have improved,―lively, energetic, picturesque,—and altogether characteristic of an early Dryden. His pictures of manners are drawn with a firm and happy pencil; and the well-known sketch of an old mansion deserted, combines the hard reality of Crabbe with a deeper tone of colouring, and a more affecting pensiveness of sentiment. A deep conviction of the justice of his cause alone impelled this amiable bishop into polemical disputes, when, in his own most touching words, the goal was already within his view, and he was setting his "foot over the threshold of the house of his age." It had been his early boast, that he would strive not for victory but for truth; and in his declining years, when scorched by the flame of controversy, from which he said none could draw his hand uninjured, and driven into poverty, he exclaimed with a serene composure, and a sublime resignation, and an earnest gratitude for the "smarting remedies," with which God had visited him, "Every man can say he

thanks God for his ease; for me, I bless God for my troubles."

This unhappy controversy was terminated in 1642, by the Apology for Smectymnuus, in which Milton vindicated himself from the aspersions that had been cast upon his character. The incidental notices of his own habits of life are eloquent and interesting. "His morning haunts," he declared, "were at home; not sleeping or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up and stirring; in winter, often before the sound of any bell awakens men to labour or devotion; in summer, as oft as the bird that first rouses, or not much later, to read good authors, or cause them to be read till the attention be weary, or the memory have its full fraught. Then with useful and generous labours preserving the body's health and hardiness, to render a lightsome, clear, and not a lumpish obedience for the cause of religion and our country's liberty." And again: "I was confirmed," he says, " in the opinion, that he who would not be frustrated of his hope to write hereafter laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and pattern of the best and honourablest things, not presuming to sing the high praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he has in himself the experience and the practice of all that is praiseworthy." These noble sentiments came with peculiar force from the lips of one in whose youthful heart the Holy Spirit had planted itself, growing up with the stature of his soul, and restraining within bounds even the most luxurious years of manhood*.

The same sentiment is expressed in the Reason for Church Government. "But he that holds himself in

See Dr. Hammond's Sermon, The New Creature.

reverence and due esteem both for the dignity of God's image upon him, and for the price of his redemption, which he thinks is visibly marked upon his forehead, accounts himself both a fit person to do the noblest and godliest deeds, and much better worth than to deject and defile with such a debasement and such a pollution as sin is, himself so highly ransomed and ennobled to a new friendship and filial relation with God. Nor can he fear so much the offence and reproach of others, as he dreads and would blush at the reflection of his own severe and modest eye upon himself, if it should see him doing or imagining that which is sinful, though in the deepest secrecy."

The severities inflicted on his tutor Young by the primate Laud, probably incited Milton to engage in this unfortunate warfare; he entered into it against the inclinations of his own mind, confessing that in such a contest he had only the use of his left hand. The circle of his studies he acknowledged to be incomplete, and excused the defects of his writings by the necessary rapidity and carelessness of their composition. Of these polemical effusions, the Treatise on Church Government is the most valuable; for in that work he discovered " a very high opinion of his poetical genius*," and intimated his hope to produce at a future season something worthy of immortality. This splendid passage I shall quote, and every reader will reflect with delight upon that enlightened wisdom which turned the contemplation of the poet from the exploits of "king or knight before the conquest," or the "magnific Odes and Hymns" of Pindar and Callimachus, to dwell upon "the throne and equipage of God's almightiness."

* Johnson.

"Time serves not now, and perhaps I might seem too profuse, to give any certain account of what the mind at home in the spacious circle of her musing hath liberty to propose to herself, though of highest hope and hardest attempting; whether that Epic form, whereof the two poems of Homer, and those other two of Virgil and Tasso, are a diffuse, and the book of Job a brief model; or whether the rules of Aristotle herein are strictly to be kept, or Nature to be followed, which in them that know art, and use judgment, is no transgression, but an enriching of art; and lastly, what king or knight before the Conquest might be chosen, in whom to lay the pattern of a Christian hero. And as Tasso gave to a prince in Italy his choice, whether he would command him to write of Godfrey's expedition against the Infidels, or Belisarius against the Goths, or Charlemainn against the Lombards; if to the instinct of nature and the emboldening of art, aught may be trusted, and that there be nothing adverse in our climate or the fate of this age, it haply would be no rashness, from an equal diligence and inclination to present the like offer in our ancient stories. Or whether those dramatic constitutions wherein Sophocles and Euripides reign shall be found more doctrinal and exemplary to a nation; or if occasion shall lead to imitate those magnific odes and hymns wherein Pindarus and Callimachus are in most things worthy. But those frequent songs throughout the Law and Prophets beyond all these, not in their divine argument alone, but in the very critical art of composition, may be easily made to appear over all the kinds of lyric poesy to be incomparable. These abilities, wheresoever they be found, are the inspired gift of God, rarely bestowed, but yet to some (though most abuse) in every nation; and are of power, besides the office of a pulpit, to

imbreed and cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue and public civility, to allay the perturbations of the mind, and set the affections in right tune, to celebrate in glorious and lofty hymns the throne and equipage of God's almightiness, and what he works, and what he suffers to be wrought with high providence in his church; to sing victorious agonies of martyrs and saints, the deeds and triumphs of just and pious nations, doing valiantly through faith against the enemies of Christ; to deplore the general relapses of kingdoms and states from justice and God's true worship. Lastly, whatsoever in religion is holy and sublime, in virtue amiable or grave; whatsoever hath passion or admi→ ration of that which is called fortune from without; or the wily subtleties and refluxes of man's thoughts from within, all these things, with a solid and treatable smoothness to point out and describe. Teaching over the whole book of sanctity and virtue through all the instances of example, with such delight to those especially of soft and delicious temper, who will not so much as look upon truth herself, unless they see her elegantly dressed; that whereas the paths of honesty and good life appear now rugged and difficult, though they be indeed easy and pleasant, they will then appear to all men both easy and pleasant, though they were rugged and difficult indeed.

"The thing which I had to say, and those intentions which have lived with me ever since I could conceive myself anything worth to my country, I return to crave excuse that urgent reason hath pluct from me by an abor tive and fore-dated discovery; and the accomplishment of them lies not but in a power above man's to promise; but that none hath by more studious ways endeavoured, and with more unwearied spirit that none shall, that I dare almost aver of myself, as far as life and free leisure