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Now perfons," fays he, "fo far má"nuducted into the higheft paths of lite"rature, both divine and human, had "they received his documents with the "fame acuteness of wit and apprehen“fion, the fame industry, alacrity, and "thirst after knowledge, as the inftruc"tor was indued with, what prodigies "of wit and learning might they have

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proved! the scholars might, in fome

degree, have come near to the equalling the mafter, or at least have in "fome fort made good what he feems to "predict in the clofe of an elegy he made "in the feventeenth year of his age,

46

upon the death of one of his fifter's

"children (a daughter) who died in her

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"infancy." The laft couplet of which

elegy is,

This if thou do, he will an offspring

give

That to the world's laft end fhall make thy name to live *.

Hence it is clear that the perfons fo manuduced were only, at the moft, the two Philipfes, the offspring of Milton's fifter, whofe name would be little connected with the proficiency of a promifcuous number of boys in a boardingfchool.

In the next place, Mr. Philips is before-hand with Dr. Johnfon in affigning the caufes of the little comparative

Philips, p. xix.

pro

proficiency made by the perfons fo manudufted; where common good-manners would reftrain him from taxing the hebetude, the idleness, the indolence, and indifference, of any ftudents, except of himfelf or his brother. And indeed it plainly appears, that the addition of "fome fcholars" was pofterior to the courfe of reading Milton went through with his nephews, and was one of thofe feveral occafions of increasing his family, apparently after he had written the tracts above-mentioned.

If Toland, and Milton's Biographers, fubfequent to Philips, made more of this matter than Philips's hiftory authorized, we do not commend them. But it was

*Philips, p. xxi.

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furely

furely the business of a new narrative to correct their inaccuracies, and not invidiously to reprefent Milton as performing wonders, which it is not pretended by him, who knew the beft, that he did perform; and then to fhew the imprac ticability of the thing by remarks borrowed from his informer, and put upon the reader as the product of his own fa-gacity..

In another place the Doctor fays *, "From this wonder-working academy I "do not know that there ever proceeded

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any man very eminent for knowledge;

its only genuine product, I believe, is "a fmall hiftory of poetry, written in "Latin by his nephew, of which per

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haps none of my readers has ever

"heard."

Every writer may prefume, conjecture, and believe, as much as he pleases in all cafes where he cannot be contra

dicted; and fo may we.. Our answers to this then are,.

There

1. Bernardus non vidit omnia. may have been men and things of which Dr. Johnson hath no knowledge. Wood. fays, both Milton's nephews were writers; and there may be ftill more genuine products of Milton's fcholaftic inftitution than Dr. Johnfon ever heard of.

2. From this reflection it may be inferred, that Milton's pupils were not fo

* Ath. Oxon, vol. I. Fafli, p. 263.

nume

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