NOTES.

To Master Samuel Hartlib. For an account of Samuel Hartlib see Masson's Life of Milton, III. 193. He was the son of a Polish merchant of German extraction, who had settled at Elbing in Prussia. His mother was the daughter of an English merchant at Danzic, so Hartlib though Prussian born with Polish connexions could call himself half English. He was probably about eight or ten years older than Milton. He first came to England about the year 1628 and from that time made London his headquarters. "He was one of those persons now styled 'philanthropists' or 'friends of progress,' who take an interest in every question or project of their time promising social improvement, have always some iron in the fire, are constantly forming committees or writing letters to persons of influence and altogether live for the public. By the common consent of all who have explored the intellectual and social history of England in the seventeenth century, he is one of the most interesting and memorable figures of that whole period."

written above twenty years since. According to Masson, Life of Milton, III. 233. The treatise "of Education"

was first published on June 5, 1644. The treatise was reprinted in 1673 at the end of the second edition. of the minor poems with the words "written above twenty years since" (really nearly thirty) added to the original title. The text of the present edition is a facsimile of the reprint of 1673.

1. 8. respect, consideration.

1. 9. then. The old spelling of than, as our then was then spelt than, and in Shakespere's Lucrece rhymes to van and began.

1. 17. conjurements, "solemn appeals."

1. 18. diverted, "turned off."

1. 19. assertions, positions, statements. Milton's mind was now principally occupied with the questions of Divorce and of the liberty of unlicensed printing. The second edition of the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce was published about three months before the Tractate, and his Judgement of Master Bucer concerning Divorce five weeks after. The Areopagitica was published Nov. 24, 1644.

P. 2, 1. 3. divide, to break up. transpose, to change. 1. 6. person sent hither, John Amos Comenius. For an account of him see John Amos Comenius by S. S. Laurie in Kegan Paul's Education Library, also Masson's Life of Milton, vol. III. There are also accounts of him in Browning's History of Educational Theories, and Quick's Educational Reformers. Comenius came to London at Hartlib's invitation, Sept. 22, 1641. He left it for Sweden in August, 1642. When he was in London the Parliament thought of assigning to Comenius for his plans of a College-University some College with its revenues. Comenius tells us "there was even named for the purpose the Savoy in London; Winchester College

out of London was named; and again nearer the city Chelsea College, inventories of which and of its revenues were communicated to us; so that nothing seemed more certain than that the design of the great Verulam concerning the opening somewhere of a Universal College devoted to the advancement of the Sciences, would be carried out. But the rumour of the insurrection in Ireland and of the massacre in one night of more than 200,000 English, and the sudden departure of the King from London, and the plentiful signs of the bloody war about to break out disturbed these plans, and obliged me to hasten my return to my own people."

1. 15. beyond the seas. Comenius spent the years 1643-1646 at Elbing, Hartlib's own birthplace, writing his didactic treatises, and his going there was largely owing to Hartlib's recommendation.

P. 3, 1. 4. obligement, duty, obligation.

1. 17. Janua's and Didactics. This is a reference apparently a little contemptuous to Comenius's two great works; the Janua linguarum reserata was published in 1631, and was translated into most European and some Eastern languages. His Didactica Magna was first written in his own language, Czech, and afterwards translated into Latin. It is doubtful if it was published in 1644, but Milton had of course heard of it.

1. 20. flowr'd off. Latham explains this as come off as flowers by sublimation." I should rather connect it with the "burnishing" below.

1. 21. burnishing, the particles rubbed off in polishing. 1. 27. ruines, the fall.

P. 4, 1. 6. sensible things. This is the keynote of Milton's teaching. Things are to be taught before words, or rather things and words are to be taught together, the

only value of words being that they lead us to the things of which they are symbols, as he says below "language is but the instrument conveying to us things usefull to be known."

P. 5, 1. 5. idle vacancies. This probably does not refer so much to vacations and holidays as to perpetual interruption caused by Saints' days and holidays. This is a principal cause of the inefficiency of the education given by Jesuits and other Roman Catholic bodies. At Eton College, when I was a boy there, every Saint's day was a holiday and every eve a half-holiday, the work of these days was supposed to be done on other days, so also at the University there were no lectures on Saints' days. The long vacation at the University of course existed in Milton's time.

1. 6. preposterous, inverting the natural order.

1. 15. barbarizing, so a lexicon of pure idiomatic latinity is called antibarbarus.

1. 16. untutor'd, rude, raw. So Shakespere Lucrece, Ded. "my untutored lines," and II. Henry VI. III. 2, "some stern untutored churl."

19. conversing among, "becoming familiar with.” 1. 21. certain forms, "paradigms," the regular forms in which they habitually occur.

1. 23. lesson'd, "taught."

1. 26. Arts, the subject-matter of a liberal education, originally the seven liberal arts contained in the Trivium and Quadrivium, Grammar, Dialectic, Rhetoric, Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy. So Shakespere uses Arts as a synonym for education generally, Taming of the Shrew, 1. 1. 2, "Padua, Nursery of Arts," and Twelfth Night, 1. 3. 99, "Had I but followed the Arts." Compare Bachelor and Master of Arts.

P. 6, 1. 9. obvious to the sence.

This is an anticipa

tion of the doctrines of Pestalozzi and Froebel, who insist on the importance of beginning education with the train

ing of the senses.

1. 10.

unmatriculated,

even before their matricula

tion," or perhaps generally "immature."

Logick. This is the same as Dialectic, and stands, as we have seen, second in the Trivium, immediately after Grammar. This is explained more in detail immediately below.

1. 18. fadomless, fathom is fadom in middle English. 1. 21. ragged, "rugged."

1. 22.

babblements, "prattling."

1. 24. youthful years, the impatience of youth.
1. 25. sway, "pressure" or "influence.”

1. 26. mercenary...Divinity. Such divines are treated with scathing scorn in Lycidas, where S. Peter says:

How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain,
Anow of such as for their bellies' sake,

Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold?

Of other care they little reck'ning make,

Then how to scramble at the shearers' feast,

And shove away the worthy bidden guest;

Blind mouthes! that scarce themselves know how to hold A sheep-hook, or have learn'd ought els the least

That to the faithfull Herdman's art belongs!

What recks it them? What need they? They are sped.

P. 7, l. 1. prudent and heavenly contemplation. Prudent, provident, foreseeing. Milton here sketches the idea of what a University law school ought to be, concerned with the theory and not with the practice of law.

1. 6. State affairs. Milton suggests the conception