THE LIFE or MILTON. 195 feveral years, and his lifter's two Eons were put to board with him, &It the younger and afterwards the elder : and fome others of his intimate friends requefted of him the fame favor for their Eons, efpecially brace there was little more trouble in inftruaing half a dozen than two or three : and he, who could not eafily deny any thing to his friends, and who knew that the greateft men in all ages had delighted in teaching others the principles of knowledge and vir- tue, undertook the office, not out of any fordid and mercenary views, but merely from a benevolent difpofition, and a defire to do good. And his method of education was as much above the pedantry and jargon of the common fchools, as his genius was fuperior to that of a common fchoolmafter. One of his nephews has given us an account of the many authors both Latin and Greek, which (befides thofe ufually read in the fchools) thro' his excellent judgment and way of teaching were run over within no greater compafs of time, than from ten to fifteen or fixteen years of age. Of the Latin the four authors concerning hufbandry, Cato, Varro, Columella, and Palladius, Cornelius Celfus thephyfi- cian, a great part of Pliny's Natural Hiflory, the Architeaure of Vitruvius, the Stratagems of Frontinus, and the philofophical poets Lucretius and Manilius. Of the Greek Hefiod, Aratus's Phxnomena and Diofemeia, Dionyfius Afer de fitu orbis, Oppian's Cynegetics and Halieutics, Quintus Calaber's poem of the Trojan war continued fromHomer, Apollonius Rhodius's Argonautics, and in profe Plu- tarch's Placita philofophorum, and of the education of children, Xenophon's Cyropxdia and Anabafis, Alian's 'Faltics and the Stra- tagems of Polycenus. Nor did this application to the Greek and Latin tongues hinder the attaining to the chief oriental languages, the Hebrew, Chaldee and Syriac, fo far as to go thro' the Pentateuch or five books of Moles in Hebrew, to make a good entrance into the Targum or Chaldee paraphrafe, and to underftand feveral chapters of St. Matthew in the Syriac' Teftament ; befides the modern lan- guages, Italian and French, and a competent knowledge of the ma- thematics and aftronomy. The
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