or versified two Psalms, 114 and 136, which he thought worthy of the
public eye; but they raise no great expectations: they would in any
numerous school have obtained praise, but not excited wonder.

Many of his elegies appear to have been written in his eighteenth
year, by which it appears that he had then read the Roman authors
with very nice discernment. I once heard Mr. Hampton, the
translator of Polybius, remark, what I think is true, that Milton
was the first Englishman who, after the revival of letters, wrote
Latin verses with classic elegance. If any exceptions can be made,
they are very few: Haddon and Ascham, the pride of Elizabeth's
reign, however they may have succeeded in prose, no sooner attempt
verse than they provoke derision. If we produced anything worthy of
notice before the elegies of Milton, it was perhaps Alabaster's
"Roxana."

Of these exercises, which the rules of the University required, some
were published by him in his maturer years. They had been
undoubtedly applauded; for they were such as few can form: yet
there is reason to suspect that he was regarded in his college with
no great fondness. That he obtained no fellowship is certain; but
the unkindness with which he was treated was not merely negative. I
am ashamed to relate what I fear is true, that Milton was one of the
last students in either University that suffered the public
indignity of corporal correction.

It was, in the violence of controversial hostility, objected to him,
that he was expelled: this he steadily denies, and it was
apparently not true; but it seems plain, from his own verses to
"Diodati", that he had incurred "rustication," a temporary