§22. 
had the care of their affairs; and sth. that 
their demand was not made according to 
the ftyle and the policy of the country. 
~ Another reafon of their ill fuccefs, and, 
in my judgment, the principal one, was 
the intrigues of a certain miflionary, who, 
being’ prepoffefled with the opinion that 
this embaify would be injurious to the 
‘ecommerce of his own country, did not 
fail to throw out infinuations unfavourable 
to the Englifh nation.—Add to all this, 
the emperor is old and partial; and artful 
cabals are to be found in all countries ; 
and that all his grandees and favourites 
ate greedy of prefents and money.” 

For the Monthly: Magazine. 
Mr. Epiror. 
¥ N your laft Magazine, Mr. WaAKE- 
- FIELD with laudable zeal has endea- 
voured to refeue from difgrace and calum- 
vy the charaéter of Miiton—I commend 
‘his efforts, but I think them needlefs up- 
on thistrivial occafion. Suppofing the fact 
proved, that Milton had repeatedly un- 
dergone the difcipline of flagellation; I 
contend, that no more ftigma attaches to 
him cn that account, than to one who has 
pafled through the common formule of 
‘an Eton education; where the birch is 
efteemed as neceflary an article towards ac- 
quiring claffical rudiments ; as the gram- 
mar, or diétionary. ‘This mode of cor- 
re€tion may appear very ridiculous to a 
‘modern Cantab; I have no doubt, how- 
ever, but that it was frequent in Milton’s 
4ime, in order to enforce fcholaftic autho- 
rity. Granting that Milton was flogged 
at the Buttery-hatch of Chrift’s College, 
what obloquy can any rational man fix 
upon him, afterreading a ftatute (Decret. 
Pref. Acad. Cant. 1607) in which it is 
decreed, ‘* That under graduates found 
guilty of taking tobacco in taverns, fhops, 
&c. fhall be punithed in the public fchools 
by the rod??? This ftatute was, without 
doubt, made at the fuggeition of that 
bright ornament of literature, King James. 
Suppofing that Milton was not flogged for 
this grievous crime; by another he might 
have been turned up, even for the obfer- 
vance of rules which decency and cleanli- 
nefs diétate. (Decret. Pref. 1571) ‘ For 
many and weighty reafons ordered, de- 
creed and ftatuted, that ifany fcholar, &c. 
go into any river or pool, or any other 
water within the county of Cambridge, 
to {wim or wafhb; for the firft offence, he 
fhall be /2arply and feverely chaftifed and 
punithed; frit at home in his college, 
epenty and publicly in the common-hall, in 
Flagellation at Cambridge—Cafaubon’s 
[Auguft 
the prefence of all the fellows, {cholars, — 
and thofe who live in the college: and 
the next day, he is alio to be fharply and © 
feverely punifhed, and chaftifed with 
firipes, in the public {chools, &c. !1!7— 
Mr. Wakefield will immediately perceive 
the futility of his drawing any conclu- 
fions whatever from Gardiner’s Letters, - 
which were dated 1542, when he has zeen 
the dates of thofe ftatutes which I have 
quoted. I could recite twenty more par- 
allel ftatutes which fufficiently exculpate 
Miiton from that, which nothing but 
ignorance or illiberality would cail dz/~ 
grace. Mr. Waketield has mifunder- 
ftood the phrafe ** Domi apud fuos cafti- 
gari curato.”” The ftatutes of the diffe- 
rent Colleges ordain both a public and pri- 
vate flagellation within their own fociety : 
therefore no one could poffibly infer with 
propriety, that dom, &c. implied a pri- 
vate correction. 
E:novonAnor nce 
ee ea 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazize. 
SIR, 
AVING lately met with a fmall} 
work in Englifh, written by Dr. 
Meric Cafaubon, fon of the learned I/aae 
Cafaubon, entitled, «« A Treatife proving 
“© Witches, Spirits, and Supernatural Ope- 
“* rations, by pregnant Inftances and Evi- 
‘© dences, together with other things of 
‘© ate, and printed at London, in 1672, 
in fmall 4to. with an Lwprimatur from a 
chaplain of Gilbert, archbishop of Can- 
terbury, dated at Lambeth, July 9, 1668, 
my curiofity was much excited by a pat- 
fage, where the author, after examining 
fundry wonderful contrivances of the an- 
cients, as for inftance, their fhips of pro- 
digious fize and fhape, remarks as follows ; 
<¢ Whereas one of the fhips made by Phila- 
<¢ pator, king ot Egypt, is reported to have 
*¢ contained forty feveral ranks or rows of 
<¢ rowers, one above another; which (fince 
<< that fhips of eight, or ten, ortwelverows, 
‘¢ fome have thought, could hardly bemade 
“* to be ferviceable) will be thought by 
*¢ many not poffible, and therefore incredi- 
“¢ ble. Allchat I can fay to it (which J am 
*¢ fureI can) is, that, had my father’s Com- 
‘¢ mentaries upon Po'ybius, upon which 
<¢ he beftowed a great part of his life, 
“© been finifhed and printed, he would 
‘¢ have made it clear how it might be, 
“¢ and anfwered all obje€tions.”—Thus 
far Dr. Meric Cafaubon. 
This point, Mr. Editor, of the arrange- 
ment of the rowers and oars in the fhips 
of the ancients, haying been a ftumbling- 
block 
