oth your excellent mother's opinion of me and
confidence in me, and your own disposition. There is, indeed, as
you write, plenty of amenity and salubrity in the place where you
now are; there are books enough for the needs of a University: if
only the amenity of the spot contributed as much to the genius of
the inhabitants as it does to pleasant living, nothing would seem
wanting to the happiness of the place. The Library there, too, is
splendidly rich; but, unless the minds of the students are made
more instructed by means of it in the best kinds of study, you
might more properly call it a book-warehouse than a Library. Most
justly you acknowledge that to all these helps there must be added
a spirit for learning and habits of industry. Take care, and steady
care, that I may never have occasion to find you in a different
state of mind; and this you will most easily avoid if you
diligently obey the weighty and friendly precepts of the highly
accomplished Henry Oldenburg beside you. Farewell, my well-beloved
Richard; and allow me to exhort and incite you to virtue and piety,
like another Timothy, by the example of that most exemplary woman,
your mother.

"Westminster."

In this letter one observes the rather strict tone of Mentorship
assumed towards young Ranelagh, as if Milton was aware of something
in the youth, that needed checking, or as if Lady Ranelagh, with her
motherly knowledge, had given Milton a hint that the strict tone with
him would be generally the best. The tendency to a depreciation of
Oxford, which is also visible in the letter, is no surprise from
Milton.

The Anti-Oxonian feeling, if that is not too strong a name for it
after all, is even more apparent in Milton's next letter, addressed
not to young Ranelagh, but to his tutor. Young Ranelagh, it appears,
not long after the receipt of the foregoing, had run up to London on
a brief visit to his mother, and had brought Milton a letter from
Oldenburg. To this Milton replies as follows:--

"To HENRY OLDENBURG, Agent for Bremen with the English Government.

"Your letter, brought by young Ranelagh, has found me rather busy;
and so I am forced to be briefer than I should wish. You have
certainly kept _your_ departing promise of writing to me, and
that with a punctuality surpassed. I believe, by no one hitherto in
the payment of a debt. I congratulate you on your present
retirement, to my loss though it