allis, Petty, and the rest of the Oxford colony or offshoot
from the _Invisible College_ of London. Desirable on its own
account, this migration to Oxford had been made easier to him
financially, if it had not been, occasioned, by the arrangement that
he should be tutor there to the young Irish nobleman whom Wood names.
But this young nobleman was not to be Oldenburg's only pupil at
Oxford. Though Wood does not mention the fact, there went with him
thither, or there speedily followed him thither, to be also under his
charge, another young Irish nobleman. This was no other than, our own
Richard Jones, son of Viscount and Lady Ranelagh, the Benjamin among
Milton's pupils. Whatever had been the nature of Milton's recent
instructions of the youth, they had now ceased, and Oldenburg was to
be thenceforward the youth's more regular tutor. It does not seem to
have been intended that young Ranelagh should formally enter a
college, so as to receive the usual education at the University, but
only that he should obtain some acquaintance with Oxford and its
ways, and be for a while in the society of his uncle Boyle, and of
his two cousins, Viscount Dungarvan and Mr. Richard Boyle. If these
two sons of the Earl of Cork were still under the tutorship of Dr.
Peter Du Moulin, Oldenburg and Jones at Oxford must have come
necessarily also into constant intercourse with that very secret
admirer of Milton. Oxford, we do gather, was still Du Moulin's
head-quarters; but he was so much on the wing thence that Oldenburg
might expect to succeed him in the tutorship of at least one of the
young Boyles. Oldenburg was then thirty years of age, and young
Ranelagh about sixteen.

[Footnote 1: Wood's Fasti, II. 197.]

Among four letters to young Jones or Ranelagh included in Milton's
Latin Familiar Epistles one is undated. It is put second of the four
in the printed collection, but it ought to have been put first. It is
Milton's first letter to the youth in his new position at Oxford
under Henry Oldenburg's charge. The date may be in or about May
1636:--

"To the Noble Youth, RICHARD JONES.

"I received your letter much after its date,--not till it had lain,
I think, fifteen days, put away somewhere, at your mother's. Most
gladly at last I recognised in it your continued affection for me
and sense of gratitude. In truth my goodwill to you, and readiness
to give you the most faithful admonitions, have never but
justified, I hope, b