Dr. South and Cowley were never flogged at college, but certainly they were often flogged at school, or they could not speak so feelingly on the subject:
"Those 'plagosi Orbilii' (writes South), those executioners, rather than instructors of youth; persons fitted to lay about them in a coach or cart, or to discipline boys before a Spartan altar, or rather upon it, than to have anything to do in a Christian school. I would give these pedagogical _Jehus_, those furious school-drivers, the same advice which the poet says Phoebus gave his son Phaëton (just such another driver as themselves), that he should _parcere stimulis_ (the stimulus in driving being of the same use formerly that the lash is now). Stripes and blows are the last and basest remedy, and scarce ever fit to be used but upon such as carry their brains in their backs, and have souls so dull and stupid as to serve for little else but to keep their bodies from putrefaction."--_Sermon upon Proverbs, xxii. 6._
And Cowley, in describing the _Betula_ (Angl. birch-tree), how he does paint from nature!
"Mollis et alba cutim, formosam vertice fundens Cæsariem, sed mens tetrica est, sed nulla nec arbor Nec fera sylvarum crudelior incolit umbras: Nam simul atque urbes concessum intrare domosque Plagosum _Orbilium_ sævumque imitata _Draconem_ Illa furit, non ulla viris delicta, nec ullum Indulgens ludum pueris; inscribere membra Discentum, teneroque rubescere sanguine gaudet."
_Plantarum_, lib. vi. pag. 323. Londini, 1668.
That Milton's character was notorious or infamous at Cambridge has never, to my knowledge, been proved; and there is in his favour this most overwhelming testimony, that he never forfeited the esteem and friendship of the great and good. Was Sir Henry Wotton writing to a man of blighted and blasted reputation when he sent the kind and complimentary letter prefixed to _Comus_? In that he not merely eulogises the "Dorique delicacy" of Milton's songs and odes, but gives him much kind and considerate advice upon the course he was to pursue in his travels, as well as some introductions to his own friends, and promises to keep up a regular correspondence with him during his absence. Milton was very proud of this letter, and speaks of it in his _Defensio Secunda_. Again, Milton's associates at Cambridge must have known all about the misdemeanour (whatever it was) that caused his rustication, and yet they permitted him to take a part in, and perhaps to write the preface of, the ever memorable volume which contained the first edition of _Lycidas_.