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upon; but he has raised as noble a superstructure | Epistolarum Familiarium, Lib. I., et Prosiones as such little room and such scanty materials quædam Oratoriæ in Collegio Christi habita, were would allow. The great beauty of it is the con- printed in 1674; as was also his translation ou trast between the two characters of the Tempter of Latin into English of the Poles Declaration and our Saviour, the artful sophistry and specious concerning the election of their King John III.. insinuations of the one refuted by the strong sense setting forth the virtues and merits of that prince and manly eloquence of the other. This poem He wrote also a brief History of Muscovy, coihas also been translated into French, together lected from the relations of several travellers; but with some other pieces of Milton, Lycidas, L'Al- it was not printed till after his death in 1682. He legro, Il Penseroso, and the Ode on Christ's Na- had likewise his state-letters transcribed at the tivity: and in 1732, was printed a Critical Dis- request of the Danish resident, but neither were sertation, with Notes upon Paradise Regained, they printed till after his death in 1676, and were pointing out the beauties of it, and written by translated into English in 1694; and to that transMr. Meadawcourt, Canon of Worcester: and the lation a life of Milton was prefixed by his nephew very learned and ingenious Mr. Jortin has added Mr. Edward Philips, and at the end of that life his some observations upon this work at the end of excellent sonnets to Fairfax, Cromwell, Sir Henry his excellent Remarks upon Spenser, published in Vane, and Cyriac Skinner, on his blindness, were 1734; and indeed this poem of Milton, to be more first printed. Besides these works which were admired, needs only to be better known. His published, he wrote his System of Divinity, which Samson Agonistes is the only tragedy that he has Mr. Toland says was in the hands of his friend finished, though he has sketched out the plans of Cyriac Skinner, but where at present is uncertain. several, and proposed the subjects of more, in his And Mr. Philips says, that he had prepared for manuscript preserved in Trinity College library: the press an answer to some little scribbling quack and we may suppose that he was determined to in London, who had written a scurrilous libel the choice of this particular subject by the simili- against him; but whether by the dissuasion of tude of his own circumstances to those of Samson friends, as thinking him a fellow not worth his blind and among the Philistines. This I conceive notice, or for what other cause, Mr. Philips knew to be the last of his poetical pieces; and it is written not, this answer was never published. And inin the very spirit of the ancients, and equals, if not exceeds, any of the most perfect tragedies, which were ever exhibited on the Athenian stage, when Greece was in its glory. As this work was never intended for the stage, the division into acts and scenes After a life thus spent in study and labours for is omitted. Bishop Atterbury had an intention the public, he died of the gout at his house in of getting Mr. Pope to divide it into acts and Bunhill Row, on or about the 10th of November, scenes, and of having it acted by the king's scho- 1674, when he had within a month completed the lars at Westminster: but his commitment to the sixty-sixth year of his age. It is not known when tower put an end to that design. It has since he was first attacked by the gout, but he was been brought upon the stage in the form of an grievously afflicted with it several of the last years oratorio; and Mr. Handel's music is never em- of his life, and was weakened to such a degree, ployed to greater advantage, than when it is that he died without a groan, and those in the adapted to Milton's words. The great artist has room perceived not when he expired. His body done equal justice to our author's L'Allegro and was decently interred near that of his father, (who Il Penseroso, as if the same spirit possessed both rasters, and as if the god of music and of verse was still one and the same.

deed the best vindicator of him and his writings has been time; posterity has universally paid that honour to his merits, which was denied him by great part of his contemporaries.

had died very aged about the year 1647,) in the chancel of the church of St. Giles's, Cripplegate; and all his great and learned friends in London, There are also some other pieces of Milton, for not without a friendly concourse of the common he continued publishing to the last. In 1672, he people, paid their last respects in attending it to published Artis Logicæ plenior Institutio ad Petri the grave. Mr. Fenton, in his short but elegant Rami methodum concinnata, an Institution of account of the Life of Milton, speaking of our Logic after the method of Petrus Ramus; and author's having no monument, says that he dethe year following, a Treatise of True Religion and sired a friend to inquire at St. Giles's church; the best means to Prevent the Growth of Popery, where the sexton showed him a small monument, which had greatly increased through the conni- which he said was supposed to be Milton's; but vance of the King, and the more open encourage- the inscription had never been legible since he ment of the Duke of York; and the same year his was employed in that office, which he has pos poems, which had been printed in 1645, were re-sessed about forty years. This sure could never printed with the addition of several others. His have happened in so short a space of time, unless Fanuar Epistles and some Academical Exercises, the epitaph had been industriously erased. and

that supposition, says Mr. Fenton, carries with it representations which have been made of him.

so much inhumanity, that I think we ought to There are two pictures of greater value than the believe it was not erected to his memory." It is rest, as they are undoubted originals, and were in. evident that it was not erected to his memory, the possession of Milton's widow: the first was and that the sexton was mistaken. For Mr. To- drawn when he was about twenty-one, and is at land, in his account of the Life of Milton, says, present in the collection of the Right Honourable that he was buried in the chancel of St. Giles's Arthur Onslow, Esq, Speaker of the House of church, "where the piety of his admirers will Commons; the other in crayons was drawn when shortly erect a monument becoming his worth and he was about sixty-two, and was in the collection the encouragement of letters in King William's of Mr. Richardson, but has since been purchased reign." This plainly implies that no monument by Mr. Tonson. Several prints have been made was erected to him at that time, and this was written in 1698: and Mr. Fenton's account was first published, I think, in 1725; so that not above twenty-sever. years intervened from the one account to the other; and consequently the sexton, who it is said had been possessed of his office about forty years, must have been mistaken, and the monument must have been designed for some other person, and not for Milton. A monument indeed has been erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey by Auditor Benson, in the year 1737; but the best monument of him is his writings.

from both these pictures; and there is a print, done when he was about sixty-two or sixty-three, after the life by Faithorn, which though not so handsome, may yet perhaps be as true a resemblance as any of them. It is prefixed to some of our author's pieces, and to the folio edition of his prose works in three volumes, printed in 1698.

In his way of living he was an example of sobriety and temperance. He was very sparing in the use of wine or strong liquors of any kind. Let meaner poets make use of such expedients to raise their fancy and kindle their imagination; he wanted not any artificial spirits; he had a natural fire, In his youth he was esteemed extremely hand- and poetic warmth enough of his own. He was some, so that while he was a student at Cambridge, likewise very abstemious in his diet, not fastidioushe was called the Lady of Christ's College. He ly nice or delicate in the choice of his dishes, but had a very fine skin and fresh complexion; his content with any thing that was most in season, hair was of a light brown, and parted on the fore- or casiest to be procured, eating and drinking (actop hung down in curls waving upon his shoulders; cording to the distinction of the philosopher) that his features were exact and regular; his voice he might live, and not living that he might eat and agreeable and musical; his habit clean and neat; drink. So that probably his gout descended by his deportment erect and manly. He was middle- inheritance from one or other of his parents; or if sized and well proportioned, neither tall nor short, it was of his own acquiring, it must have been neither too lean nor too corpulent, strong and ac- owing to his studious and sedentary life. And yet tive in his younger years, and though afflicted with he delighted sometimes in walking and using exfrequent headachs, blindness, and gout, was yet a ercise, but we hear nothing of his riding or huntcomely and well-looking man to the last. His eyes ing; and having early learned to fence, he was were of a light blue colour, and from the first are such a master of his sword, that he was not afraid said to have been none of the brightest; but after of resenting an affront from any man; and before he lost the sight of them (which happened about he lost his sight, his principal recreation was the the 43d year of his age) they still appeared with- exercise of his arms; but after he was confined by out spot or blemish, and at first view and a little age and blindness, he had a machine to swing in distance it was not easy to know that he was blind. for the preservation of his health. In his youth Mr. Richardson had an account of him from an he was accustomed to sit up late at his studies, and ancient clergyman in Dorsetshire, Dr. Wright, seldom went to bed before midnight; but afterwards, who found him in a small house, which had (he finding it to be the ruin of his eyes, and looking thinks) but one room on a floor; in that, up one on this custom as very pernicious to health at any pair of stairs, which was hung with a rusty green, time, he used to go to rest early, seldom later than he saw John Milton sitting in an elbow chair, with nine, and would be stirring in the summer at four, black clothes, and neat enough, pale but not cada- and in the winter at five in the morning; but if verous, his hands and fingers gouty, and with he was not disposed to rise at his usual hours, he chalk stones; among other discourse he expressed still did not lie sleeping, but had some body or himself to this purpose, that was he free from the other by his bed side to read to him. At his first pain of the gout, his blindness would be tolerable. rising he had usually a chapter read to him out of But there is the less need to be particular in the the Hebrew Bible, and he commonly studied all description of his person, as the idea of his face the morning till twelve, then used some exercise and countenance is pretty well known from the for an hour, afterwards dined, and after dinner aumerous prints, pictures, busts, medals, and other played on the organ, and either sung imself or

made his wife sing, who (he said) had a good voice | ful temper; and yet I can easily believe, that he but no ear; and then he went up to study again had a sufficient sense of his own merits, and contill six, when his friends came to visit him and sat tempt enough for his adversaries. with him perhaps till eight; then he went down to His merits indeed were singular; for he was supper, which was usually olives or some light man not only of wonderful genius, but of immense thing; and after supper he smoked his pipe, and learning and erudition; not only an incomparable drank a glass of water, and went to bed. He loved poet, but a great mathematician, logician, historihe country, and commends it, as poets usually do; an, and divine. He was a master not only of the but after his return from his travels, he was very Greek and Latin, but likewise of the Hebrew, äittle there, except during the time of the plague Chaldee, and Syriac, as well as of the modern lanin London. The civil war might at first detain guages, Italian, French, and Spanish. He was him in town; and the pleasures of the country particularly skilled in the Italian, which he always were in a great measure lost to him, as they de- preferred to the French language, as all the men pend mostly upon sight, whereas a blind man of letters did at that time in England; and he not wants company and conversation, which is to be had better in populous cities. But he was led out sometimes for the benefit of the fresh air, and in warm sunny weather he used to sit at the door of his house near Bunhill Fields, and there as well as in the house received the visits of persons of quality and distinction; for he was no less visited to the last both by his own countrymen and foreigners, than he had been in his flourishing condition before the Restoration.

only wrote elegantly in it, but is highly commended for his writings by the most learned of the Italians themselves, and especially by the members of that celebrated academy called della Crusca, which was established at Florence, for the refining and perfecting of the Tuscan language. He had read almost all authors, and improved by all, even by romances, of which he had been fond in his younger years; and as the bee can extract honey out of weeds, so (to use his own words in his Apology Some objections, indeed, have been made to his for Smectymnuus) "those books, which to many temper; and I remember there was a tradition in others have been the fuel of wantonness and loose the university of Cambridge, that he and Mr. King living, proved to him so many incitements to the (whose death he laments in his Lycidas) were com- love and observation of virtue." His favourite aupetitors for a fellowship, and when they were both thor after the Holy Scriptures, was Homer. Hoequal in point of learning, Mr. King was prefer- mer he could repeat almost all without book; and red by the college for his character of good nature, he was advised to undertake a translation of his which was wanting in the other; and this was by works, which no doubt he would have executed to Milton grievously resented. But the difference of admiration. But (as he says of himself in his their ages, Milton being at least four years older, postscript to the Judgment of Martin Bucer) "he renders this story not very probable; and besides, never could delight in long citations, much less in Mr. King was not elected by the college, but was whole traductions." And accordingly there are nade fellow by a royal mandate, so that there can few things, and those of no great length, which he be no truth in the tradition; but if there was any, has ever translated. He was possessed too much it is no sign of Milton's resentment, but a proof of an original genius to be a mere copyer. "Wheof his generosity, that he could live in such friend-ther it be natural disposition," says he, or educaship with a successful rival, and afterwards so pas- tion in me, or that my mother bore me a speaker sionately lament his decease. His method of writ- of what God made my own, and not a translator." ing controversy is urged as another argument of And it is somewhat remarkable, that there is scarce his want of temper: but some allowance must be any author, who has written so much, and upon made for the customs and manners of the times. such various subjects, and yet quotes so little from Controversy, as well as war, was rougher and more his contemporary authors, or so seldom mentions barbarous in those days, than it is in these. And any of them. He praises Selden, indeed, in more it is to be considered, too, that his adversaries first places than one, but for the rest he appears dispos began the attack; they loaded him with much ed to censure rather than commend. After his more personal abuse, only they had not the ad- severer studies, and after dinner, as we observed vantage of so much wit to season it. If he had before, he used to divert and unbend his mind with engaged with more candid and ingenuous dispu- playing upon the organ or bass-viol, which was a 'ants, he would have preferred civility and fair ar- great relief to him after he had lost his sight; for gument to wit and satire: "to do so was my choice, he was a master of music, as was his father, and and to have done thus was my chance," as he ex- he could perform both vocally and instrumentally, presses himself in the conclusion of one of his and it is said that he composed very well, though controversial pieces. All who have written any nothing of this kind is handed down to us. It is accounts of his life agree, that he was affable and also said, that he had some skill in painting as well instructive in conversation, of an equal and cheer- as in music, and that somewhere or other there is с

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a head of Milton drawn by himself: but he was a judge's commision under the usurper: and ir blessed with so many real excellences, that there the latter part of his life he frequently expressed is no want of fictitious ones to raise and adorn his to his friends hr, entre satisfaction of mind, that character. He had a quick apprehension, a sub- he had constantly employed his strengin and falime imagination, a strong memory, a piercing culties in the defence of liberty, and in opposition judgment, a wit always ready, and facetious or to slavery. grave as the occasion required: and I know not whether the loss of his sight did not add vigour to the faculties of his mind. He at least thought so, and often comforted himself with that reflection.

In matters of religion too he has given as great offence, or even greater, than by his political principles. But still let not the infidel glory: no such man was ever of that party. He had the advanBut his great parts and learning have scarcely tage of a pious education, and ever expressed the gained him more admirers, than his political prin- profoundest reverence of the Deity in his words ciples have raised him enemies. And yet the dar- and actions, was both a Christian and a Protestant, ing passion of his soul was the love of liberty; and studied and admired the Holy Scriptures above this was his constant aim and end, however he all other books whatsoever; and in all his writings might be mistaken in the means. He was indeed he plainly shows a religious turn of mind, as very zealous in what was called the good old cause, well in verse as in prose, as well in his works of an and with his spirit and his resolution, it is some- earlier date as in those of later composition. When what wonderful, that he never ventured his person he wrote the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, in the civil war; but though he was not in arms, he appears to have been a Calvinist; but afterhe was not inactive, and thought, I suppose, that wards he entertained a more favourable opinion he could be of more service to the cause by his pen of Arminius. Some have inclined to believe, that than by his sword. He was a thorough republi- he was an Arian; but there are more express pascan, and in this he thought like a Greek or Ro- sages in his works to overthrow this opinion, than man, as he was very conversant with their writ-any there are to confirm it. For in the conclusion ings. And one day Sir Robert Howard, who was of his Treatise of Reformation he thus solemnly a friend to Milton, as well as to the liberties of his invokes the Trinity; "Thou therefore that sittest country, and was one of his constant visiters to in light and glory unapproachable, parent of anthe last, inquired of him how he came to side with gels and men! next thee I implore Omnipotent the republicans. Milton answered, among other King, Redeemer of that lost remnant whose nature reasons, because their's was the most frugal go- thou didst assume, ineffable and everlasting love! vernment, for the trappings of a monarchy might | And thou the third subsistence of divine infinitude set up an ordinary commonwealth. But then his illumining Spirit, the joy and solace of created attachment to Cromwell must be condemned, as things! one tri-personal Godhead! look upon this being neither consistent with his republican prin- thy poor, and almost spent and expiring Church, ciples, nor with his love of liberty. And I know &c." And in his tract of Prelatical Episcopacy no other way of accounting for his conduct, but he endeavours to prove the spuriousness of some by presuming (as I think we may reasonably pre- epistles attributed to Ignatius, because they consume) that he was far from entirely approving of tained in them heresies, one of which heresies is, Cromwell's proceedings, but considered him as the that "he condemns them for ministers of Satan, only person who could rescue the nation from the who say that Christ is God above all." And a tyranny of the Presbyterians, who he saw were little after in the same tract he objects to the auerecting a worse dominion of their own upon the thority of Tertullian, because he went about to ruins of prelatical episcopacy; and of all things "prove an imparity between God the Father, and he dreaded spiritual slavery, and therefore closed God the Son." And in the Paradise Lost we shall with Cromwell and the Independents, as he ex- find nothing upon this head, that is not perfectly pected under them greater liberty of conscience. agreeable to Scripture. The learned Dr. Trap, And though he served Cromwell, yet it must be who was as likely to cry out upon heresy as any said for him, that he served a great master, and man, asserts that the poem is orthodox in every served him ably, and was not wanting from time part of it; or otherwise he would not have been at to time in giving him excellent good advice, espe- the pains of translating it. Neque alienum videtur cially in his second Defence: and so little being a studiis viri theologi poema magna ex parte theo said of him in ali Secretary Thurloe's state-papers, logicum; omni ex parte (rideant, per me licet, atque it appears that he had no great share in the secrets ringantur athei et infideles) orthodoxum. Milton and intrigues of government: what he despatched was indeed a dissenter from the Church of Engwas little more than matters of necessary form, land, in which he had been educated, and was by lette and answers to foreign states; and he may his parents designed for holy orders, as we related be justified for acting in such a station, upon the before; but he was led away by early prejudices same principle as Sir Matthew Hale, for holding against the doctrine and discipline of the Church

and his younger years was a favourer of the ton's genius are seldom expert in money matters. Presbyterians; in his middle age he was best And in the fire of London his house in Breaupleased with the Independents and Anabaptists, as street was burnt, before which accident, foreigners allowing greater liberty of conscience than others, have gone, out of devotion, (says Wood) to see the and coming nearest in his opinion to the primitive house and chamber where he was born. His gains practice; and in the latter part of his life he was were inconsiderable in proportion to his losses; for not a professed member of any particular sect of excepting the thousand pounds, which were given Christians, he frequented no public worship, nor him by the government for writing his Defence of used any religious rite in his family. Whether so the people against Salmasius, we may conclude many different forms of worship as he had seen, that he got very little by the copies of his works, nad made him indifferent to all forms; or whether when it does not appear that he received any more he thought that all Christians had in some things than ten pounds for Paradise Lost. Some time corrupted the purity and simplicity of the Gospel; before he died he sold the greatest part of his lior whether he disliked their endless and uncharita-brary, as his heirs were not qualified to make a ble disputes, and that love of dominion and inclination to persecution, which he said was a piece of popery inseparable from all churches; or whether he believed, that a man might be a good Christian without joining in any communion; or whether he did not look upon himself as inspired, as wrapt up in God, and above all forms and ceremonies, it is not easy to determine: to his own master he standct or falleth: but if he was of any denomination, he was a sort of a Quietist, and was full of the interior of religion though he so little regarded the exterior; and it is certain was to the last an enthusiast rather than an infidel. As enthusiasm made Norris a poet, so poetry might make Milton an enthusiast.

proper use of it, and as he thought that he could dispose of it to greater advantage than they could after his decease. And finally, by one means or other, he died worth one thousand five hundred pounds, besides his household goods, which was no incompetent substance for him, who was as great a philosopher as a poet.

To this account of Milton it may be proper to add something concerning his family. We said before, that he had a younger brother and a sister. His brother, Christopher Milton, was a man of totally opposite principles; was a strong royalist, and after the civil war made his composition through his brother's interest; had been entered young a student in the Inner Temple, of which His circumstances were never very mean, nor house he lived to be an ancient bencher; and bevery great; for he lived above want, and was not ing a professed papist, was, in the reign of James intent upon accumulating wealth; his ambition II, made a judge, and knighted; but soon obtained was more to enrich and adorn his mind. His fa- his quietus by reason of his age and infirmities, ther supported him in his travels, and for some and retired to Ipswich, where he lived all the lattime after. Then his pupils must have been of ter part of his life. His sister, Anne Milton, had some advantage to him, and brought him either a a considerable fortune given her by her father in certain stipend, or considerable presents at least; marriage with Mr. Edward Philips, (son of Mr. and he had scarcely any other method of improv- Edward Philips, of Shrewsbury,) who, coming ing his fortune, as he was of no profession. When young to London, was bred up in the Crown Ofhis father died, he inherited an elder son's share of fice in Chancery, and at length became secondary his estate, the principal part of which, I believe, of the office under Mr. Bembo. By him she had, was his house in Bread-street: And not long after, besides other children who died infants, two sons, he was appointed Latin Secretary, with a salary Edward and John, whom we have had frequent of two hundred pounds a year; so that he was now occasion to mention before. Among our author's in opulent circumstances for a man who had al- juvenile poems there is a copy of verses on the death ways led a frugal and temperate life, and was at of a fair infant, a nephew, or rather niece of his, little unnecessary expense besides buying of books. dying of a cough; and this being written in his Though he was of the victorious party, yet he was seventeenth year, as it is said in the title, it may far from sharing in the spoils of his country. On naturally be inferred that Mrs. Philips was elder the contrary, (as we learn from his second De- than either of her brothers. She had likewise two fence) he sustained greater losses during the civil daughters, Mary, who died very young, and Anne, war, and was not at all favoured in the imposition who was living in 1694, by a second husband, Mr. of taxes, but sometimes paid beyond his due pro- Thomas Agar, who succeeded his intimate friend portion. And upon a turn of affairs he was not Mr. Philips in his place in the Crown Office, which only deprived of his place, but also lost two thou- he enjoyed many years, and left to Mr. Thomas sand pounds, which he had, for security and im- Milton, son of Sir Christopher before mentioned. provement, put into the Excise Office. He lost, As for Milton himself he appears to have been no likewise, another considerable sum for want of enemy to the fair sex by having had three wives proper care and management, as persons of Mil-What fortune he had with any of the uas no where

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