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said, but they were gentlemen's daughters; and it sent abroad to learn things more proper for them, is remarkable that he married them all maidens, and particularly embroidery in gold and silver for (as he says in his Apology for Smectymnuus, As Milton at his death left his affairs very much which was written before he married at all) he in the power of his widow, though she cknow"thought with them, who both in prudence and ledged that he died worth one thousand five hunelegance of spirit would choose a virgin of mean dred pounds, yet she allowed but one hundred fortunes, honestly bred, before the wealthiest pounds to each of his three daughters. Anne, widow." But yet he seemeth not to have been the eldest, was decrepit and deformed, but had a very happy in any of his marriages; for his first very handsome face; she married a master-builder, wife had justly offended him by her long absence and died in childbed of her first child, who died and separation from him; the second, whose love, with her. Mary, the second, lived and died single. sweetness, and goodness he commends, lived not a Deborah, the youngest, in her father's life time twelvemonth with him; and his third wife is said went over to Ireland with a lady, and afterwards to have been a woman of a most violent spirit, and was married to Mr. Abraham Clarke, a weaver in a hard mother-in-law to his children. She died Spittle Fields, and died in August, 1727, in the very old, at Nantwich, in Cheshire: and from the seventy sixth year of her age. She is said to have accounts of those who had seen her, I have learn-been a woman of good understanding, and genteel ed, that she confirmed several things which have behaviour, though in low circumstances. As she been related before; and particularly that her hus- had been often called upon to read Homer and band used to compose poetry chiefly in winter, and Ovid's Metamorphoses to her father, she could on his waking in a morning would make her write have repeated a considerable number of verses from down sometimes twenty or thirty verses; and be the beginning of both those poets, as Mr. Ward, ing asked whether he did not often read Homer Professor of Rhetoric in Gresham College, relates and Virgil, she understood it as an imputation upon his own knowledge; and another gentleman upon him for stealing from those authors, and an- has informed me, that he has heard her repeat seswered with eagerness, that he stole from no body veral verses likewise out of Euripides. Mr. Adbut the Muse who inspired him; and being asked dison, and the other gentlemen, who had opporby a lady present who the Muse was, replied, it tunities of seeing her, knew her immediately to be was God's grace, and the Holy Spirit that visited Milton's daughter, by the similitude of her counhim nightly. She was likewise asked whom he tenance to her father's picture: and Mr. Addison approved most of our English poets, and answered, made her a handsome present of a purse of guineas Spenser, Shakspeare, and Cowley: and being with a promise of procuring for her some annual asked what he thought of Dryden, she said Dry-provision for her life; but his death happening den used sometimes to visit him, but he thought soon after, she lost the benefit of this generous dehim no poet, but a good rhymist: but this was be- sign. She received presents likewise from several fore Dryden had composed his best poems, which other gentlemen, and Queen Caroline sent her made his name so famous afterwards. She was fifty pounds by the hands of Dr. Friend, the phywont, moreover, to say, that her husband was ap- sician. She had ten children, seven sons and three plied to by message from the King, and invited to daughters; but none of them had any children, write for the Court, but his answer was, that such except one of her sons named Caleb, and one of a behaviour would be very inconsistent with his her daughters named Elizabeth. Caleb went to former conduct, for he had never yet employed his Fort St. George, in the East Indies, where he marpen against his conscience. By his first wife he ried, and had two sons, Abraham and Isaac; the had four children, a son, who died an infant, and elder of whom came to England with the late gov three daughters, who survived him; by his second ernor Harrison, but returned upon advice of his wife he had only one daughter, who died soon after father's death, and whether he or his brother be her mother, who died in childbed; and by his last now living is uncertain. Elizabeth, the youngest wife he had no children at all. His daughters were child of Mrs. Clarke, was married to Mr. Thomas not sent to school, but were instructed by a mis- Foster, a weaver in Spittle Fields, and had seven tress kept at home for that purpose: and he him- children who are all dead; and she herself is aged self, excusing the eldest on account of an impedi- about sixty, and weak and infirm. She seems to ment in her speech, taught the two others to read be a good, plain, sensible woman, and has conand pronounce Greek and Latin, and several other firmed several particulars related above, and inlanguages, without understanding any but Eng-formed me of some others, which she had often lish, for he used to say that one tongue was enough heard from her mother: and her granfather lost for a woman: but this employment was very irk-two thousand pounds by a money-scrivener, whom some to them, and this, together with the sharp- he had intrusted with that sum, and likewise ness and severity of their mother-in-law, made them an estate at Westminster of sixty pounds a year, very uneasy at home; and therefore they were all which belonged to the Dean and Chapter, and

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was restored to them at the Restoration: that he tise on the Game of Whist, after having disposed was very temperate in his eating and drinking, but of all the first impression, sold the copy to the what he had he always loved to have of the best: bookseller, as I have been informed, for two hun that he seldom went abroad in the latter part of his dred guineas. life, but was visited even then by persons of distinction, both foreigners and others: that he kept his As we have had occasion to mention more than daughters at a great distance, and would not allow once Milton's manuscripts preserved in the library them to learn to write, which he thought unnecessary of Trinity College in Cambridge, it may not be for a woman: that her mother was his greatest fa- ungrateful to the reader, if we give a more parti vourite, and could read in seven or eight languages, cular account of them, before we conclude. There though she understood none but English: that her are, as we said, two draughts of a letter to a friend mother inherited his headachs and disorders, and who had importuned him to take orders, together. had such a weakness in her eyes, that she was with a sonnet on his being arrived to the age of forced to make use of spectacles from the age of twenty-three; and by there being two draughts of eighteen; and she herself, she says, has not been this letter with several alterations and additions, able to read a chapter in the Bible these twenty it appears to have been written with great care years: that she was mistaken in informing Mr. and deliberation; and both the draughts have been Birch, which he had printed upon her authority, published by Mr. Birch in his Historical and Crithat Milton's father was born in France; and a tical Account of the life and writings of Milton. brother of hers who was then living was very angry There are also several of his poems, Arcades, At with her for it, and, like a true born Englishman, a solemn music, On time, Upon the circumcision, resented it highly, that the family should be thought the Mask, Lycidas, with five or six of his sonnets, to bear any relation to France: that Milton's se- all in his own hand writing: and there are some cond wife did not die in childbed, as Mr. Philips others of his sonnets written by different hands, and Toland relate, but above three months after being most of them composed after he had lost his of a consumption; and this too Mr. Birch relates sight. It is curious to see the first thoughts and upon her authority; but in this particular she subsequent corrections of so great a poet as Milmust be mistaken, as well as in the other, for our ton: but it is remarkable in these ma..uscript poems author's sonnet on his deceased wife plainly implies that he does not often make his stops, or begin that she did die in childbed. She knows nothing his lines with great letters. There are likewise of her aunt Philips or Agar's descendants, but be- in his own hand-writing different plans of Paralieves that they are all extinct: as is likewise Sir dise Lost in the form of a tragedy: and it is an Christopher Milton's family, the last of which, she agreeable amusement to trace the gradual progress says, were two maiden sisters, Mrs. Mary and Mrs. and improvement of such a work from its first Catharine Milton, who lived and died at Highgate; dawnings in the plan of a tragedy to its full lustre but unknown to her there is a Mrs. Milton living in an epic poem. And together with the plans in Grosvenor-street, the grand-daughter of Sir of Paradise Lost there are the plans or subjects of Christopher, and the daughter of Mr. Thomas several other intended tragedies, some taken from Milton before mentioned: and she herself is the the Scripture, others from the British or Scottish only survivor of Milton's own family, unless there histories: and of the latter the last mentioned is be some in the East Indies, which she very much Macbeth, as if is he had an inclination to try his questions, for she used to hear from them some- strength with Shakspeare; and to reduce the play times, but has heard nothing now for several years; more to the unities he proposes, "beginning at the so that, in all probability, Milton's whole family arrival of Malcolm at Macduff; the matter of will be extinct with her, and he can live only in Duncan may be expressed by the appearing of his his writings. And such is the caprice of fortune, ghost." These manuscripts of Milton were found this grand-daughter of a man, who will be an ever- by the learned Mr. Professor Mason among some lasting glory to the nation, has now for some years other old papers, which, he says, belonged to Sir with her husband kept a little chandler's or gro- Henry Newton Puckering, who was a considera. cer's shop for their subsistence, lately at the lower ble benefactor to the library: and for the better Holloway, in the road between Highgate and preservation of such truly valuable relics, they were London, and at present in Cock Lane, not far collected together, and handsomely bound in a thin from Shoreditch Church. Another thing let me folio by the care and at the charge of a person, mention, that is equally to the honour of the pre- who is now very eminent in his profession, and sent age. Though Milton received not above ten was always a lover of the Muses, and at that time pounds, at two different payments, for the copy of a fellow of Trinity College, Mr. Clarke, one of his Paradise Lost, yet Mr. Hoyle, author of the trea- Majesty's council.

Encomiums upon Milton.

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Quæque colunt summi lucida regna poli:
Et quodcunque ullis conclusum est finibus usquam,
Et sine fine Chaos, et sine fine Deus;
Et sine fine magis, si quid magis est sine fine,
In Christo erga homines conciliatus amor.
Hæc qui speraret quis crederet esse futurum?

Et tamen hæc hodiè terra Britanna legit.
O quantos in bella duces! quæ protulit arma!
Quæ canit, et quantâ prælia dira tubâ!
Cœlestes acies! atque in certamine cœlum!

Et quæ cœlestes pugna deceret agros!
Quantus in æthereis tollit se Lucifer armis!
Atque ipso graditur vix Michaële minor!
Quantis, et quàm funestis concurritur iris,
Dum ferus hic stellas protegit, ille rapit!
Dum vulsos montes ceu tela reciproca torquent,
Et non mortali desuper igne pluunt:
Stat dubius cui se parti concedat Olympus,
Et metuit pugnæ non superesse suæ.
At simul in cœlis Messiæ insignia fulgent,
Et currus animes, armȧque digna Deo,
Horrendúmque rotæ strident, et sæva rotarum
Erumpunt torvis fulgura luminibus,

Et flammæ vibrant, et vera tonitrua rauco
Admistis flammis insonuere polo:
Excidit attonitis mens omnis, et impetus omnis,
Et cassis dextris irrita tela cadunt;
Ad pœnas fugiunt; et, ceu foret Orcus asylum,
Infernis certant condere se tenebris.
Cedite, Romani Scriptores; cedite, Graii;

Et quos fama recens vel celebravit anus.
Hæc quicunque leget tantùm cecinisse putabit
Mæonidem ranas, Virgilium culices.

ON PARADISE LOST.
BY ANDREW MARVELL.

WHEN I beheld the Poet blind, yet bold,
In slender book his vast design unfold,

Messiah crowned, God's reconciled decree,
Rebelling angels, the forbidden tree,
Heaven, Hell, Earth, Chaos, all; the argument
Held me awhile misdoubting his intent,
That he would ruin (for I saw him strong)
The sacred truths to fable and old song;
(So Samson groped the temple's post in spight,,
The world o'erwhelming, to revenge his sight.
Yet, as I read, still growing less severe,
Through that wide field how he his way sh‍uld
I liked his project, the success did fear;

O'er which lame Faith leads Understanding blind;
find,
Lest he'd perplex the things he would explain,
And what was easy he should render vain.

Or if a work so infinite he spann'd,
(Such as disquiet always what is well,
Jealous I was, that some less skilful hand
And, by ill imitating would excel)
Might hence presume the whole creation's day
To change in scenes, and show it in a play
Pardon me, mighty poet, nor despise
My causeless, yet not impious surmise:
But I am now convinced; and none will dare
Within thy labours to pretend a share.

Thou hast not missed one thought that could be fit,
And all that was improper dost omit:
So that no room is here for writers left,
But to detect their ignorance or theft.

That majesty, which through thy work doth
reign,

Draws the devout, deterring the profane:
And things divine thou treat'st of in such state
As them preserves, and thee, inviolate.
At once delight and horror on us seize,
Thou sing'st with so much gravity and ease;
And above human flight dost soar aloft
With plume so strong, so equal, and so soft.
The bird, named from that Paradise you sing,
So never flags, but always keeps on wing.

Where could'st thou words of such a compass find?

Whence furnish such a vast expense of mind?
Just Heaven thee, like Tiresias, to requite,
Rewards with prophecy thy loss of sight.

Well might'st thou scorn thy readers to allus
With tinkling rhyme, of thy own sense secure;
While the Town-Bays writes all the while ard
spells,

And, like a pack-horse, tires without his bells:
Their fancies like our bushy points appear;

The poets tag them, we for fashion wear.

I too, transported by the mode, offend,

And, while I meant to praise thee, must corn

mend:

Thy verse created, like thy theme, sublime,
In number, weight, and measure, needs not rhyme.

EPIGRAM ON MILTON.

BY DRYDEN.

THREF Poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn:
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed;
The next, in majesty; in both the last.
The force of Nature could no farther go:
To make a third she joined the former two.

FROM AN ACCOUNT OF

THE GREATEST ENGLISH POETS.

BY ADDISON.

DR. JOHNSON'S PROLOGUE

TO THE

MASK OF COMUS.

Acted at the Drury-Lane Theatre, April 5, 1750
for the benefit of Milton's grand-daughter.
YE patriot crowds, who burn for England's fame,
Ye nymphs, whose bosoms beat at MILTON's name,
Whose generous zeal, unbought by flattering
rhymes,

Shames the mean pensions of Augustan times;
Immortal patrons of succeeding days,
Attend this prelude of perpetual praise!
Let Wit, condemn'd the feeble war to wage
With close malevolence, or public rage;
Let Study, worn with virtue's fruitless lore,
Behold this Theatre, and grieve no more.
This night, distinguished by your smiles, shall tell,
That never Britain can in vain excel;
The slighted arts futurity shall trust,

BUT MILTON next, with high and haughty stalks, And rising ages hasten to be just.
Unfetter'd, in majestic numbers, walks:
No vulgar hero can his Muse engage,
Nor earth's wide scene confine his hallow'd rage.
See! see! he upward springs, and, towering high,
Spurns the dull province of mortality;
Shakes Heaven's eternal throne with dire alarms,
And sets th' Almighty Thunderer in arms!
Whate'er his pen describes I more than see,
Whilst every verse array'd in majesty,
Bold and sublime, my whole attention draws,
And seems above the critic's nicer laws.
How are you struck with terror and delight,
When angel with archangel copes in fight!
When great Messiah's outspread banner shines,

At length our mighty Bard's victorious lays
Fill the loud voice of universal praise;
And baffled Spite, with hopeless anguish dumb,
Yields to renown the centuries to come;
With ardent haste each candidate of fame,
Ambitious, catches at his towering name:

How does the chariot rattle in his lines!

What sound of brazen wheels, with thunder, scare
And stun the reader with the din of war!
With fear my spirits and my blood retire,
To see the seraphs sunk in clouds of fire:
But when, with eager steps, from hence I rise,
And view the first gay scene of Paradise;
What tongue, what words of rapture, can express
A vision so profuse of pleasantness!

ADDRESS TO GREAT BRITAIN.

FROM THOMSON'S SUMMER.

-For lofty sense,
Creative fancy, and inspection keen
Through the deep windings of the human heart,
Is not wild Shakspeare thine and Nature's boast?
Is not each great, each amiable, Muse
Of classic ages in thy MILTON met?
A genius universal as his theme;
Astonishing as chaos; as the bloom

Of blowing Eden fair; as Heaven sublime'

He sees,
and pitying sees, vain wealth bestow
Those pageant honours which he scorned below,
While crowds aloft the laureat bust behold,
Or trace his form on circulating gold.
Unknown,-unheeded, long his offspring lay,
And want hung threatening o'er her slow decay.
What though she shine with no Miltonian fire,
No favouring Muse her morning-dreams inspire,
Yet softer claims the melting heart engage,
Her youth laborious, and her blameless age;
Hers the mild merits of domestic life,
The patient sufferer, and the faithful wife.
Thus graced with humble Virtue's native charma,
Her grandsire leaves her in Britannia's arms;
Secure with peace, with competence, to dwell,
While tutelary nations guard her cell.
Yours is the charge, ye fair, ye wise, ye brave!
'Tis yours to crown desert-beyond the grave.

FROM

GRAY'S PROGRESS OF POESY.

NOR Second HE that rode sublime
Upon the seraph-wings of ecstasy;
The secrets of th' abyss to spy,

He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time
The living throne, the sapphire blaze,
Where angels tremble while they gaze,
He saw; but, blasted with excess of light.
Closed his eyes in endless night

FROM

COLLINS'S ODE ON THE POETICAL
CHARACTER.

HIGH on some cliff, to Heaven up-piled,
Of rude access, of prospect wild,
Where, tangled round the jealous steep,
Strange shades o'erbrow the vallies deep,
And holy Genii guard the rock,
Its glooms embrown, its springs unlock,
While on its rich ambitious head
An Eden, like his own, lies spread;
I view that oak the fancied glades among,
By which as MILTON lay, his evening ear,
From many a cloud that dropp'd ethereal dew,,
Nigh sphered in Heaven, its native strains (ould
hear,

On which that ancient trump he reached was
hung;

Thither oft his glory greeting,

From Waller's myrtle-shades retreating,
With many a vow from Hope's aspiring tongue,
My trembling feet his guiding steps pursue;
In vain: Such bliss to one alone
Of all the sons of Soul was known;
And Heaven and Fancy, kindred powers,
Have now o'erturn'd th' inspiring bowers,
Or curtain'd close such scene from every future
view.

FROM

MASON'S ODE TO MEMORY.
RISE, hallow'd MILTON! rise, and say,
How, at thy gloomy close of day;

How, when 'depress'd by age, beset with wrongs;'
When fall'n on evil days and evil tongues:'

When Darkness, brooding on thy sight,
Exil'd the sovereign lamp of light:

Say, what could then one cheering hope diffuse?

When God in Eden, o'er her youthful breast Spread with his own right hand Perfection's gor geous vest.

FROM

DR. ROBERTS' EPISTLE ON THE
ENGLISH POETS.

ADDRESSED TO CHRISTOPHER ANSTEY, ESQ.

POET of other times! to thee I bow
With lowliest reverence. Oft thou tak'st my soul,
And waft'st it by thy potent harmony
Caught the soft warblings of a seraph's harp,
To that empyreal mansion, where thine ear
What time the nightly visitant unlock'd
The gates of Heaven, and to thy mental sight
Display'd celestial scenes. She from thy lyre
With indignation tore the tinkling bells,
And turn'd it to sublimest argument.

FROM

COWPER'S TABLE TALK.
AGES elaps'd ere Homer's lamp appear'd,
And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard:
To carry Nature lengths unknown before,
And give a MILTON birth, ask'd ages more.
Thus Genius rose and set at order'd times,
And shot a day-spring into distant climes,
Ennobling every region that he chose;
He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose;
And tedious years of gothic darkness pass'd,
Emerg'd all splendour in our isle at last.
Thus lovely halcyons dive into the main,
Then show far off their shining plumes again.

FROM

What friends were thine, save Memory and the THE SAME AUTHOR'S TASK, B. III

Muse?

Hence the rich spoils thy studious youth
Caught from the stores of ancient Truth;
Hence all thy busy eye could pleas'd explore,
When Rapture led thee to the Latian shore;
Each scene that Tiber's bank supplied;
Each grace, that play'd on Arno's side;
'The tepid gales, through Tuscan glades that fly;
The blue serene, that spreads Hesperia's sky;
Were still thine own: thy ample mind
Each charm receiv'd, retain'd, combin'd.
And thence the nightly visitant that came
To touch thy bosom with her sacred flame,
Recall'd the long-lost beams of grace;
That whilom shot from Nature's face,

-PHILOSOPHY, baptized

In the pure fountain of eternal love,

Has eyes indeed; and, viewing all she sees
As meant to indicate a GOD to man,
Gives Him his praise, and forfeits not her own.
Learning has borne such fruit in other days
On all her branches: Piety has found
Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer
Has flow'd from lips wet with Castalian dews.
Such was thy wisdom, Newton, child-like sage
Sagacious reader of the works of God,
And in his word sagacious. Such too, thine,
MILTON, whose genius had angelic wings,
And fed on manna.-

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