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 D 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. Quæque colunt summi lucida regna poli: Et tamen hæc hodiè terra Britanna legit. Et quæ cœlestes pugna deceret agros! Et flammæ vibrant, et vera tonitrua rauco Et quos fama recens vel celebravit anus. ON PARADISE LOST. WHEN I beheld the Poet blind, yet bold, Messiah crowned, God's reconciled decree, O'er which lame Faith leads Understanding blind; Or if a work so infinite he spann'd, Thou hast not missed one thought that could be fit, That majesty, which through thy work doth Draws the devout, deterring the profane: Where could'st thou words of such a compass find? Whence furnish such a vast expense of mind? Well might'st thou scorn thy readers to allus And, like a pack-horse, tires without his bells: 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, EPIGRAM ON MILTON. BY DRYDEN. THREF Poets, in three distant ages born, 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 Shames the mean pensions of Augustan times; BUT MILTON next, with high and haughty stalks, And rising ages hasten to be just. At length our mighty Bard's victorious lays How does the chariot rattle in his lines! What sound of brazen wheels, with thunder, scare ADDRESS TO GREAT BRITAIN. FROM THOMSON'S SUMMER. -For lofty sense, Of blowing Eden fair; as Heaven sublime' He sees, FROM GRAY'S PROGRESS OF POESY. NOR Second HE that rode sublime He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time FROM COLLINS'S ODE ON THE POETICAL HIGH on some cliff, to Heaven up-piled, On which that ancient trump he reached was Thither oft his glory greeting, From Waller's myrtle-shades retreating, FROM MASON'S ODE TO MEMORY. How, when 'depress'd by age, beset with wrongs;' When Darkness, brooding on thy sight, 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 ADDRESSED TO CHRISTOPHER ANSTEY, ESQ. POET of other times! to thee I bow FROM COWPER'S TABLE TALK. FROM What friends were thine, save Memory and the THE SAME AUTHOR'S TASK, B. III Muse? Hence the rich spoils thy studious youth -PHILOSOPHY, baptized In the pure fountain of eternal love, Has eyes indeed; and, viewing all she sees |