14486.17.15 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY LIONEL DE JERSEY HARVARD May 10, 1926 W. WILSON, Printer, 4, Greville-Street, Hatton-Garden, London. LIFE OF JOHN MILTON. FROM a family and town of his name in Oxfordshire, our author derived his descent; but he was born at London in the year 1608. The publisher of his works in prose (on whose veracity some part of this narrative must entirely depend) dates his birth two years earlier than this: but contradicting himself afterwards in his own computation, I reduce it to the time that Monsieur Bayle hath assigned; and for the same reason which prevailed with him to assign it. His father, John Milton, by profession a scrivener, lived in a reputable manner on a competent estate, entirely his own acquisition; having been early disinherited by his parents for renouncing the communion of the church of Rome, to which they were zealously devoted. By his wife, Sarah Caston, he had likewise one daughter, named Anna; and another son, Christopher, whom he trained to the practice of the common law; who in the civil wars adhered to the royal cause: and in the reign of King James II. by too easy a compliance with the doctrines of the court, both religious and civil, he attained to the dignity of being made a Judge of the Common Pleas ; of which he died divested not long after the Revolution. But JOHN, the subject of the present essay, was the favourite of his father's hopes; who to cultivate the great genius which early displayed itself, was at the expence of a domestic tutor; whose care and capacity his pupil hath gratefully celebrated in an excellent Latin elegy. At his initiation An. Etat. 12. he is said to have applied himself to letters with such indefatigable industry, that he rarely was prevailed with to quit his studies before midnight which not only made him frequently subject to severe pains in his head, but likewise occasioned that weakness in his eyes, which terminated in a total privation of sight. From a domestic education he was removed to St. Paul's School, to complete his acquaintance with the classics, under the care of Dr. Gill and after a short stay there, was transplanted to Christ College in Cam An. Etat. 15. bridge, where he distinguished himself in all kinds of academical exercise. Of this society he continued a member till he commenced Master of Arts; and then leaving the University, he returned to his father, who had quitted the town, and lived at Horton in Buckinghamshire; where he pursued his studies with unparalleled assiduity and success. An. Ætat. 23. An. Ætat. 30. After some years spent in this studious retirement, his mother died; and then he prevailed with his father to gratify an inclination he had long entertained of seeing foreign countries. Sir Henry Wotton, at that time Provost of Eton College, gave him a letter of advice for the direction of his travels: but, by not observing an excellent maxim* in it, he incurred great danger, by disputing against the superstition of the Church of Rome, within the verge of the Vatican. Having employed his curiosity about two years in France and Italy, on the news of a civil war breaking out in England, ne returned; without taking a survey of Greece and * I pensieri stretti, ed il viso sciolto. Et jam bis viridi surgebat culmus aristâ Epitaph. Dam. Sicily, as at his setting out the scheme was projected. At* Paris the Lord Viscount Scudamore, Ambassador from King Charles I. at the Court of France, introduced him to the acquaintance of Grotius, who at that time was honoured with the same character there by Christina Queen of Sweden. In Rome, Genoa, Florence, and other cities of Italy, he contracted a familiarity with those who were of highest reputation for wit and learning; several of whom gave him very obliging testimonies of their friendship and esteem, which are printed before his Latin poems. The first of them was written by Manso Marquis of Villa, a great patron of Tasso, by whom he is celebrated in his Poem on the Conquest of Jerusalem†. It is highly probable that to his conversation with this noble Neapolitan we owe the first design which Milton conceived of writing an Epic Poem: and it appears by some Latin verses addressed to the Marquis with the title of Mansus, that he intended to fix on King Arthur for his hero; but Arthur was reserved to another destiny. Returning from his travels he found England on * Defensio Secunda. Pag. 96. fol. |