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accounts of thofe who had feen her, I have learned, that the confirmed feveral things which have been related before; and particularly that her husband ufed to compofe his poetry chiefly in winter, and on his waking in a morning would make her write down fometimes twenty or thirty verfes and being asked whether he did not often read Homer and Virgil, she underflood it as an imputation upon him for ftealing from thofe authors, and anfwered with eagerness he ftole from no body but the Mufe who infpired him; and being afked by a lady prefent who the mufe was, replied it was God's grace, and the Holy Spirit that vifited him nightly. She was likewife afked whom he approved most of our English poets, and answered Spenfer, Shakespear, and Cowley: and being afked what he thought of Dryden, fhe faid Dryden ufed fometimes to visit him, but he thought him no poet, but a good rimift: but this was before Dryden had compofed his beft poems, which made his name fo famous afterwards. She was wont moreover to fay, that her husband was applied to by meffage from the King, and invited to write for the Court, but his anfwer was, that fuch a behaviour would be very inconfiftent with his former conduct, for he had never yet employed his pen against his confcience. By his firft wife he had four children, a fon who died an infant, and three daughters who furvived him; by his fecond wife he had only one daughter, who died foon after her mother, who died in child-bed; and by his laft wife he had no children at all. His daughters were not fent to fchool, but were inftructed by a miftrefs kept at home for that purpose: and he himfelf, excufing the eldeit on account of an impe

diment in her fpeech, taught the two others to read and pronounce Greek and Latin, and feveral other languages, without understanding any but English, for he used to fay that one tongue was enough for a woman but this employment was very irkfome to them, and this together with the sharpness and feverity of their mother in law made them very uneafy at home; and therefore they were all fent abroad to learn things more proper for them, and particularly imbroidery in gold and filver. As Milton at his death left his affairs very much in the power of his widow, tho' fhe acknowledged that he died worth one thoufand five hundred pounds, yet fhe allowed but one hundred pounds to each of his three daughters. Anne the eldest was decrepit and deformed, but had a very handsome face; fhe married a master-builder, and died in childbed of her firft child, who died with her. Mary the fecond lived and died fingle. Deborah the youngest in her father's life time went over to Ireland with a lady, and afterwards was married to Mr. Abraham Clarke, a weaver in Spittle Fields, and died in August 1727 in the 76th year of her age. She is faid to have been a woman of good understanding and genteel behaviour, though in low circumftances. As she had been often called upon to read Homer and Ovid's Metamorphofis to her father, she could have repeated a confiderable number of verfes from the beginning of both those poets, as Mr. Ward Profeffor of Rhetoric in Gresham College, relates upon his own knowledge and another gentleman has informed me, that he has heard her repeat feveral verfes likewife out of Euripides. Mr. Addison, and the other gentlemen, who had opportunities of feeing her,

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knew her immediately to be Milton's daughter by the fimilitude of her countenance to her father's picture: and Mr. Addison made her a handfome present of a purfe of guineas, with a promise of procuring for her fome annual provifion for her life; but his death happening foon after, the loft the benefit of his generous defign. She received prefents likewife from feveral other gentlemen, and Queen Caroline sent her fifty pounds by the hands of Dr. Friend the phyfician. She had ten children, feven fons and three daughters; but none of them had any children, except one of her fons named Caleb, and one of her daughters named Elizabeth. Caleb went to Fort St. George in the Eaft Indies, where he married, and had two fons, Abraham and Ifaac; the elder of whom came to England with the late governor Harrison, but returned upon advice of his father's death, and whether he or his brother be now living is uncertain. Elizabeth, the youngest child of Mrs. Clarke, was married to Mr. Thomas Fofter a weaver in Spittle Fields, and had seven children who are all dead; and the herself is aged about fixty, and weak and infirm. She feemeth to be a good plain fenfible woman, and has confirmed feveral particulars related above, and informed me of fome others, which he had often heard from her mother: that her grandfather loft two thousand pounds by a money-fcrivener, whom he had intrufted with that fum, and likewife an estate at Westminster of fixty pounds a year, which belonged to the Dean and Chapter, and was restored to them at the Restoration: that he was very temperate in his eating and drinking, but what he had he always lo

ved to have of the beft: that he feldom went abroad in the latter part of his life, but was vifited even then by perfons of diftinction, both foreigners and others: that he kept his daughters at a great distance, and would not allow them to learn to write, which he thought unneceffary for a woman: that her mother was his greateft favorite, and could read in feven or eight languages, tho' fhe understood none but Englifh that her mother inherited his head-akes and disorders, and had fuch a weakness in her eyes, that she was forced to make use of spectacles from the age of eighteen; and the herself, the fays, has not been able to read a chapter in the Bible thefe twenty years: that she was mistaken in informing Mr. Birch, what he had printed upon her authority, that Milton's father was born in France; and a brother of hers who was then living was very angry with her for it, and like a true-born Englishman refented it highly, that the family fhould be thought to bear any relation to - France: that Milton's fecond wife did not die in childbed, as Mr. Philips and Toland relate, but above three months after of a confumption; and this too Mr. Birch relates upon her authority; but in this particular she must be mistaken as well as in the other, for our author's fonnet an his deceased wife plainly implies, that he did die in childbed. She knows nothing of her aunt Philips or Agar's defcendents, but believes that they are all extinct: as is likewife Sir Chriftopher Milton's family, the last of which, fhe fays, were two maiden fifters, Mrs. Mary and Mrs. Catharine Milton, who lived and died at High-gate; but unknown to her, there is a Mrs. Milton

Milton living in Grofvenor ftreet, the gran-daughter of Sir Chriftopher, and the daughter of Mr. Thomas Milton before mentioned: and the herself is the only furvivor of Milton's own family, unless there be fome in the East Indies, which fhe very much queftions, for the ufed to hear from them fometimes, but has heard nothing now for feveral years: fo that in all probability Milton's whole family will be extinc with her, and he can live only in his writings. And fuch is the caprice of fortune, this grandaughter of a man, who will be at everlafting glory to the nation, has now for fome years with her husband kept a little chandler's or grocer's fhop for their fubfiftence, lately at the lower Halloway in the road between Highgate and London, and at prefent in Cock Lane not far from Shoreditch Church. Another thing let me mention, that is equally to the honour of the prefent age. Tho' Milton received not above ten pounds at two different payments for the copy of Paradife Loft, yet Mr. Hoyle author of the treatife on the Game of Whift, after having difpofed of all the first impreffion, fold the copy to the bookfeller, as I have been informed, for two hundred guineas.

As we have had occafion to mention more than once Milton's manufcripts preferved in the library of Trinity College in Cambridge, it may not be ungrateful to the reader, if we give a more particular account of them before we conclude. There are, as we faid, two draughts of a letter to a friend who had importuned him to take orders, together with a fonnet on his being arrived to the age of twenty three: and by their being two draughts of this letter with

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