sion, however, was too tempting to the republican lampooners to be lost, and Suckling had to suffer under the shafts of ridicule fired at him from various directions. It has been said that the vexation Suckling felt because of the discomfiture of his soldiers shortened his days. Indirectly, though not directly, this seems true. This much is certain: Sir John retreated to France, where he met with a sudden death through the villany of the valet who attended him. Dr. Wharton says, "Sir John Suckling was robbed by his valet-de-chambre; the moment he discovered it he clapped on his boots in a passionate hurry, and perceived not a large rusty nail that was concealed at the bottom, which pierced his heel and brought on mortification." There are There are various versions of this story. One says that Sir John was poisoned and the blade of a penknife was stuck in his boot to disable him from pursuing the valet when he discovered that he was robbed of his casket of gold and jewels; another says the blade of a razor was used for this purpose; but all agree that he was robbed, and that death was caused by a wound inflicted upon the sole of the foot by some instrument put into Sir John's boot to prevent his pursuing the valet. There is a full-length portrait of Suckling at Knole, on which an inscription appears, attributing the death-wound to a razor. He died May 7, 1641, aged thirty ment. He was educated at Dumbarton, and from thence proceeded to Glasgow to follow the profession of physic. Medicine was indifferently pursued. Literature and history became his passion. At eighteen he completed a tragedy entitled The Regicide. In 1741 he sailed as surgeon's mate in a ship of the line in the expedition to Carthagena which is described in his Roderic Random. Having quitted the service, he resided for some time in Jamaica, where he fell in love. with Miss Ann Lascelles. On his return to England in 1746 he wrote "The Tears of Scotland," in indignation at the butcheries practised by the duke of Cumberland after Culloden. He then commenced his satires, in which he ridiculed the various managers of theatres with whom he quarrelled. In 1747 he married Miss Lascelles, and the following year, to relieve himself of his pecuniary difficulties, he published Roderic Random; in 1751 it was followed by Peregrine Pickle. In 1755 his translation of Don Quixote appeared, and in 1758 he brought out his History of England, which was entirely written in fourteen months. In 1763 and 1764 he passed some time in France and Italy, and published an account of his travels. On his return he visited Scotland and fixed himself as a resident at Bath, where he set up as a physician-Dr. Smollett. There he wrote a variety of satirical pieces; among others. The Adventures of an Atom, in ridicule of the king's ministers. In 1770 he left England once again for Italy, and composed upon his journey Humphrey Clinker. He took up his residence near Leghorn, but the endeavor to recruit his declining health proved vain. He died at Leghorn, October 21, 1771, aged fifty. author of the Life of Sir Walter Scott and MILTON was born at London in the other valuable contributions to literature, was the son of a minister of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and was educated at Glasgow University, and afterward at Balliol College, Oxford. After a short sojourn in Germany he went to Edinburgh in 1816, intending to practise law at the Scottish bar. He soon, however, became a prominent member of a small band of Scotch writers, whose chief was Wilson. In 1817, on the establishment of Blackwood's Magazine, Lockhart was one of its principal writers. The Toryism of the new periodical and of its writers caused both to become especial favorites with Sir Walter Scott, whose political views were of the same nature. Lockhart in a short time became an intimate friend of the great novelist, who advanced his interests on every occasion. In 1820 he married Sophia, eldest daughter of Scott, and went to reside at Abbotsford. During the succeeding five years he worked with great industry and success in literature. He produced, among others, Valerius, a Roman Story; year 1608. 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. Milton was the favorite of his father's hopes, who, to cultivate the great genius which early displayed itself, was at the expense of a domestic tutor, whose care and capacity his pupil has gratefully celebrated in an excellent Latin elegy. At his initiation he is said to have applied himself to letters with such indefatigable industry that he rarely was prevailed upon to quit his studies hefore 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 Cambridge, where he distinguished himself in all kinds of academical exercises. 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. After some years spent in this studious retirement his mother died, and then he prevailed with his father to gratify an inclinaan 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. Having employed his curiosity about two years in France and Italy, on the news of a civil war breaking out in England he returned without taking a survey of Greece and 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 honored with the same character there by Christiana, queen of Sweden. In Rome, 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. Returning from his travels, he found England on the point of being involved in blood, and confusion. He retired to lodgings provided for him in the city; which being commodious for the reception of his sister's sons and some other young gentlemen, he undertook their education. In this philosophical course he continued without a wife till the year 1643, when he married Mary, the daughter of Richard Powel, of Forest Hill, in Oxfordshire, a gentleman of estate and reputation in that county, and of principles so very opposite to his sonin-law that the marriage is more to be wondered at than the separation which ensued in little more than a month after her residence with him in London. Her desertion provoked him both to write several treatises concerning the doctrine and discipline of divorce and also to pay his addresses to a young lady of great wit and beauty; but before he had engaged her affections to conclude the marriage treaty, in a visit at one of his relations, he found his wife prostrate before him, imploring forgiveness and reconciliation. It is not to be doubted but an interview of that nature, so little expected, must wonderfully affect him, and perhaps the impression it made on his imagination contributed much to the painting of that pathetic scene in Paradise Lost in which Eve addresseth herself to Adam for pardon and peace. At the intercession of his friends who were present, after a short reluctance, he generously sacrificed all his resentment to her tears. his family to protection and free entertainment in his own house till their affairs were accommodated by his interest in the victorious faction. are said to have been very serviceable to him in his studies; for, having been instructed to pronounce not only the modern, but also the Latin, Greek and Hebrew language, they read in their respective originals whatever authors he wanted to consult, though they understood none but their mother-tongue. We come now to take a survey of him in that point of view in which he will be looked upon by all succeeding ages with equal delight and admiration. An interval of about twenty years had elapsed since he wrote the "Mask of Comus," "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso" and "Lycidas," all in such an exquisite strain that, though he had left no other monuments of his genius behind him, his name had been immortal; but neither the infirmities of age and constitution nor the vicissitudes of fortune could depress the vigor of his mind or divert it from executing a design he had long conceived of writing a heroic poem. The fall of man was a subject that he had some years before fixed on for a tragedy which he intended to form the models of antiquity, and some--not with A commission to constitute him adjutantgeneral to Sir William Waller was promised, but soon superseded by Waller's being laid aside when his masters thought it proper to new-model their army. However, the keenness of his pen had so effectually recommended him to Cromwell's esteem that when he took the reins of government into his own hand he advanced him to be Latin secretary, both to himself and the Parliament; the former of these preferments he enjoyed both under the usurper and his son, the other until King Charles II. was restored. For some time he had an apartment for his family at Whitehall, but, his health requiring a freer accession of air, he was obliged to remove thence to lodgings which opened into St. James's Park. Not long after his settlement there his wife died, and much about the time of her death a gutta serena which had for several years been gradually increas-out probability-say the play opened with that ing totally extinguished his sight. In this melancholy condition he was easily prevailed with to think of taking another wife, who was Catharine, the daughter of Captain Woodcock of Hackney, and she too, in less than a year after their marriage, died, and in his twenty-third sonnet he does honor to her memory. Being a second time a widower, he employed his friend Dr. Paget to make choice of a third consort, on whose recommendation he married Elizabeth, the daughter of Mr. Minshul, a Cheshire gentleman, by whom he had no issue. Three daughters by his first wife were then living, the two elder of whom speech in the fourth book of Paradise Lost, line 32, which is addressed by Satan to the sun. Were it material, I believe I could. produce other passages which more plainly appear to have been originally intended for the scene, but, whatever truth there may be in this report, it is certain that he did not begin to mould his subject in the form which it bears now before he had concluded his controversy with Salmasius and More, when he had wholly lost the use of his eyes and was forced to employ, in the office of an amanuensis, any friend who accidentally paid him a visit. Yet, under all these discouragements and various interruptions, in the year 1669 he published his Paradise Lost, the noblest poem (next to those of Homer and Virgil) that ever the wit of man produced in any age or nation. Need I mention any other evidence of its inestimable worth than that the finest geniuses who have succeeded him have ever esteemed it a merit to relish and illustrate its beauties? And now perhaps it may pass for a fiction what with great veracity I affirm to be fact that Milton, after having with much difficulty prevailed to have this divine poem licensed for the press, could sell the copy for no more than fifteen pounds, the payment of which valuable consideration depended upon the sale of three numerous impressions. So unreasonably may personal prejudice affect the most excellent performances ! About two years after, he published Paradise Regained; but oh what a falling off was there! of which I will say no more than that there is scarcely a more remarkable instance of the frailty of human reason than our author gave in preferring this poem to Paradise Lost. And thus, having attended him to the sixty-ninth year of his age as closely as such imperfect lights as men of letters and retirement usually leave to guide our inquiry would allow, it now only remains to be recorded that in the year 1674 the gout put a period to his life at Bunhill, near London, from whence his body was conveyed to St. Giles's church, by Cripplegate, where it lies interred in the chancel, and a neat monument has been erected to his memory. In his youth he is said to have been extremely handsome. The color of his hair was a light brown, the symmetry of his features exact, enlivened with an agree able air, and a beautiful mixture of fair and ruddy. His stature (as we find it measured by himself) did not exceed the middle size, his person neither too lean nor corpulent, his limbs well proportioned, nervous and active, serviceable in all respects to his exercising the sword, in which he much delighted, and wanted neither skill nor courage to resent an affront from men of the most athletic constitutions. In his diet he was abstemious— not delicate in the choice of his dishes, and strong liquors of all kinds were his aversion. His deportment was erect, open, affable; his conversation easy, cheerful, instructive; his wit on all occasions at command, facetious, grave or satirical, as the subject required. His judgment, when disengaged from religious and political speculations, was just and penetrating, his apprehension quick, his memory tenacious of what he read, his reading only not so extensive as his genius, for that was universal. And, having treasured up such immense store of science, perhaps the faculties of his soul grew more vigorous after he was deprived of sight, and his imagination (naturally sublime and enlarged by reading romances, of which he was much enamored in his youth), when it was wholly abstracted from material objects, was more at liberty to make such amazing excursions into the ideal world, when, in composing his divine work, he was tempted to range "Beyond the visible diurnal sphere," With so many accomplishments, not to have had some faults and misfortunes to be laid in the balance with the fame and felicity of writing Paradise Lost would have been too great a portion for humanity. ELIJAH FENTON. |