IV. "Grant of Letters of Administration to the widow Elizabeth *. "Die 25to. Februarii 1674. "JOHANNES MILTON. Vicesimo quinto Die Februarii ema- MILTON Relictæ JOHANNIS MILTON nuper Parochia ult. Julii. functi aliter per antedictam ult. Dec. gato, nondum Probato." * The reader will compare these evidences with the printed accounts of Milton's biographers on this subject; who say, that he sold his library before his death, and left his family fifteen hundred pounds, which his widow Elizabeth seized, and only gave one hundred pounds to each of his three daughters. Of this widow, Phillips relates, rather harshly, that she persecuted his children in his life time, and cheated them at his death. Milton had children, who survived him, only by his first wife, the three daughters so after named. Of these, Anne, the first, deformed in stature, but with a handsome face, married a master builder, and died of her first childbirth, with the infant. Mary, the second, died single. Deborah, the third, and the greatest fa vourite of the three, went over to Ireland as companion to a lady in her father's life-time; and afterwards married Abraham Clarke, a weaver in Spital-fields, and died, aged seventy-six, in August 1727. This is the daughter that used to read to her father; and was well known to Richardson, and Professor Ward: a woman of a very cultivated understanding, and not inelegant of manners. She was generously patronised by Addison; and by Queen Caroline, who sent her a present of fifty guineas. She had seven sons and three daughters, of whom only Caleb and Elizabeth are remembered. Caleb migrated to Fort Saint George, where perhaps he died. Elizabeth, the youngest daughter, married Thomas Foster a weaver in Spital-fields, and had seven children, who all died. She is said to have been a plain sensible woman; and kept a petty grocer's or chandler's shop, first at lower Holloway, and afterwards in Cock-lane near Shoreditch church. In April, 1750, Comus was acted for her benefit: Doctor Johnson, who wrote the Prologue, says," she had so little acquaintance with diversion or gaiety, that she did not know what was intended when a benefit was offered her." The profits of the performance were only one hundred and thirty pounds; although Doctor Newton contributed largely, and twenty pounds were given by Jacob Tonson the bookseller. On this trifling augmentation to their small stock, she and her husband removed to Islington, where they both soon died. So much greater is our taste, our charity, and general national liberality, at the distance of forty years, that I will venture to pronounce, that, in the present day, a benefit at one of our theatres for the relief of a poor and an infirm grand-daughter of the author of Comus and Paradise Lost, would have been much more amply and worthily supported. THESE seem to have been the grounds, upon which Milton's Nuncupative Will was pronounced invalid. First, there was wanting what the Civil Law terms a rogatio testium, or a solemn bidding of the persons present, to take notice that the words he was going to deliver were to be his Will. The Civil Law requires the form, to make men's verbal declarations operate as Wills; otherwise, they are presumed to be words of common calling or loose conversation. And the Statute of the twentyninth of Charles the Second [c. iii.] has adopted this rule; as may be seen in the 19th clause of that Statute, usually called the Statute of Frauds, which passed in the year 1676, two years after Milton's death. Secondly, the words, here attested by the three witnesses, are not words delivered at the same time; but one witness speaks to one declaration made at one time, and another to another declaration made at another time. And although the declarations are of similar import, this circumstance will not satisfy the demands of the Law; which requires, that the three witnesses who are to support a Nuncupative Will, must speak to the identical words uttered at one and the same time. There is yet another requisite in Nuncupative Wills, which is not found here; namely, that the words be delivered in the last sickness of a party: whereas the words here attested appear to have been delivered when the party was in a tolerable state of health, at least under no immediate danger of death. On these principles we may presume Sir Leoline Jenkins to have acted in the rejection of Milton's Will: although the three witnesses apparently told the truth in what they deposed. The Judge, deciding against the Will, of course decreed administration of the Intestate's effects to the widow. For an investigation of these papers in the Prerogative Registry, for an explanation of their nature and purport, and of other technical difficulties which they present to one unacquainted with the records and more ancient practice of the prerogative court in testamentary proceedings, I must confess myself indebted to the kind attention and friendship of SIR WILLIAM SCOTT. There are other papers in the Commons belonging to this business: but as they are mere forms of law, as they throw no new light on the cause, and furnish no anecdotes of Milton and his family, they are here omitted. WARTON. To what is said, at the beginning of the preceding note, of Milton's having sold his library, and of his personal property, some additions are requisite; since his daughters in this Will are said, by a servant, woman, as repeating it from Milton, to have made away some of his books, and to have intended selling the rest to the dunghill women; a story of the highest improbability: as if the dunghill women understood a traffick of this kind, as if those who visited Milton should never have heard of such a spoliation, and as if his brother Christopher could have been wholly ignorant of it. What is the evidence of this brother as to these slandered nieces? He says, "that touching his deceased brother's displeasure with them, he only heard him say at the time of declaring his Will, that they were undutiful and unkind to him, not expressing any particulars:" as if Milton would have forborne to particularize the plunder of what had been collected with great expense perhaps as well as taste, and through the instrumentality of those who read to him or conversed with him could still be the solace of age and blindness. Toland indeed notices a diminution of his books made by himself. "Towards the latter part of his life he contracted his library, both because the heirs he left could not make a right use of it, and that he thought he might sell it more to their advantage than they could be able to do themselves." A provident determination, and a very probable account. Whatever might be the sum he left at his death, three receipts bearing the signatures of the three daughters, on each receiving 1007. from their step-mother Elizabeth, were brought before the publick in 1825 at the sale of the books and manuscripts of my friend, the late James Boswell, Esq. of Lincoln's Inn. These payments were made as portions to them of the estate of their father; and were to be vested in rent-charges or annuities for their respective benefit with the approbation of their paternal and maternal uncles, Richard Powell and Sir Christopher Milton. Besides these receipts a copy of the Will of Elizabeth Milton, the poet's widow, together with some legal papers relating to her property, was at the same dispersion of literary curiosities sold. The Will is dated Aug. 27, 1727; and the probate appears to have been granted Oct. 10, 1727, by which her death in that year is established. The profits for the grand-daughter by the performance of Comus appear to have been too highly rated by Mr. Warton; for I was informed by the late Isaac Reed, Esq. that the receipts of the House were only 1477. 14s. 6d. from which the expences deducted were 801. TODD. SECTION VIII. Of Compositions left by Milton in Manuscript, and particularly of his Treatise of Theology lately discovered. To Aubrey we are first indebted for information upon this interesting part of Milton's history. He tells us, that the widow of the poet gave all his papers, among which was the dictionary already noticed, to his nephew; and that she had " a great many letters by her from learned men of his acquaintance, both of England, and beyond sea." But from this nephew, who has told us too so much of his uncle's friends as well as writings, we have derived no information of a correspondence so important. Aubrey also seems to have looked for what is elsewhere unnoticed, of which a discovery indeed would be to literature an acquisition of highest value," Mr. J. Milton's Life, writt by himselfe." a The whole passage in Aubrey is this: "Qu. Mr. Allam, of Edm. Hall. Oxon, of Mr. J. Milton's Life writt by himselfe." |