Mr. Addison made her a handsome present of a purse of guineas with a promise of procuring for her fome annual provision for her life; but his death happening foon after, fhe loft the benefit of his generous defign. She received prefents likewise from several other gentlemen, and Queen Caroline fent her fifty pounds by the hands of Dr. Friend the Physician. 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 East Indies, where he married, and had two fons, Abraham and Isaac; 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 feven children who are all dead; and she herself is aged about fixty, and weak and infirm. She feemeth to be a good plain sensible woman, and has confirmed feveral particulars related above, and informed me of fome others, which she had often heard from her mother: that her grandfather loft two thoufand pounds by a money fcrivener, whom he had intrusted with that fum, and likewise 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 loved to have of the best: that he seldom went abroad in the latter part of his life, but was visited even then by persons of distinction, 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 greatest favorite, and could read in feven or eight languages, tho' fhe underftood none but English: 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 fhe herself, fhe fays, has not been able to read a chapter in the Bible these twenty years: that he 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 consumption; 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 on his deceased wife plainly implies that she did die in childbed. She knows nothing of her aunt Philips or Agar's defcendents, but believes that they are all extinct: as is likewise Sir Christopher Milton's family, the last of which, she says, were two maiden fifters, Mrs. Mary and Mrs. Catharine Milton, who lived and died at Highgate; but unknown to her, there is a Mrs. Milton living in Grosvenor street, the grandaughter of Sir Christopher, and the daughter of Mr. Thomas Milton before mentioned: and fhe herself is the only survivor of Milton's own family, unless there be some in the Eaft Indies, which fhe very much queftions, for she used to hear from them fometimes, but has heard nothing now for several years; fo that in all probability Milton's whole family will be extinct 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 an everlasting 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 Holloway in the road between Highgate and London, and at present in Cock Lane not far from Shoreditch Church. Another

thing let me mention, that is equally to the honor of the present age. Tho' Milton received not above ten pounds at two different payments for the copy of Paradise Loft, yet Mr. Hoyle author of the treatife on the Game of Whist, after having disposed 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 manuscripts 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 there being two draughts of this letter with feveral alterations and additions, it appears to have been written with great care and deliberation; and both the draughts have been published by Mr. Birch in his Hiftorical and Critical Account of the life and writings of Milton. There are alfo feveral of his poems, Arcades, At a folemn mufic, On time, Upon the circumcifion, the Mask, Lycidas, with five or fix of his sonnets, all in his own hand writing: and there are fome others of his fonnets written by different hands, being most of them composed after he had loft his fight. It is curious to see the first thoughts and subsequent corrections of fo great a poet as Milton: but it is remarkable in these manuscript poems, that he doth not often make his stops, or begin his lines with great letters. There are likewise in his own hand writing different plans of Paradise Loft in the form of a tragedy: and it is an agreeable amusement to trace the gradual progrefs and improvement of fuch a work from its firft dawnings in the plan of a tragedy to its full luftre in an epic poem. And together with the plans of Paradise Loft there are the plans or fubjects of feveral other intended tragedies, fome taken from

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the Scripture, others from the British or Scottish histories: and of the latter the last mentioned is Macbeth, as if he had an inclination to try his ftrength with Shakespear; and to reduce the play more to the unities he proposes beginning at the arrival of Malcolm at Macduff; the matter of Duncan may be expreffed by the appearing "of his ghost." These manuscripts of Milton were found by the learned Mr. Profeffor Mafon among fome other old papers, which, he says, belonged to Sir Henry Newton Puckering, who was a confiderable benefactor to the library: and for the better preservation of such truly valuable reliques, they were collected together, and handfomely bound in a thin folio by the care and at the charge of a person, who is now very eminent in his profeffion, and was always a lover of the Muses, and at that time a fellow of Trinity College, Mr. Clarke, one of his Majesty's

counsel.

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