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Deborah, had ten children, the greater number of whom died in early infancy, two only surviving their mother.

Is there any meaning in this series of catastrophes? No doubt the state of medicine and hygiene in the seventeenth century will explain many things. Nevertheless, if we keep in mind the weakness of Milton's mother's eyes, the bad constitution of his eldest daughter, the fact that of the three branches of the family which we know not one was spared, and the rapid extinction of his own descendants in spite of the large number of children, and add to all this the poor constitution of Milton himself, naturally the member of the family concerning whom our information is least defective, it seems to us that the hypothesis of hereditary syphilis is borne out in a very evident manner by all these facts.

Another hypothesis which might explain the large infant mortality is that of hereditary tuberculosis. This hypothesis seems to us infinitely less probable than the other, for it takes no account of Milton's gradual loss of sight and is, therefore, of no use in the solution of our main problem.

We conclude, then, after considering the whole body of available documents, that Milton's blindness was due to retinitis, complicated perhaps by glaucomatous troubles developed from eyestrain as a result of a generally bad state of health, probably attributable to hereditary syphilis.

The impression produced on a physician by the portraits of Milton, with his Olympian brow (frontal prominences very marked) and his long, narrow face, is all in favor of the idea of hereditary syphilis.10

10 See, in particular, the youthful portrait reproduced as the frontispiece of vol. I of the Bohn edition of the Prose Works.

Certain writers have tried to establish a relation between genius and a syphilitic heredity. We shall not go so far. It is sufficient to point out that our hypothesis does not lessen the genius of the poet. It is a matter of general observation that, from the point of view of the intellectual faculties, there are two categories of hereditary syphilitics: some are degenerates, unintelligent or even idiotic; some others, on the contrary, are endowed with a precocious and supernormal intelligence. Milton evidently belonged to this last category. It appears to us, moreover, that Milton's physicians did not deceive him when they warned him against overworking his eyes. It was clearly the excessive effort which he imposed on his eyesight all his life which brought on his blindness. It was above all the intense eyestrain involved in the composition of the Defensio pro populo Anglicano, at a time when he was half blind, that led to his total loss of sight. In all this his physicians were right; and yet, for us, an atmosphere of half-comic pathos surrounds the activity of these physicians when we read what Milton's first biographer, perhaps a physician himself, tells us of their methods and their ideas:

While he was thus employ'd his Eyesight totally faild him; not through any immediat or sudden Judgment, as his Adversaries insultingly affirm'd; but from a weakness which his hard nightly study in his youth had first occasion'd, and which by degrees had for some time before depriv'd him of the use of one Eye: And the Issues and Seatons, made use of to save or retrieve that, were thought by drawing away the Spirits, which should have supply'd the Optic Vessells, to have hasten'd the loss of the other. He was indeed advis'd by his Physitians of the danger, in his condition, attending so great intentness as the work requir'd. But hee, who was resolute in going through with what upon good consideration hee at any time design'd, and to whom the love of Truth and his

Country was dearer than all things, would not for any danger decline thir defense.11

The conclusion of the anonymous biographer is also ours. Knowing with what a miserable physical organism his ancestors had endowed him, we understand Milton better, and our admiration for the energy of his will cannot but be increased as a result of this study. Perhaps we know now why Milton, once he had taken his degrees at the university, remained for six years in his father's house in the country without adopting a profession. Perhaps we know why, in spite of all the ardor of his patriotism and of his Parlimentarian convictions, he did not enter the army but remained at home to educate a few pupils and to battle with his pen during the Civil War. And if our hypotheses are correct, Milton, had he taken care of himself and listened to the advice of his physicians, would have been able to keep his sight several years longer.

Not only did he contend all his life against an organism undermined from birth; not only did he impose on this body the labor and study necessary to the realization of a high spiritual and artistic ambition, and, during more than sixty years, twenty-two of which were years of total blindness, lead by his will alone the life which he wished to lead, so that in the end all his aims were accomplished in spite of the illness which drained his strength; but more than that, placed at a critical moment before a necessary sacrifice, he did not hesitate. He knew that he was the one man in all England in the Parliamentary party who was capable of replying to Salmasius and of vindicating the honor of the Republic; he knew also that in accepting the task he abandoned all hope of preserving his sight. He 11 English Historical Review, XVII (1902), 106.

accepted the task. His heroism was of good alloy, and was not built on illusions: he was not deceived in believing himself capable of replying worthily to Salmasius any more than in thinking that he would lose what remained of his sight. It is because of this that he retains his place among the heroes, whatever may be our opinion of the cause for which he sacrificed himself, and that he continues to deserve our admiration, not only as a great poet, one of the most powerful artists of all time, but also as a great man, one of the strongest wills, the most enlightened consciences that humanity has produced.

APPENDIX B

THE NEW CONCEPTION OF MILTON: A CRITICAL

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BIBLIOGRAPHY 1

COMPLETELY new conception of Milton has been brought forward since 1917. It may be summed up, in the main, by saying that it considers Milton as a Renaissance thinker and artist, and no longer as a Puritan. In the elaboration of this new view two groups have been chiefly at work: an American group, by far the more numerous; and a European group, centering mainly in Germany and starting from the work of Mr. S. B. Liljegren, of the University of Lund, Sweden. The edition of the sonnets published in 1921 by Professor John S. Smart of the University of Glasgow, and my own Pensée de Milton (Paris, 1920) stand outside both of these groups.

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1. EDWARD CHAUNCEY BALDWIN. A note on Paradise Lost IX. In M. L. N., February, 1917, XXXII, 119–21.

1 In 1916 Mr. Elbert N. S. Thompson published his very useful John Milton: topical bibliography (New Haven, Yale University Press). This appendix is an attempt to continue his work down to the present moment (June, 1924). A great part of the material which it contains originally appeared in an article entitled "La conception nouvelle de Milton," which I contributed to the Revue germanique for April-June, 1923 (XIV, 113–41).

2 The Sonnets of Milton, with an introduction and notes, Glasgow, Maclehose, Jackson and Co., 1921. This is a most important work from the biographical point of view. Prof. Smart has in preparation historical work of the highest interest on Milton, and intends "to get Milton completely and resolutely demassonised."

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3 The following abbreviations have been used: J. E. G. P. Journal of English and Germanic Philology; M. L. N. = Modern Language Notes; M. L. R. = Modern Language Review; M. P. Modern Philology; P. M. L. A.= Publications of the Modern Language Association; S. P. Studies in Philology.

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