other sisters, Tabitha and Sarah, are mentioned in the baptismal register, and the death of Sarah only is recorded. Christopher was a royalist, and after his brother's death became a judge. In the rebellion he compounded for his estate, the fine levied upon him being two hundred pounds. He long resided at Ipswich, and in a neighbouring village, and was buried in the porch of St. Nicholas, in March, 1692. He was knighted by James the Second. Philips says of him that he was a person of a modest and quiet temper, preferring justice and virtue before all worldly pleasure and grandeur, but that in the beginning of the reign of James the Second, for his known integrity and ability in law, he was by some persons of quality recommended to the king, and at a call of serjeants received the coif, and the same day was sworn one of the Barons of the exchequer; and soon after made one of the judges of the Common Pleas : but his years and indisposition not well brooking the fatigue of public employment, he continued not long in either of these stations, but, having his Quietus est,' retired to a country life, his study and devotion. This is the person whom Dr. Symmons calls an 'old dotard.' Toland's account of him certainly is less favourable: he says, "that he was of a very superstitious nature, and a man of no parts or ability, and that James, wanting a set of judges that could declare his will to be superior to our legal constitution, appointed him one of the Barons of exchequer.” His sister Anne was married first to a Mr. Philips, and after his death to a Mr. Agar; by her first husband she had two sons, Edward and John, whom Milton educated, who were persons of cleverness and learning, and both of whom were authors. Edward's af

6

fection and respect for his uncle is displayed in every page of his biography. Milton had children only by his first wife; and three daughters, Anne, Mary, and Deborah were the fruits of his marriage.* Anne, though deformed, married, and died in childbed. Mary died single. Deborah, the youngest, married Abraham Clark, a weaver, in Spitalfields, and lived seventy-six years to August, 1727. This is the daughter of whom public mention is made. She could repeat the first lines of Homer, of the Metamorphoses, and some of Euripides, from having often heard them. To her Addison made a present, and queen Caroline sent her a purse of fifty guineas. She is reported to have been the favourite of her father; though, in consequence of a disagreement with her stepmother, three or four years before Milton's death, she left his house and went to reside with a lady named Merian in Ireland. On being shown a portrait which strongly resembled Milton, she exclaimed with transport, 'Tis my father! 'tis my dear father! 51 When she was introduced to Addison, he said, 'Madam, you need no other voucher, your face is a sufficient testimonial whose daughter you are.' 52 She appeared to be

* Dr. Birch transcribed the registry of the birth of Milton's children from his own writing, in a blank leaf of his wife's Bible; his son John was born on Saturday, March 16, 1650. His three daughters each received £100 as their fortune, from their stepmother Elizabeth, and the three receipts bearing their three signatures were sold among the books and manuscripts of James Boswell, Esq. in 1825. See also Mr. Todd's Life, (first ed.) p. 186, note.

51 It was when Faithorne's crayon-drawing was shown to her by Vertue the engraver, that she cried out, Oh Lord! that is the picture of my father! how came you by it?' and stroking down the hair of her forehead, she said, 'just so my father wore his hair.' v. Todd's Milton, (second ed.) p. 237.

52 See Birch's Life, p. lxxvi.; and see a letter from Vertue

a woman of good sense, and genteel behaviour, and to bear the inconveniences of a low fortune with decency and prudence. Milton says, in his will, that he spent the greatest part of his estate in providing for his children in his life time; I presume that he speaks of the expense of their education, and their maintenance on a separate establishment, while learning curious and ingenious sorts of manufacture,58 and embroidering in gold and silver. The story of their surreptitiously selling their father's books during his life, rests on the testimony of a maid-servant alone, whom the biographers are disinclined to believe: but that they were undutiful and unkind children, careless of him when blind, and deserting him in his age, we have unfortunately the authority of Milton himself.54

The last known survivor of the Poet's family was Elizabeth, the daughter of this Deborah Clark,55 who married Thomas Foster, a weaver, in Spitalfields. She kept a small chandler's shop near Shoreditch Church. In 1750, April 5th,

the engraver, to Mr. Christian (Aug. 12, 1721), in Gent. Mag. May, 1831, p. 419.

58 Anne Milton is lame, but hath a trade, and can live by the same, which is the making of gold and silver lace, and which the deceased bred her up to.' Eliz. Fisher's Deposition.

54 See Todd's Life, p. 290. Philips's Life, p. lxvi. ed. Pickering. It appears that his daughters lived quite apart from their father the last four or five years of his life: and that he knew little about them, nor whether they frequented church or not. See Christopher Milton's Deposition, p. 274, ed. Todd.

55 Caleb Clark, her son, was parish clerk of Madras. His children were the last descendants of the Poet, but of them nothing farther is known. Dr. Birch narrates the conversation he held with Mrs. Foster, who told him that Milton's second wife did not die in childbed, as Philips and Toland assert, but about three months after, of a consumption. v. p. lxxvii.

Comus was played for her benefit. The profits of the night were only a hundred and thirty pounds.56 Of this sum, says Johnson, twenty pounds were given by Tonson, a man who is to be praised as often as he is named; one hundred pounds were placed in the funds, the rest augmented their little stock, with which they removed to Islington. Johnson closes his Life of Milton by informing us that he had the honour of contributing the Prologue to the play. Mrs. Foster died, aged 66, in the year 1754.57

It only now remains to give a short account of a Treatise of Theology, bearing the name of Milton, lately discovered. Toland, in his Life of Milton, had informed us that he compiled a system of divinity, but whether intended for public view, or collected merely for his own use, he could not determine; and Aubrey affords further particulars, by mentioning that Milton's Idea Theologiæ was in manuscript in the hands of Mr. Skinner, a merchant's son in Mark Lane. Wood mentions Cyriack Skinner as the depositary of this work, which he calls 'The Body of Divinity,' at that time, or at least lately in the hands of Milton's acquaintance Cyriack Skinner. It is well known that this treatise was discovered with

56 The above account by Dr. Johnson is not quite correct. The receipts of the house were £147. 14s. 6d. from which £80 were deducted for expenses. Such is the statement of Mr. Is. Reed. Some accounts of circumstances that led the public attention towards Milton's granddaughter may be seen in Hollis's Mem. p. 116. An advertisement of Johnson's first suggested some plan of relief.

57 On Thursday last, May 9, 1754, died at Islington, in the 66th year of her age, after a long and painful illness, which she sustained with christian fortitude and patience, Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, granddaughter of Milton. This paragraph from a contemporary newspaper, is preserved in the Memoirs of T. Hollis, v. i. p. 114.

the name of Milton attached to it, by Mr. Lemon, in the State Paper Office, a few years since. It appears, that Mr. Daniel Skinner commenced a correspondence with the celebrated Elzevir the printer at Amsterdam, on the subject of the State Letters, and the Theological Treatise of Milton. Skinner was at that time fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Of the Letters, and of the first one hundred and ninety-six pages of the Treatise, he had been the copyist. He is supposed also to have been one of those whom Milton had daily about him to read to him. On inspection of the manuscript, Elzevir was alarmed at the freedom of the political and theological opinions advanced in it, and declined printing it. Skinner took away the manuscript, which had by this time attracted the attention of the government. Isaac Barrow, then master of Trin. Coll. sent a peremptory order to Skinner to repair immediately to college, and warned him against publishing any writing mischievous to the church and state. It is not known with exactness when Skinner returned to England, but he had an interview with Sir Joseph Williamson, secretary of state; and it is supposed that he delivered up the manuscripts to him. The remainder of the treatise is written in a female hand, the same which transcribed the sonnet,

Methought I saw my late espoused saint,

now among the manuscripts at Cambridge, and this scribe is supposed to have been his daughter Mary or Deborah. This part of the volume is interspersed with interlineations and corrections in a different and unknown hand. The whole treatise reposed on the shelves of the old State Paper Office in Whitehall till the year 1823, when