this Simmons had covenanted to assign the whole is too weil known to be repeated, and those Latin right of copy to Brabazon Aylmer, the bookseller, verses by Dr. Barrow the physician, and the Engfor twenty-five pounds; and Alymer afterwards lish ones by Andrew Marvel, Esq. usually presold it to old Jacob Tonson at two different times, fixed to the Paradise Lost, were written before the one half on the 17th of August, 1683, and the second edition, and were published with it. But other half on the 24th of March, 1690, with a con- still the poem was not generally known and esteemsiderable advance of the price: and except one cd, nor met with the deserved applause, till after fourth of it which has been assigned to several the edition in folio, which was published in 1698 persons, his family have enjoyed the right of copy by subscription. The Duke of Buckingham in ever since. By the last assignment it appears that his Essay on poetry prefers Tasso and Spencer tc the book was growing into repute and rising in Milton: and it is related in the life of the witty valuation; and to what perverseness could it be Earl of Rochester, that he had no notion of a betowing that it was not better received at first? We ter poet than Cowley. In 1686 or thereabout Sir conceive there were principally two reasons; the William Temple published the second part of his prejudices against the author on account of his Miscellanies, and it may surprise any reader, that principles and party; and many, no doubt, were in his Essay on Poetry he takes no notice at all offended with the novelty of a poem that was not of Milton; nay he says expressly that after Ariosin rhyme. Rymer, who was a redoubted critic in to, Tasso, and Spenser, he knows none of the those days, would not so much as allow it to be a Moderns who have made any achievements in poem on this account; and declared war against heroic poetry worth recording. And what can we Milton as well as against Shakspeare; and threat-think, that he had not read or heard of the Paraened that he would write reflections upon the Pa-dise Lost, or that the author's politics had prejuradise Lost, which some (says he*) are pleased to tall a poem, and would assert against the slender phistry wherewith the author attacks it. And such a man as Bishop Burnet makes it a sort of objection to Milton, that he affected to write in blank verse without rhyme. And the same reason induced Dryden to turn the principal parts of Paradise Lost into rhyme in his Opera called the State of Innocence and Fall of Man; to tag his lines, as Milton himself expressed it, alluding to the fashion then of wearing tags of metal at the end of their ribbons.

diced him against his poetry? It was happy that all great men were not of his mind. The bookseller was advised and encouraged to undertake the folio edition by Mr. Sommers, afterwards Lord Sommers, who not only subscribed himself, but was zealous in promoting the subscription: and in the list of subscribers we find some of the most eminent names of that time, as the Earl of Dorset, Waller, Dryden, Dr. Aldrich, Mr. Atterbury, and among the rest Sir Roger Lestrange, though he had formerly written a piece entitled No blind guides, &c. against Milton's Notes upon Dr. GrifWe are told indeed by Mr. Richardson, that Sir fith's sermon. There were two editions more in George Hungerford, an ancient member of Parlia- folio, one I think in 1692, the other in 1695, which ment, told him, that Sir John Denham came into was the sixth edition; for the poem was now so the House one morning with a sheet of Paradise well received, that notwithstanding the price of it Lost wet from the press in his hand; and being was four times greater than before, the sale inasked what he had there, said that he had part of creased double the number every year; as the the noblest poem that ever was written in any bookseller, who should best know, has informed language or in any age. However it is certain us in his dedication of the smaller editions to Lord that the book was unknown till about two years Sommers. Since that time not only various ediafter, when the Earl of Dorset produced it, as Mr. tions have been printed, but also various notes and Richardson was informed by Dr. Tancred Robin- translations. The first person who wrote annotason, the physician, who had heard the story often tions upon Paradise Lost was P. H. or Patrick from Fleetwood Shepherd himself, that the Earl, Hume, of whom we know nothing, unless his in company with Mr. Shepherd, looking about for name may lead us to some knowledge of his counbooks in Little Britain, accidentally met with Pa- try, but he has the merit of being the first (as I say) ralist Lost; and being surprised at some passages who wrote notes upon Paradise Lost, and his notes in dipping here and there, he bought it. The were printed at the end of the folio edition in 1695. bookler begged his Lordship to speak in its fa- Mr. Addison's Spectators upon the subject conyour if he liked it, for the impression lay on his tributed not a little to establishing the character, bonds as waste paper. The Earl having read it and illustrating the beauties of the poem. ent it to Dryden, who in a short time returned it "This man cuts us all out and Dryden's epigram upon Milton

wch this answer, He ancients too." ту

In 1732

appeared Dr. Bentley's new edition with notes. and the year following Dr. Pearce published his Review of the text, in which the chief of Dr. Bentley's emendations are considered, and several other "See Briner's "Tragedies of the last age considered." p. 143. emendations and observations are offered to be

count of those early times: and his style is freer and easier than in most of his other works, more plain and simple, less figurative and metaphorical, and better suited to the nature of history, has enough of the Latin turn and idiom to give it an air of antiquity, and sometimes rises to a surprising dignity and majesty.

public. And the year after that Messieurs Rich-|ginning of the third book, was published, conardson, father and son, published their Explana- taining a character of the Long Parliament an tory notes and remarks. The poem has also been Assembly of Divines in 1641, which was inserted translated into several languages, Latin, Italian, in its proper place in the last edition of 1738. French, and Dutch; and proposals have been made Bishop Kennet begins his Complete History of for translating it into Greek. The Dutch trans-England with this work of Milton, as being the lation is in blank verse, and printed at Harlem. best draught, the clearest and most authentic acThe French have a translation by Mons. Dupré de St. Maur; but nothing shows the weakness and imperfection of their language more, than that they have few or no good poetical versions of the greatest poets; they are forced to translate Homer, Virgil, and Milton into prose: and blank verse their language has not harmony and dignity enough to support; their tragedies, and many of their In 1670 likewise his Paradise Regained and comedies are in rhyme. Rolli, the famous Italian Samson Agonistes were licensed together, but were master here in England, made an Italian transla- not published till the year following. It is some tion; and Mr. Richardson the son, saw another at what remarkable, that these two poems were not Florence in manuscript by the learned Abbé Sal-printed by Simmons, the same who printed the vini, the same who translated Addison's Cato into Paradise Lost, but by J. M. for one Starkey, in Italian. One William Hog or Hogæus translated Fleet street: and what could induce Milton to Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson have recourse to another printer? was it because Agonistes into Latin verse in 1690; but this version is very unworthy of the originals. There is a better translation of the Paradise Lost by Mr. Thomas Power, Fellow of Trinity College, in Cambridge, the first book of which was printed in 1691, and the rest in manuscript is in the library of that College. The learned Dr. Trap has of Paradise Lost at St. Giles Chalfont, as we said also published a translation into Latin verse; and the world is in expectation of another, that will surpass all the rest, by Mr. William Dobson, of New College, in Oxford. So that by one means or other Milton is now considered as an English classic; and the Paradise Lost is generally esteemed the noblest and most sublime of modern poems, and equal at least to the best of the ancient; the honour of this country, and the envy and adiniration of all others!

the former was not enough encouraged by the sale of Paradise Lost to become a purchaser of the other copies? The first thought of Paradise Regained was owing to Elwood the Quaker, as he himself relates the occasion in the history of his life. When Milton had lent him the manuscript

before, and he returned it, Milton asked him how he liked it, and what he thought of it: “Which I modestly, but freely told him, says Elwood; and after some further discourse about it, I pleasantly said to him, Thou hast said much of Paradise Lost, but what hast thou to say of Paradise Found? He made me no answer, but sat some time in a muse; then broke off that discourse, and fell upon another subject." When Elwood afterwards waited upon him in London, Milton showed him his Paradise Regained, and in a pleasant tone said to him, "This is owing to you, for you put it in my head by the question you put me at Chalfont, which before I had not thought of."

In 1670 he published his History of Britain, that part especially now called England. He began it above twenty years before, but was frequently interrupted by other avocations; and he designed to have brought it down to his own times, but stopped It is commonly reported, that Milton himself at the Norman conquest; for indeed he was not preferred this poem to the Paradise Lost; but all well able to pursue it any farther by reason of his that we can assert upon good authority is, that he blindness, and he was engaged in other more de- could not endure to hear this poem cried down so lightful studies; having a genius turned for poetry much as it was, in comparison with the other. rather than history. When his History was print- For certainly it is very worthy of the author, and ed, it was not printed perfect and entire; for the contrary to what Mr. Toland relates, Milton may licenser expunged several passages, which reflect- be seen in Paradise Regained as well as in Paraing upon the pride and superstition of the Monks dise Lost; if it is inferior in poetry, I know not in the Saxon times, were understood as a con- whether it is not superior in sentiment; if it is less realed sacire upon the Bishops in Charles the se- descriptive, it is more argumentative; if it does cond's reign. But the author himself gave a copy not sometimes rise so high, neither does it ever of his unlicensed papers to the Earl of Anglesea, sink so low; and it has not met with the approwho, as well as several of the nobility and gentry, bation it deserves, only because it has not been constantly visited him: and in 1681 a considera-more read and considered. His subject indeed is ble passage, which had been suppressed at the be- confined, and he has a narrow t undation to build

upon; but he has raised as noble a superstructure | Epistolarum Familiarium, Lib. I., et Prolusiones as such little room and such scanty materials quædam Oratoriæ in Collegio Christi habite, were would allow. The great beauty of it is the con- printed in 1674; as was also his translation ou trast between the two characters of the Tempter of Latin into English of the Poles Declaration and our Saviour, the artful sophistry and specious concerning the election of their King John III., insinuations of the one refuted by the strong sense setting forth the virtues and merits of that prince. and manly eloquence of the other. This poem He wrote also a brief History of Muscovy, colLas also been translated into French, together |lected from the relations of several travellers; but with some other pieces of Milton, Lycidas, L'Al- it was not printed till after his death in 1682. He legro, Il Penseroso, and the Ode on Christ's Na- had likewise his state-letters transcribed at the tivity: and in 1732, was printed a Critical Dis- request of the Danish resident, but neither were sertation, with Notes upon Paradise Regained, they printed till after his death in 1676, and were pointing out the beauties of it, and written by translated into English in 1694; and to that transMr. Meadawcourt, Canon of Worcester: and the lation a life of Milton was prefixed by his nephew very learned and ingenious Mr. Jortin has added Mr. Edward Philips, and at the end of that life his some observations upon this work at the end of excellent sonnets to Fairfax, Cromwell, Sir Henry his excellent Remarks upon Spenser, published in Vane, and Cyriac Skinner, on his blindness, were 1734; and indeed this poem of Milton, to be more first printed. Besides these works which were admired, needs only to be better known. His published, he wrote his System of Divinity, which Samson Agonistes is the only tragedy that he has Mr. Toland says was in the hands of his friend finished, though he has sketched out the plans of Cyriac Skinner, but where at present is uncertain. several, and proposed the subjects of more, in his And Mr. Philips says, that he had prepared for manuscript preserved in Trinity College library: the press an answer to some little scribbling quack and we may suppose that he was determined to in London, who had written a scurrilous libel the choice of this particular subject by the simili- against him; but whether by the dissuasion of tude of his own circumstances to those of Samson friends, as thinking him a fellow not worth his blind and among the Philistines. This I conceive notice, or for what other cause, Mr. Philips knew to be the last of his poetical pieces; and it is written not, this answer was never published. And inin the very spirit of the ancients, and equals, if not exceeds, any of the most perfect tragedies, which were ever exhibited on the Athenian stage, when Greece was in its glory. As this work was never intended for the stage, the division into acts and scenes After a life thus spent in study and labours for is omitted. Bishop Atterbury had an intention the public, he died of the gout at his house in of getting Mr. Pope to divide it into acts and Bunhill Row, on or about the 10th of November, scenes, and of having it acted by the king's scho- 1674, when he had within a month completed the lars at Westminster: but his commitment to the sixty-sixth year of his age. It is not known when lower put an end to that design. It has since he was first attacked by the gout, but he was been brought upon the stage in the form of an grievously afflicted with it several of the last years oratorio; and Mr. Handel's music is never em- of his life, and was weakened to such a degree, ployed to greater advantage, than when it is that he died without a groan, and those in the adapted to Milton's words. The great artist has room perceived not when he expired. His body done equal justice to our author's L'Allegro and was decently interred near that of his father, (who Il Penseroso, as if the same spirit possessed both had died very aged about the year 1617.) in the masters, and as if the god of music and of verse Was still one and the same.

deed the best vindicator of him and his writings has been time; posterity has universally paid that honour to his merits, which was denied him by great part of his contemporaries.

chancel of the church of St. Giles's, Cripplegate; and all his great and learned friends in London, There are also some other pieces of Milton, for not without a friendly concourse of the common le continued publishing to the last. In 1672, he people, paid their last respects in attending it to published Artis Logicæ plenior Institutio ad Petri the grave. Mr. Fenton, in his short but elegant Ranú methodum concinnata, an Institution of account of the Life of Milton, speaking of our Logic after the method of Petrus Ramus; and author's having no monument, says that he dethe year following, a Treatise of True Religion and sired a friend to inquire at St. Giles's church; the best means to Prevent the Growth of Popery, where the sexton showed him a small monument, which had greatly increased through the conni- which he said was supposed to be Milton's; but ce of the King, and the more open encourage- the inscription had never been legible since he Erat of the Duke of York; and the same year his was employed in that office, which he has pospes, which had been printed in 1615, were re-sessed about forty years. This sure could never pard with the addition of several others. His have happened in so short a space of time, unless Faar Epistles and some Academical Exercises, the epitaph had been industriously erased: and

that supposition, says Mr. Fenton, carries with it representations which have been made of him. so much inhumanity, that I think we ought to There are two pictures of greater value than the believe it was not erected to his memory." It is rest, as they are undoubted originals, and were in evident that it was not erected to his memory, the possession of Milton's widow: the first was and that the sexton was mistaken. For Mr. To-drawn when he was about twenty-one, and is at land, in his account of the Life of Milton, says, present in the collection of the Right Honourable that he was buried in the chancel of St. Giles's Arthur Onslow, Esq, Speaker of the House of church, where the piety of his admirers will Commons; the other in crayons was drawn when shortly erect a monument becoming his worth and he was about sixty-two, and was in the collection the encouragement of letters in King William's of Mr. Richardson, but has since been purchased reign." This plainly implies that no monument by Mr. Tonson. Several prints have been made was erected to him at that time, and this was writ- from both these pictures; and there is a print, done ten in 1698: and Mr. Fenton's account was first when he was about sixty-two or sixty-three, after published, I think, in 1725; so that not above the life by Faithorn, which though not so handtwenty-sever. years intervened from the one ac- some, may yet perhaps be as true a resemblance count to the other; and consequently the sexton, as any of them. It is prefixed to some of our auwho it is said had been possessed of his office thor's pieces, and to the folio edition of his prose about forty years, must have been mistaken, and works in three volumes, printed in 1698. the monument must have been designed for some In his way of living he was an example of soother person, and not for Milton. A monument briety and temperance. He was very sparing in indeed has been erected to his memory in West- the use of wine or strong liquors of any kind. Let minster Abbey by Auditor Benson, in the year meaner poets make use of such expedients to raise 1737; but the best monument of him is his their fancy and kindle their imagination; he wantwritings. ed not any artificial spirits; he had a natural fire,

In his youth he was esteemed extremely hand-and poetic warmth enough of his own. He was some, so that while he was a student at Cambridge, likewise very abstemious in his diet, not fastidioushe was called the Lady of Christ's College. He ly nice or delicate in the choice of his dishes, but had a very fine skin and fresh complexion; his content with any thing that was most in season, hair was of a light brown, and parted on the fore- or easiest to be procured, eating and drinking (actop hung down in curls waving upon his shoulders; cording to the distinction of the philosopher) that his features were exact and regular; his voice he might live, and not living that he might eat and agreeable and musical; his habit clean and neat; drink. So that probably his gout descended by his deportment erect and manly. He was middle-inheritance from one or other of his parents; or if sized and well proportioned, neither tall nor short, it was of his own acquiring, it must have been neither too lean nor too corpulent, strong and ac- owing to his studious and sedentary life. And yet tive in his younger years, and though afflicted with he delighted sometimes in walking and using exfrequent headachs, blindness, and gout, was yet a ercise, but we hear nothing of his riding or huntcomely and well-looking man to the last. His eyes ing; and having early learned to fence, he was were of a light blue colour, and from the first are such a master of his sword, that he was not afraid said to have been none of the brightest; but after of resenting an affront from any man; and before he lost the sight of them (which happened about he lost his sight, his principal recreation was the the 434 year of his age) they still appeared with- exercise of his arms; but after he was confined by out spot or blemish, and at first view and a little age and blindness, he had a machine to swing in distance it was not easy to know that he was blind. for the preservation of his health. In his youth Mr. Richardson had an account of him from an he was accustomed to sit up late at his studies, and ancient clergyman in Dorsetshire, Dr. Wright, seldom went to bed before midnight; but afterwards, who found him in a small house, which had (he finding it to be the ruin of his eyes, and looking thinks) but one room on a floor; in that, up one on this custom as very pernicious to health at any pair of stairs, which was hung with a rusty green, time, he used to go to rest early, seldom later than he saw John Milton sitting in an elbow chair, with nine, and would be stirring in the summer at four, black clothes, and neat enough, pale but not cada- and in the winter at five in the morning; but if verous, his hands and fingers gouty, and with he was not disposed to rise at his usual bours, he chalk stones; among other discourse he expressed still did not lie sleeping, but had some body or himself to this purpose, that was he free from the other by his bed side to read to him. At his first pain of the gout, his blindness would be tolerable. rising he had usually a chapter read to him out of But there is the less need to be particular in the the Hebrew Bible, and he commonly studied all description of his person, as the idea of his face the morning till twelve, then used some exercise and countenance is pretty well known from the for an hour, afterwards dined, and after dinner numerous prints, pictures, busts, medals, and other played on the organ, and either sing itself or

made his wife sing, who (he said) had a good voice | ful temper; and yet I can easily believe, that he but no ear; and then he went up to study again had a sufficient sense of his own merits, and contill six, when his friends came to visit him and sat tempt enough for his adversaries. with him perhaps till eight; then he went down to His merits indeed were singular; for he was supper, which was usually olives or some light man not only of wonderful genius, but of immense thing; and after supper he smoked his pipe, and learning and erudition; not only an incomparable drank a glass of water, and went to bed. He loved poet, but a great mathematician, logician, historihe country, and commends it, as poets usually do; an, and divine. He was a master not only of the but after his return from his travels, he was very Greek and Latin, but likewise of the Hebrew, little there, except during the time of the plague Chaldee, and Syriac, as well as of the modern lanin London. The civil war might at first detain guages, Italian, French, and Spanish. He was him in town; and the pleasures of the country particularly skilled in the Italian, which he always were in a great measure lost to him, as they de- preferred to the French language, as all the men pend mostly upon sight, whereas a blind man of letters did at that time in England; and he not wants company and conversation, which is to be had better in populous cities. But he was led out sometimes for the benefit of the fresh air, and in warm sunny weather he used to sit at the door of his house near Bunhill Fields, and there as well as in the house received the visits of persons of quality and distinction; for he was no less visited to the last both by his own countrymen and foreigners, than he had been in his flourishing condition before the Restoration.

only wrote elegantly in it, but is highly commended for his writings by the most learned of the Italians themselves, and especially by the members of that celebrated academy called della Crusca, which was established at Florence, for the refining and perfecting of the Tuscan language. He had read almost all authors, and improved by all, even by romances, of which he had been fond in his younger years; and as the bee can extract honey out of weeds, so (to use his own words in his Apology Some objections, indeed, have been made to his for Smectymnuus) "those books, which to many temper; and I remember there was a tradition in others have been the fuel of wantonness and loose the university of Cambridge, that he and Mr. King living, proved to him so many incitements to the (whose death he laments in his Lycidas) were com- love and observation of virtue." His favourite aupetitors for a fellowship, and when they were both thor after the Holy Scriptures, was Homer. Hoequal in point of learning, Mr. King was prefer- mer he could repeat almost all without book; and red by the college for his character of good nature, he was advised to undertake a translation of his which was wanting in the other; and this was by works, which no doubt he would have executed to Milton grievously resented. But the difference of admiration. But (as he says of himself in his their ages, Milton being at least four years older, postscript to the Judgment of Martin Bucer) "he renders this story not very probable; and besides, never could delight in long citations, much less in Mr. King was not elected by the college, but was whole traductions." And accordingly there are made fellow by a royal mandate, so that there can few things, and those of no great length, which he De no truth in the tradition; but if there was any, has ever translated. He was possessed too much I is no sign of Milton's resentment, but a proof of an original genius to be a mere copyer. "Whe

of his generosity, that he could live in such friend-ther it be natural disposition," says he, " or educaship with a successful rival, and afterwards so pas- tion in me, or that my mother bore me a speaker sionately lament his decease. His method of writ- of what God made my own, and not a translator.” ing controversy is urged as another argument of And it is somewhat remarkable, that there is scarce his want of temper: but some allowance must be any author, who has written so much, and upon made for the customs and manners of the times. such various subjects, and yet quotes so little from Controversy, as well as war, was rougher and more his contemporary authors, or so seldom mentions barbarous in those days, than it is in these. And any of them. He praises Selden, indeed, in more it is to be considered, too, that his adversaries first places than one, but for the rest he appears disposbegan the attack; they loaded him with much ed to censure rather than commend. After his more personal abuse, only they had not the ad- severer studies, and after dinner, as we observed vantage of so much wit to season it. If he had before, he used to divert and unbend his mind with engaged with more candid and ingenuous dispu- playing upon the organ or bass-viol, which was a ana, he would have preferred civility and fair ar- great relief to him after he had lost his sight; for gument to wit and satire: "to do so was my choice, he was a master of music, as was his father, and and to have done thus was my chance," as he ex- he could perform both vocally and instrumentally, presses himself in the conclusion of one of his and it is said that he composed very well, though Controversial pieces. All who have written any nothing of this kind is handed down to us. It is accounts of his life agree, that he was affable and also said, that he had some skill in painting as well unstructive in conversation, of an equal and cheer-as in music, and that somewhere or other there is C