of so warm, and daring a spirit, as his certainly was, fhould be restrained from the camp in thofe unnatural commotions. I fuppofe we may impute it wholly to the great deference he paid to paternal authority, that he retired to lodgings provided for him in the city; which being commodious for the reception of his fifter's fons, and fome other young gentlemen, he undertook their education; and is faid to have formed them on the fame plan which he afterwards published, in a fhort tractate infcribed to his friend Mr. HARTLIB. In this pholofophical course he continued without a wife to the year 1643; when he marAn. Etat. 35. ried Mary the daughter of Richard Powell of Foreft-hill in Oxfordshire; a gentleman of estate and reputation in that county; and of principles fo very opposite to his fon-in-law, that the marriage is more to be wondered at, than the separation which enfued, in little more than a month after she had cohabited with him in London, Her defertion provoked him both to write feveral treatifes concerning the doctrine, and difcipline, of divorce; and alfo to make his addreffes to a young lady of great wit and beauty, but before he had engaged her affections to conclude the marriage-treaty, at a visit to one of his relations he found his wife proftrate before him, imploring forgivenefs and reconciliation. It is not to be doubted but an interview of that nature, fo little expected, must wonderfully affect him: and perhaps the impreffions it made on his imagination contributed much to the painting of that pathetic fcene in PARADISE LOST, in which Eve addreffed herself to Adam for pardon and peace. At the interceffion of his friends who were prefent, after a fhort reluctance, he generously facrificed all his refentment to her tears. *Book X. ver. 909. -Soon bis beart relented Tow'rds ber, bis life fo late, and fole delight, And after this reunion, fo far was he from retaining an unkind memory of the provocations which he had received from her ill conduct, that when the king's cause was entirely oppreffed, and her father, who had been active in his loyalty, was expofed to fequeftration; MILTON received both him and his family to protection, and free entertainment, in his own house, 'till their affairs were accommodated by his interest in the victorious faction. FOR he was now grown famous by An. Atat. 41. his polemical writings of various kinds, and held in great favour and efteem, by those who had power to difpofe of all preferments in the state. It is in vain to diffemble, and far be it from me to defend, his engaging in a party combined in the deftruction of our church and monarchy. Yet, leaving the justifica tion of a mifguided fincerity to be debated in the fchools, may I prefume to obferve in his favour, that his zeal, diftempered and furious as it was, does not appear to have been infpirited by felf-interested views. For it is affirmed, that though he always lived in a frugal retirement, and before his death had disposed of his library (which we may fuppofe to have been a valuable collection) he left no more than fifteen hundred pounds behind him for the fupport of his family: and whoever confiders the posts to which he was advanced, and the times in which he enjoyed them, will, I believe, confess he might have accumulated a much more plentiful fortune: in a difpaffionate mind it will not require any extraordinary measure of candor to conclude, that though he abode in the heritage of oppreffors, and the spoils of his country lay at his feet, neither his confcience, nor his hohour, could stoop to gather them. A COMMISSION to conftitute him adjutant-general to Sir William Waller was promised; An. Etät. 42. but foon fuperfeded, by Waller's being laid aside, when his masters thought it proper to newmodel their army. However, the keennefs of his pen had fo effectually recommended him to Cromwell's efteem, that when he took the reins of government into his own hand, he advanced him to be Latin fecretary, both to himself and the parliament: the former of these preferments he enjoyed both under the ufurper, and his fon; the other, 'till King Charles II. was restored. For fome time he had an apartment for his family in Whitehall; but his health requiring a freer acceffion of air, he was obliged to remove from thence to lodgings which opened into St. James's park. Not long after his fettlement there, his wife died in child-bed: and much about the time of her death, a Gutta Serena, which had for several years been gradually increasing, totally extinguished his fight. In this melancholic condition he was eafily prevailed with to think of taking another wife; who was Catharine the daughter of captain Woodcock of Hackney: and the too, in lefs than a year after their marriage, died in the fame unfortunate manner as the former had done; and in his twenty third fonnet he does honor to her memory. THESE private calamities were An. Etat. 52. much heightened, by the different fi gure he was likely to make in the new fcene of affairs, which was going to be acted in the flate. For, all things now confpiring to promote the king's reftoration, he was too confcious of his own activity during the ufurpation, to expect any favour from the crown: and therefore he prudently abfconded 'till the act of oblivion was published; by which he was only ren→ dered incapable of bearing any office in the nation. Many had a very just esteem of his admirable parts and learning, who detefted his principles; by whofe interceffion his pardon paffed the seals: and I wish the laws of civil hiftory could have extended the benefit of that oblivion to the memory of his guilt, which was indulged to his perfon; ne tanti facinoris immanitas aut extitiffe, aut non vidicata fuiffe, videatur. HAVING thus gained a full protection from the government (which was in truth more than he could have reasonably hoped) he appeared as much in public as he formerly used to do; and employing his friend Dr. Paget to make choice of a third confort, on his recommendation he married Elizabeth the daughter of Mr. Minfhul a Chefhire gentleman, by whom he had no iffue. Three daughters by his first wife were then living; the two elder of whom are said to have been very serviceable to him in his ftudies. For, having been inftructed to pronounce not only the modern, but also the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, languages; they read, in their respective originals, whatever authors he wanted to confult; though they understood none but their mother-tongue. This employment, however, was too unpleasant to be continued for any long procefs of time; and therefore he difmiffed them to receive an education more agreeable to their sex and temper. WE come now to take a furvey of him in that point of view, in which he will be looked on by all fucceeding ages with equal delight and admiration. An interval of above twenty years had elapfed *26. fince he wrote the Mafk of Comus*, An. Etat. §29. L'Allegro, Il Penforofo, and Lycidas §; all in such an exquisite strain! that though he had left no other monuments of his genius behind him, 'his name had been immortal. But, neither the infirmities of age and constitution, nor the viciffitudes of fortune, could depress the vigour of his mind; or divert it from executing a design he had † long conceived of writing an heroic poem. The fall of man was a subject which he had fome years before fixed on for a tragedy, which he intended to form by the models of antiquity: and fome, not without probability, fay the play opened with that speech in the fourth book of PARADISE LOST, ver. 32. which is addressed by Satan to the Sun. Were it material, I believe I could produce other paffages which more plainly appear to have been originally intended for the scene. But whatever truth there may be in this report, it is certain that he did not begin to mold his fubject in the form which it bears now, before he had concluded his controverfy with Salafius and More; when he had wholly loft the ufe of his eyes; and was forced to employ in the office of an amanuenfis any friend who accidentally paid him a visit. Yet under all thefe difcouragements, and various inAn. Etat. 61. terruptions, in the § year 1669 he publifhed his PARADISE LOST; the no blest poem, next to Homer and Virgil, that ever the wit of man produced in any age or nation. Need I mention any other evidence of its ineftimable worth, than that the finest geniuses, who have fucceeded him, have ever esteemed it a merit to relish, and illustrate, its beauties? whilft the critic who gazed, with fo much wanton malice, on the nakedness of Shakespear when he flept, after having formerly declared war against it, wanted courage to make his attack; flushed though * PAR. LOST. B. ix. Ver. 26. § Milton's contract with his bookseller, S. Simmons, for the copy bears date April 27th, 1667. * The tragedies of the last age considered, p. 143 |