Published us the Lot directs, 22 May, 179.5

by C.Dilly, in the Poultry

and the rest

of the Proprietors.

Varadise
Paradise Lost.

Then with

Book 1. 1.225.

expanded wings he steers his flight..

London: Published as the Act directs, Aug. 1$795,

b11795.by
T. Longman, B.
Saw Dodsley, I. Johnson, C.Dilly
GP.& I. Robinson, T. Cadell, R. Baldwin, I. Fewell?_
F.& C. Rivington, W. Goldsmith W. Lowndes, 9.&T. Wilkie,
W. Otridge Son, I. Scatcherd, T. Payne, W. Bent, Ternor
and Hood, G. Kearsley, J. Taylor, and E. Newbery.

THE

LIFE

OF

JOHN MILTON.

FROM a family and town of his name in Oxfordshire, our author derived his descent; but he was born at London in the year 1608. The publisher of his works in profe (on whose veracity fome part of this narrative must entirely depend) dates his birth two years earlier than this: but contradicting himself afterwards in his own computation, I reduce it to the time that Monfieur Bayle hath affigned; and for the fame reafon which prevailed with him to affign it. His father, John Milton, by profeffion a fcrivener, lived in a reputable manner on a competent estate, entirely his own acquifition; having been early difinherited by his parents for renouncing the communion of the church of Rome, to which they were zealously devoted. By his wife, Sarah Cafton, he had likewise one daughter, named Anna; and another fon, Chriftopher, whom he trained to the practice of

a

the common law; who in the civil wars adhered to the royal cause: and in the reign of King James II. by too easy a compliance with the doctrines of the court, both religious and civil, he attained to the dignity of being made a Judge of the Common Pleas; of which he died divested not long after the Revolution.

But JOHN, the fubject of the present effay, was the favourite of his father's hopes; who, to cultivate the great genius which early displayed itself, was at the expence of a domestic tutor; whofe care and capacity his pupil hath gratefully celebrated in an excellent Latin elegy. At his initiation

An. Ætat. 12.

he is said to have applied himself to letters with such indefatigable industry, that he rarely was prevailed with to quit his ftudies before midnight: which not only made him frequently subje& to fevere pains in his head, but likewise occafioned that weakness in his eyes, which terminated in a total privation of fight. From a domestic education he was removed to St. Paul's School, to complete his acquaintance with the claffics, under the care of Dr. Gill: and after a fhort stay there, was

An. Ætat. 15.

tranfplanted to Chrift College in Cam

bridge, where he distinguished himself in all kinds