He had been affociated with Milton in the office of Latin fecretary in 1657, and cultivated his friendfhip by a tender and refpectful attachment. As he probably owed to that friendfhip the improvement of his own talents and virtues, it is highly pleafing to find, that he exerted them on different occasions in establishing the fecurity, and in celebrating the genius of his incomparable friend. His efforts of regard on the prefent emergency are liberally defcribed in the preceding expreffion of Philips; and his friendly verfes on the publication of the Paradife Loft deferve no common applaufe; for the records of literature hardly exhibit a more just, a more fpirited, or a more generous compliment paid by one poet to another.

But the friendship of Marvel, vigilant, active, and beneficial as it was, could not fecure Milton from being feized and hurried into confinement. It appears from the minutes of the Houfe of Commons, that he was prifoner to their ferjeant on the 15th of December. The particulars of his imprisonment are involved in darknefs; but Dr. Birch (whofe copious life of Milton is equally full of intelligence and candour) conjectures, with great probability, that on his appearing in public after the act of indemnity, and adjournment of Parliament, on the 3th of September, he was seized in confequence of the order formerly given by the Commons for his prosecution.

The exact time of his continuing in cuftody no refearches have afcertained. The records of Parlia ment only prove, that on the 15th of December the

House

Houfe ordered his releafe; but the fame upright and undaunted fpirit, which had made Milton in his younger days a refolute oppofer of injustice and oppreffion, still continued a characteristic of his declining life, and now induced him, difadvantageoufly fituated as he was for fuch a conteft, to refist the rapacity of the parliamentary officer, who endeavoured to extort from him an exorbitant fee on his discharge. He remonftrated to the houfe on the iniquity of their fervant; and as the affair was referred to the committee of privileges, he probably obtained the redress that he had the couragė to demand.

In this fortunate escape from the grafp of triumphant and vindictive power, Milton may be confidered as terminating his political life: commencing from his return to the continent, it had extended to a period of twenty years; in three of thefe he had been afflicted with partial' but increafing blindnefs, and in fix he had been utterly blind. His exertions in this period of his life had exposed him to infinite obloquy, but his generous and enlightened country, whatever may be the ftate of her political opinions, will remember, with becoming equity and pride, that the fublimeft of her poets, though deceived as he certainly was by extraordinary pretenders to public virtue, and fubject to great illufion in his ideas of government, is entitled to the first of encomiums, the praife of being truly an honeft man: fince it was affuredly his conftant aim to be the steady disinterested adherent and encomiaít of truth and juftice; hence we find him continually

displaying

displaying thofe internal bleffings, which have been happily called, "the clear witneffes of a benign nature," an innocent confcience, and a fatisfied underftanding.

Such is the imperfection of human existence, that mistaken notions and principles are perfectly compatible with elevation, integrity, and fatisfaction of mind. The writer muft be a flave of prejudice, or a fycophant to power, who would represent Milton as deficient in any of thefe noble endowments. Even Addifon feems to lofe his rare Chriftian candour, and Hume his philofophical precifion, when these two celebrated though very different authors fpeak harfhly of Milton's political character, without paying due acknowledgment to the rectitude of his heart. I truft, the probity of a very ardent but uncorrupted enthusiast is in fome measure vindicated in the course of thefe pages, happy if they promote the completion of his own manly wish to be perfectly known, if they imprefs a juft and candid eftimate of his merits and mistakes on the temperate mind of his country.

END OF THE SECOND PART.

PART III.

EPER VECCHIEZZA IN ĹUÍ VIRTU NON MANCA

DRITTO EI TENEVA IN VERSO IL CIEL IL VOLTO.

TASSO

IN beginning to contemplate the latter years of Milton, it may be useful to remark, that they afford, perhaps, the most animating leffon, which biography, inftructive as it is, can fupply; they fhew to what noble use a cultivated and religious mind may convert even declining life, though embittered by a variety of afflictions, and darkened by perfonal calamity.

On regaining his liberty, he took a house in Holborn, near Red Lion Fields, but foon removed to Jewin-street, and there married, in his 54th year, his third wife, Elizabeth Minfhall, the daughter of a gentleman in Chefhire. As the misfortune of blindness seems particularly to require a female companion, and yet almoft precludes the unhappy fufferer from felecting fuch as might fuit him, Milton is faid to have formed this attachment on the recon:mendation of his friend Dr. Paget, an eminent phyfician of the city, to whom the lady was related.

Some

Some biographers have spoken harshly of her temper and conduct; but let me obferve, in juftice to her memory, that the manufcript of Aubrey, to whom fhe was probably known, mentions her as a gentle perfon, of a peaceful and agreeable humour. That she was particularly attentive to her husband, and treated his infirmities with tendernefs, is candidly remarked by Mr. Warton, in a pofthumous note to the teftamentary papers relating to Milton, which his indefatigable researches at length discovered, and committed to the press, a few months before his own various and valuable labours were terminated by death. These very curious and interesting påpers afford information refpe&ting the latter days of the poet, which his late biographers were fo far from poffeffing, that they could not believe it exifted. Indeed, Mr. Warton himself had concluded, that all farther enquiries for the will must be fruitlefs, as he had failed in a tedious and intricate fearch. At laft, however, he was enabled, by the friendship of Sir William Scott, to refcue from oblivion a curiofity fo precious to poetical antiquarians. He found in the prerogative regifter the will of Milton, which, though made by his brother Chriftopher, a lawyer by profeffion, was fet afide from a deficiency in point of form-the litigation of this will produced a collection of evidence relating to the teftator, which renders the discovery of thofe long forgotten papers peculiarly interefting; they fhew very forcibly, and in new points of view, his domeftic infelicity, and his amiable difpofition. The tender and fublime poet, whofe fenfibility and

fufferings