fufferings were fo great, appears to have been almost as unfortunate in his daughters as the Lear of Shakespeare. A fervant declares in evidence, that her deceased mafter, a little before his laft marriage, had lamented to her the ingratitude and cruelty of his children. He complained, that they combined to defraud him in the economy of his houfe, and fold feveral of his books in the bafeft manner. His feelings on fuch an outrage, both as a parent and as a scholar, must have been fingularly painful; perhaps they suggested to him those very pathetic lines, where he feems to paint himself, in Sampfon Agonistes:

I dark in light, expos'd

To daily fraud, contempt, abufe, and wrong,
Within doors or without; ftill as a fool,

In power of others, never in my own,

Scarce half I feem to live, dead more than half.

Unfortunate as he had proved in matrimony, he was probably induced to venture once more into that ftate by the bitter want of a domestic protector against his inhuman daughters, under which defcription I include only the two eldeft; and in pal liation even of their conduct, deteftable as it appears, we may observe, that they are entitled to pity, as having been educated without the ineftimable guidance of maternal tenderness, under a father afflicted with lofs of fight; they were alfo young: at the time of Milton's laft marriage his eldest daughter had only reached the age of fifteen, and

Deborah, his favourite, was ftill a child of nine years.

His new connection feems. to have afforded him what he particularly fought; that degree of domeftic tranquillity and comfort effential to his perfeverance in study, which appears to have been, through all the viciffitudes of fortune, the prime object of his life; and while all his labours were under the direction of religion or of philanthropy, there was nothing too arduous or too humble for his mind. In 1661 he published a little work, entitled, "Accidence commenced Grammar," benevolently calculated for the relief of children, by fhortening their very tedious and irksome progress in learning the elements of Latin. He published alfo, in the fame year, another brief compofition of Sir Walter Raleigh's, containing (like the former work of that celebrated man, which the same editor had given to the public) a series of political maxims; one of these I am tempted to tranfcribe, by a perfuafion that Milton regarded it with peculiar pleasure, from its tendency to justify the parliamentary contention with Charles the First. Had the mifguided monarch obferved the maxim of Raleigh, he would not, like that illuftrious victim to the vices of his royal father, have perished on the scaffold.-The maxim is the feventeenth of the collection, and gives the following inftruction to a prince for preserving an hereditary kingdom.

"To be moderate in his taxes and impofitions, and, when need doth require to use the fubjects purfe, to do it by parliament, and with their con

fent,

fent, making the cause apparent to them, and fhewing his unwillingness in charging them. Finally, fo to use it, that it may seem rather an offer from his fubjects, than an exaction by him.""

However vehement the enmity of various perfons against Milton might have been, during the tumult of paffions on the recent restoration, there is great reason to believe, that his extraordinary abilities and probity fo far triumphed over the prejudices against him, that, with all his republican offences upon his head, he might have been admitted to royal favour had he been willing to accept it. Richardfon relates, on very good authority, that the post of Latin fecretary, in which he had obtained fo much credit as a fcholar, was again offered to him after the Restoration; that he rejected it, and replied to his wife, who advised his acceptance of the appointment," You, as other women, would ride in your coach; for me, my aim is to live and die an honeft man." Johnson discovers an inclination to difcredit this ftory, because it does honour to Milton, and seemed inconfiftent with his own ideas of probability." He that had shared authority, either with the parliament or Cromwell," fays Johnfon, "might have forborne to talk very loudly of his honesty." How miferably narrow is the prejudice, that cannot allow perfect honefty to many individuals on both fides in a contest like that, which divided the nation in the civil wars. Undoubtedly there were men in each party, of great mental endowments, who acted, during that calamitous contention, according to the genuine dictates of confcience. Those who examine

M 2

examine the conduct of Milton with impartiality will be ready to allow, that he poffeffed not only one of the most cultivated, but one of the most upright minds, which the records of human nature have taught us to revere. His retaining his employment under Cromwell has, I trust, been so far justified, that it can no more be reprefented as a blemish on his integrity. His office, indeed, was of fuch a nature, that he might, without a breach of honesty, have resumed it under the king; but his return to it, though not abfolutely dishonourable, would have ill accorded with that refined purity and elevation of character, which, from his earliest youth, it was the noblest ambition of Milton to acquire and support. He would have loft much of his title to the reverence of mankind for his magnanimity, had he accepted his former office under Charles the Second, whom he must have particularly defpifed as a profligate and fervile tyrant, as ready to betray the honour of the nation as he was carelefs of his own; a perfonage whom Milton could never have beheld without horror, on reflecting on his fingular barbarity to his celebrated friend, that eccentric but interesting character, Sir Henry Vane. The king, fo extolled for his mercy, had granted the life of Sir Henry to the joint petition of the Lords and Commons; but, after promifing to preferve him, figned a warrant for his execution-one of the most inhuman and deteftable acts of duplicity that was ever practifed against a fubject by his fovereign. It is to the fate of Vane, with others of that party, and to his own perfonal fufferings, that the great

poet

poet alludes in the following admirable reflections, affigned to the chorus in his Sampfon Agonistes:

Many are the fayings of the wife

In antient and in modern books enroll'd,
Extolling patience as the trueft fortitude,
And to the bearing well of all calamities,
All chances incident to man's frail life,
Confolatories writ

With studied argument, and much persuasion fought,
Lenient of grief, and anxious thought;

But with th' afflicted in his pangs their found

Little prevails, or rather feems a tune

Harth and of diffonant mood from his complaint,

Unless he feel within

Some fource of confolation from above,

Secret refreshings that repair his strength,
And fainting fpirits uphold.

God of our fathers! what is man?

That thou towards him with hand fo various,

Or might I fay, contrarious,

Tempereft thy Providence through his short courfe;
Not evenly, as thou rul❜ft

The angelic orders, and inferior creatures mute,
Irrational and brute.

Nor do I name of men the common rout,

That wand'ring loofe about,

Grow up and perifh as the fummer fly,

Heads without name, no more remembered;
But fuch as thou haft folemnly elected,
With gifts and graces eminently adora'd,

To fome great work, thy glory,

And people's fafety, which in part they effect;
Yet toward thefe, thus dignified, thou oft

Amidft their heighth of noon

Changeft