ing his temper, and fhe happens to be the only one
of his children who has delivered a deliberate ac-
count of it; but her account, inftead of confirming
Johnson's idea of her father's domeftic feverity, will
appear to the candid reader to refute it completely.
"She spoke of him (fays Richardfon) with great
tenderness; she said he was delightful company,
the life of the converfation, and that on account of
a flow of subject, and an unaffected cheerfulness and
civility." It was this daughter who related the ex-
traordinary circumftance, that fhe and one of her
fifters read to their father feveral languages, which
they did not understand: it is remarkable, that she
did not speak of it as a hardship; nor could it be
thought an intolerable grievance by an affectionate
child, who thus affifted a blind parent in labouring
for the maintenance of his family. Such an em-
ployment, however, muft have been irkfome; and
the confiderate father, in finding that it was fo,
"fent out his children (according to the expreffion
of his nephew) to learn fome curious and ingenious
forts of manufacture, particularly embroideries in
gold or filver." That he was no penurious pa-
rent is ftrongly proved by an expreffion that he
made ufe of in fpeaking of his will, when he declar-
ed, that he had made provision for his children
in his life-time, and had spent the greatest part of
his estate in providing for them."
It is the more
barbarous to arraign the poet for domeftic cruelty,
because he appears to have fuffered from the fingu-
lar tenderness and generofity of his nature. He
had reafon to lament that excefs of indulgence,

with which he forgave and received again his difobedient and long-alienated wife, fince their re-union not only difquieted his days, but gave birth to daughters, who feem to have inherited the perverfity of their mother:

The wifeft and beft men full oft beguil'd
With goodness principled, not to reject
The penitent, but ever to forgive,

Are drawn to wear out miferable days,
Intangled with a pois'nous bofom-fnake.

Thefe pathetic lines, in a speech of his Sampfon Agonistes, strike me as a forcible allufion to his own connubial infelicity. If in his first marriage he was eminently unhappy, his fuccefs in the two last turned the balance of fortune in his favour. That his fecond wife deserved, poffeffed, and retained his affection, is evident from his fonnet occafioned by her death; of the care and kindnefs which he had long experienced from the partner of his declining life, he spoke with tender gratitude to his brother, in explaining his teftamentary intention; and we are probably indebted to the care and kindness, which the aged poet experienced from this affectionate guardian, for the happy accomplishment of his ineftimable works. A blind and defolate father must be utterly unequal to the management of difobedient daughters confpiring against him; the anguish he endured from their filial ingratitude, and the bafe deceptions, with which they continually tormented him, must have rendered even the ftrongest mind very unfit for poetical application.

The

The marriage, which he concluded by the advice and the aid of his friend Dr. Paget, feems to have been his only resource against a most exafperating and calamitous fpecies of domeftic difquietude; it appears, therefore, not unreasonable to regard thofe immortal poems, which recovered tranquillity enabled him to produce, as the fruits of that marriage. As matrimony has, perhaps, annihilated many a literary defign, let it be remembered to its honour, that it probably gave birth to the brightest offspring of literature.

The two eldest daughters of Milton appear to me utterly unworthy of their father; but those who adopt the dark prejudices of Johnson, and believe with him, that the great poet was an auftere domestic tyrant, will find, in their idea of the father, an apology for his children, whofe destiny in the world I fhall immediately mention, that I may have occafion to speak of them no more. Anne, the eldeft, who with a deformed perfon had a pleasing face, married an architect, and died, with her first infant, in child-bed. Mary, the second, and apparently the most deficient in affection to her father, died unmarried. Deborah, who was the favourite of Milton, and who, long after his deceafe, difcovered, on a cafual fight of his genuine portrait, very affecting emotions of filial tenderness and enthufiafm, even Deborah deferted him without his knowledge, not in confequence of his paternal feverity, of which fhe was very far from complaining, but, as Richardfon intimates, from a disgust she had conceived againft her mother-in-law. On quitting

the

the houfe of her father, she went to Ireland with a lady, and afterwards became the wife of Mr. Clarke, a weaver, in Spital-fields. As her family was nu merous, and her circumftances not affluent, the liberal Addison made her a present, from his regard to the memory of her father, and intended to pro cure her fome decent establishment, but died before he could accomplish his generous defign. From Queen Caroline, fhe received fifty guineas, a dona tion as ill proportioned to the rank of the donor ast to the mental dignity of the great genius, whose indigent daughter was the object of this unprinceİy munificence. Mrs. Clarke had ten children, but none of them appear to have attracted public regard, till Dr. Birch and Dr. Newton, two benevolent and refpectable biographers of the poet, discovered his grand-daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, keeping á little chandler's-fhop in the city, poor, aged, and infirm; they publicly fpoke of her condition; Johnson was then writing as the coadjutor of Lau der in his attempt to fink the glory of Milton; but as the critic's charity was ftill greater than his fpleen, he feized the occafion of recommending, under Lauder's name, this neceffitous defcendant of the great poet to the beneficence of his country; Comus was reprefented for her benefit, in the year 1750, and Johnfon, to his honour, contributed a prologue on the occafion, in which noble fentia ments are nobly expreffed.

The poor grand-daughter of Milton gained but one hundred and thirty pounds by this public benefaction; this fum, however, fmall as it was, af

forded

1

forded peculiar comfort to her declining age, by enabling her to retire to Iflington with her hufband: fhe had seven children, who died before her, and by her own death it is probable that the line of the poet became extinct. Let us haften from this painful furvey of his progeny to the more enlivening contemplation of his rare mental endowments. The most diligent researches into all that can elucidate the real temper of Milton only confirm the opinion, that his native characteristics were mildnefs and magnanimity. In controverfy his mind was undoubtedly overheated, and paffages may be quoted from his profe works, that are certainly neither mild nor magnanimous; but if his contro. verfial afperity is compared with the outrageous infolence of his opponents, even that asperity will appear moderation; in focial intercourfe he is reprefented as peculiarly courteous and engaging. When the celebrity of his Latin work made him esteemed abroad, many enquiries were made concerning his private character among his familiar acquaintance, and the refult of fuch enquiry was, that mildnefs and affability were his distinguishing qualities. "Virum effe miti comique ingenio aiunt," fays the celebrated Heinfius, in a letter that he wrote concerning Milton, in the year 1651, to Gronovius. Another eminent foreigner reprefents him in the fame pleafing light, and from the best information. Voffius, who was at that time in Sweden, and who mentions the praife, which his royal patronefs Chriftina beftowed on Milton's recent defence of the English people, informs his