"leisure again (fays his nephew) for his own " ftudies and private defigns." It seems to have been the habit of Milton to devote as many hours in every day to intense ftudy as the mental faculties could bear, and to render fuch conftant exertion less oppreflivé to the mind, by giving variety to the objects of its application, engaging in different works of magnitude at the fame time, that he might occafionally relieve and infpirit his thoughts by a transition from one fpecies of compofition to another. If we may rely on the information of Philips, he now began to employ himself in this manner on three great works; a voluminous Latin Dictionary, a history of England, and an Epic poem; of the two laft I fhall fpeak again, according to the order of their publication. The firft and least important, a work to which blindnefs was peculiarly unfavorable, was never brought to maturity, yet ferved to amufe this moft diligent of authors, by a change of literary occupa tion, almost to the clofe of his life. His collec tion of words amounted to three folios; but the papers, after his decease, were fo difcompofed and deficient (to use the expreffion of his nephew) that the work could not be made fit for the prefs. They proved ferviceable, however, to future compilers, and were used by those who published the Latin Dictionary at Cambridge, in 1693. Though he had no eyes to chufe a fecond wife, Milton did not long continue a widower. He married Catherine, the daughter of Captain Woodcock, a rigid fectarist, says Mr. Warton of Hackney. This lady appears to have been the most tender and amiable of the poet's three wives, and fhe is the only one of the three whom the mufe of Milton has immortalized with an affectionate memorial. Within the year of their marriage fhe gave birth to a daughter, and very foon followed her infant to the grave. "Her husband" (fays Johnson)" has honored her memory with a poor fonnet; " an expreffion of contempt, which only proves that the rough critic was unable to fympathize with the tendernefs that reigns in the pathetic poetry of Milton: in the opening of this fonnet; Methought I faw my late efpoufed faint Brought to me, like Alceftis, from the grave, Whom Jove's great fon to her glad husband gave, Refcued from death by force, tho' pale and faint: and in the latter part of it, Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied fight I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night. Milton has equalled the mournful graces of Petrarch and of Camoens, who have each of them I left a plaintive compofition on compofition on a fimilar idea. The curious reader, who may wish to compare the three poets on this occafion, will find the fimilarity I speak of in the 79th fonnet of Petrarch, and the 72d of Camoens. The lofs of a wife fo beloved, and the fevere inthralment of his country under the increafing defpotifm of Cromwell, muft have wounded very deeply the tender and patriotic feelings of Milton. His variety of affliction from these sources might probably occafion his being filent, as an author, for fome years. In 1655 he is fuppofed to have written a national manifefto in Latin to juftify the war against Spain. From that time, when his defence of himself alfo appeared, we know not of his having been engaged in any publication till the year 1659, excepting a political manufcript of Sir Walter Raleigh, called the Cabinet Council, which he printed in 1658, with a brief advertisement. What his sentiments were concerning the laft years of Cromwell, and the following diftracted period, we have a ftriking proof in one of his private letters, written not long after the death of the protector. In reply to his foreign friend Oldenburg (he says) * * Ab hiftoria noftrorum motuum concinnanda, quod hortari videris, longe abfum; funt enim filentio digniores quam præconio. nec nobis qui motuum hiftoriam concinnare, fed qui motus ipfos componere feliciter poffit eft opus; tecum enim vereor ne libertatis ac religionis hoftibus nunc nuper focietatis, nimis opportuni inter has noftras civiles difcordias vel potius infanias, "I am very far from preparing a hiftory of our commotions, as you feem to advise, for they are more worthy of filence than of panegyric; nor do we want a perfon with ability to frame a hiftory of our troubles, but to give those troubles a happy termination; for I fympathize with you in the fear, that the enemies of our liberty and our religion; who are recently combined, may find us too much exposed to their attack in these our civil diffenfions, or rather our fits of frenzy; they cannot, however, wound our religion more than we have done ourselves by our own enormities." The intereft of religion appears on every occafion to have maintained its due afcendency in the mind of Milton, and to have formed, through the whole course of his life, the primary object of his purfuit; it led him to publifh, in 1659, two diftinct treatises, the first on civil power in ecclefiaftical causes; the fe cond, on the likelieft means to remove hirelings out of the church; performances which Johnson prefumes to characterize by an expreffion not very confonant to the fpirit of Chriftianity, representing them as written merely to gratify the author's malevolence to the clergy; a coarse reproach, which every bigot beftows upon enlightened fo. licitude for the purity of religion, and particularly videamur; verum non illi gravius quam nofmetipfi jamdiu flagitiis noftris religioni vultus intulerint. Profe Works Vol. 2. p. 585. uncandid in the prefent cafe, becanfe the devont author has confcientiously explained his own motives in the following expreffions, addressed to the long parliament reftored after the deceafe of Cromwell. " Of civil liberty I have written heretofore by the appointment, and not without the approbation, of civil power; of Chriftian liberty I write now, which others long fince having done with all freedom under heathen emperors, I fhould do wrong to fufpect that I now fhall with lefs under Christian governors, and fuch epecially as profefs openly their defence of Chriftian liberty; although I write this not otherways appointed or induced than by an inward persuasion of the Chriftian duty, which I may usefully discharge herein to the common Lord and Mafter of us all, and the certain hope of his approbation, first and chiefest to be fought." Milton was not a being of that common and reptile clafs, who affume an affected devotion as the mask of malignity. In addreffing his fecond treatife alfo to the Parliament, he defcribes himself as a man under the protection of the legislative affembly, who had used, during eighteen years, on all occafions to affert the juft rights and freedom both of church and state. Had be been confcious of any base servility to Cromwell, he would certainly have abstained from this manly affertion of his own patriotic integrity, which, in that cafe, would have been only |