1 opposer of injuftice and oppreffion, ftill continued a characteristic of his declining life, and now induced him, disadvantageously fituated as he was for fuch a conteft, to refift the rapacity of the parliamentary officer, who endeavoured to extort from him an exorbitant fee on his discharge. He remonftrated to the house 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 courage to demand. In this fortunate escape from the grasp 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 these he had been afflicted with partial but increasing blindness, and in fix he had been utterly blind. His exertions in this period of his life had expofed him to infinite obloquy, but his generous and enlightened country, whatever may be the state of her political opinions, will remember with becoming equity and pride, that the sublimeft 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 firft of encomiums, the praise of being truly an honest man fince it was affuredly his conftant aim to be the steady difinterested adherent and encomiast of truth and justice; hence we find him continually difplaying thofe internal bleffings, which have been happily called, "the clear witneffes of a benign nature,” an innocent conscience, and a satisfied understanding. Such is the imperfection of human existence, that mistaken notions and principles are perfectly compatible with elevation, integrity, and fatisfaction of mind. The writer must be a flave of prejudice, or a sycophant to power, who would reprefent Milton as deficient in any of these noble endowments. Even Addison feems to lose his rare Chriftian candor, and Hume his philofophical precition, 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 at is in fome measure vindicated in the cocrie of thefe pages, happy if they promote the completion of his own manly with to be perkdy known, they impres a joft and candid Citate of his merits and miftakes on the tempence und of his country. 3D CF THE SECOND PART. PART III. E PER VECCHIEZZA IN LUI VIRTU NON MANCA.- TASSO In beginning to contemplate the latter years of Milton, it may be useful to remark, that they afford, perhaps, the most animating lesson, which biography, inftructive as it is, can fupply; they fhow to what noble ufe a cultivated und religious mind may convert even declining life, though embittered by a variety of afflictions, and darkened by personal calamity. On regaining his liberty, he took a houfe in Holborn, near Red Lion Fields, but foon removed to Jewin-ftreet, and there married, in his 54th year, his third wife, Elizabeth Minfhall, the daughter of a gentleman in Cheshire. As the misfortune of blindness seems particularly to require a female companion, and yet almost precludes the unhappy fufferer from felecting fuch as might fuit him, Milton is faid to have formed this attachment on the recommendation of his his friend Dr. Paget, an eminent physician of the city, to whom the lady was related. Some biographers have spoken harfhly of her temper and conduct; but let me obferve, in juftice to her memory, that the manufcript of Aubrey, to whom she was probably known, mentions her as a gentle perfon, of a peaceful and agreeable humor. That she was particularly attentive to her husband, and treated his infirmities with tenderness, is candidly remarked by Mr. Warton in a pofthumous note to the testamentary papers relating to Milton, which his indefatigable refearches at length discovered, and committed to the prefs, a few months before his own various and valuable labors were terminated by death. These very curious and interefting papers afford information respecting the latter days of the poet, which his late biographers were so far from poffeffing, that they could not believe it exifted. Indeed, Mr. Warton himself had concluded, that all farther inquiries 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 rescue from oblivion a curiofity" fo precious to poetical antiquarians. He found in the prerogative register 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 those long forgotten papers peculiarly interefting; they fhow very forcibly, and in new points of view, his domeftic infelicity, and his amiable difpofition. The tender and fublime poet, whose fenfibility and fufferings were fo great, appears to have been almoft 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 œconomy of his houfe, and fold feveral of his books in the baseft 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 thofe very pathetic lines, where he seems to paint himself, in Samfon Agonistes: I dark in light, expos'd To daily fraud, contempt, abufe, and wrong, In power of others, never in my own, 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 description I include only the two eldeft; |