PART III. E PER VECCHIEZZA IN LUI 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 lesson, 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 soon removed to Jewin-street, and there married, in his 54th year, his third wife, Elizabeth Minshall, 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 selecting fuch as might fuit him, Milton is faid to have formed this attachment on the recommendation of his friend Dr. Paget, an eminent phyfician of the city, to whom the lady was related. Some biographers have fpoken harfhly of her temper and conduct; but let me observe, in justice to her memory, that the manufcript of Aubrey, to whom he was probably known, mentions her as a gentle perfon, of a peaceful and agreeable humour. That That she was particularly attentive to her husband, and treated his infirmities with tenderness, is candidly remarked by Mr. Warton, in a posthumous note to the teftamentary papers relating to Milton, which his indefatigable refearches 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 interefting papers afford information refpecting 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 enquiries for the will must be fruitless, as he had failed in a tedious and intricate search. 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 Christopher, a lawyer by profeffion, was set 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 interesting; they fhew very forcibly, and in new points of view, his domestic infelicity, and his amiaable disposition. The tender and fublime poet, whofe fensibility and sufferings were so great, appears to have been almost as unfortunate in his daughters as the Lear of Shakespeare. A fervant declares in evidence, that her deceased master, a little before his last 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 house, and sold several of his books in the basest manner. His feelings on fuch an outrage, both as a parent and as a scholar, must have been fingularly painful; perhaps they fuggefted to him those very pathetic lines, where he seems to paint himself, in Sampson Agonistes: I dark in light, expos'd To daily fraud, contempt, abuse, and wrong, In power of cthers, 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 state by the bitter want of a domeftic protector against his inhuman daughters, under which description I include only the two eldest ; and in palliation even of their conduct, detestable 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 last marriage his eldest daughter had only reached the age of fifteen, and Deborah, his favourite, was still a child of nine years. His new connection feems to have afforded him what he particularly fought; that degree of domestic 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 shortening their very tedious and irkfome progress in learning the elements of Latin. He published also, in the fame year, another brief compofition of Sir Walter Raleigh's, containing (like the former work of that celebrated man, which the fame editor had given to the public) a series of political maxims; one of these I am tempted to transcribe, by a persuasion that Milton regarded it with peculiar pleasure, from its tendency to justify the parliamentary contention with Charles the Firft. Had the misguided monarch obferved the maxim of Raleigh, he would not, like that illuftrious victim to the vices of his royal father, have perifhed on the fcaffold.-The maxim is the seventeenth of the collection, and gives the following inftruction to a prince for preferving 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 confent, making the cause apparent to them, and fhewing his unwillingness in charging them. Finally, fo to use it, that it may feem rather an offer from his subjects, 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 "He 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 poft of Latin fecretary, in which he had obtained fo much credit as a scholar, 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 honest man." Johnson discovers an inclination to difcredit this ftory, because it does honour to Milton, and feemed inconsistent with his own ideas of probability. that had shared authority, either with the Parliament or Cromwell," fays Johnson, "might have forborne to talk very loudly of his honefty." How miferably narrow is the prejudice, that cannot allow perfect honesty to many individuals on both fides in a conteft like that, which divided the nation in the civil wars. Undoubtedly there were men in each party, and men of great mental endowments, who acted, during that calamitous contention, according to the genuine dictates of confcience. Those who 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 fo far justified, that it can no more be represented as a blemish on his integrity. His office, indeed, was of fuch a nature, that he might, with out |