The long literary career of Milton was now drawing towards its termination, and it closed as it began, with à fervent regard to the intereft of religion.-Alarmed by that encroachment, which the Romish superstition was making under the connivance of Charles the Second, and with the aid of his apoftate brother, Milton published "A treatise “ of true Religion, Herefy, Schifm, Toleration, and the beft Means to prevent the Growth of Popery." The patriotic scope of this work was to unite and confolidate the jarring fects of the protestants, by perfuading them to reciprocal indulgence, and to guard them against those impending dangers from Rome, which, in a short period, burst upon this island, and very happily terminated in our fignal deliverance from many of thofe religious and political evils, which the spirit of Milton had, through a long life, most refolutely and confcientiously oppofed. His treatise against the growth of popery, which was published in 1673, was the last confiderable performance that he gave to the world; but publication in fome shape seems to have contributed to his amusement as long as he existed. In the fame year he reprinted his smaller poems with the Tractate on Education; and in the year following, the last of his laborious life, he published his Familiar Letters, and a Declaration of the Poles in praise of their heroic fovereign, John Sobieski, tranflated from the Latin original A›brief hiftory of Mofcovia, which he appears to have compiled, in the early parts of his life, from various travellers who had vifited that country, was published a few years after his death, and two of his compofitions (both perhaps intended for the prefs) 9 prefs) have probably perished; the firft, a Syftem of Theology in Latin, that feems to have been entrufted to his friend Cyriac Skinner; the fecond, an Answer to a scurrilous libel upon himself, which his nephew supposes him to have fuppreffed from a just contempt of his reviler. Soon after his marriage in 1661, he had removed from Jewin-street to a house in the Artillery-walk, leading to Bunhill-fields, a fpot that to his enthusiastic admirers may appear confecrated by his genius: here he refided in that period of his days, when he was peculiarly entitled to veneration; here he probably finished no less than three of his moft admirable works; and here, with a diffolution so easy that it was unperceived by the perfons in his chamber, he closed a life, clouded indeed by uncommon and various calamities, yet ennobled by the conftant exercife of fuch rare endowments as render his name, perhaps, the very firft in that radiant and comprehensive lift, of which England, the moft fertile of countries in the produce of mental power, has reason to be proud. For fome years he had suffered much from the gout, and in July, 1674, he found his conftitution fo broken by that diftemper, that he was willing to prepare for his departure. from the world... With this view he informed his brother Chriftopher, who was then a bencher in the Inner Temple, of the difpofition he wished to make of his property. "Brother (faid the invalid) the portion due to me from Mr. Powell, my first wife's father, I leave to the unkind children I had by her; but I have received no part of it; and my will and meaning is, they fhall have no other benefit of my eftate estate than the said portion, and what I have befides done for them, they having been very undutiful to me; and all the refidue of my eftate I leave to the disposal of Elizabeth, my loving wife.” Such is the brief testament, which Milton dictated to his brother, about the 20th of July, but which Chriftopher does not appear to have committed to paper till a few days after the decease of the teftator, who expired on Sunday night, the 15th of November, 1674. "All his learned and great friends in London, (fays Toland) not without a friendly concourse of the vulgar, accompanied his body to the church of St. Giles, near Cripplegate, where he lies buried in the chancel." This biographer, who, though he had the misfortune to think very differently from Milton on the great article of religion, yet never fails to speak of him with affectionate refpect, indulged a pleafing expectation, when he wrote his life in the close of the last century, that national munificence would speedily raise a monument worthy of the poet, to protect and to honour his remains. To the difcredit of our country she has failed to pay this decent tribute to the memory of a man, from whose genius fhe has derived fo much glory; but an individual, Mr. Benfon, in the year 1737, placed a buft of the great author in Westminster Abbey; an act of liberality that does him credit, though Johnfon and Pope have both fatyrized the monumental infcription with a degree of cynical afperity: such asperity appears unfeasonable, because all the oftentation, fo feverely cenfured in Mr. Benfon, amounts merely to his having faid, in the plainest manner, that he raised the monument; and to his having added added to his own name a common enumeration of the offices he poffeffed; a circumstance in which candour might have discovered rather more modesty than pride.-Affluence appears particularly amiable when paying a voluntary tribute to neglected genius, even in the grave; nor is Benson the only individual of ample fortune, who has endeared himself to the lovers of literature by generous endeavours to promote. the celebrity of Milton. Affectionate admirers of the poet will honour the memory of the late Mr. Hollis, in recollecting that he devoted much time and money to a fimilar purfuit; and they will regret that he was unable to discover the Italian verses, and the marble buft, which he diligently fought for in Italy, on a fuggeftion that fuch memorials of our poetic traveller had been carefully preserved in that country. But from this brief digreffion on the recent admirers of Milton, let us return to his family at the time of his decease. His will was contested by the daughters, whose undutiful conduct it condemned: being deficient in form, it was set afide, and letters of adminiftration were granted to the widow, who is faid to have allotted an hundred pounds to each daughter, a fum which, being probably too little in their opinion, and too much in her's, would naturally produce reciprocal animofity and cenfure between the contending parties. It has been already observed, that the recent discovery of this forgotten will, and the allegations annexed to it, throw confiderable light on the domeftic life of Milton; and the more infight we can gain into his focial and fequeftered hours, the more we fhall difcover, that he was not lefs entitled to private affection, than to public esteem; but let us contemplate his perfon before we proceed to a minuter examination of his mind and manners. So infatuated with rancour were the enemies of this illuftrious man, that they delineated his form, as they represented his character, with the utmost extravagance of malevolent falfhood: he was not only compared to that monfter of deformity, the eyelefs Polypheme, but defcribed as a diminutive, bloodless, and fhrivelled creature. Expreffions of this kind, in which abfurdity and malice are equally apparent, induced him to expofe the contemptible virulence of his revilers by a brief description of his own figure*. Hẻ * Veniamus nunc ad mea crimina; eftne quod in vita aut moribus reprehendat? Certe nihil. Quid ergo? Quod nemo nifi immanis ac barbarus feciffet, formam mihi ac cæcitatem objectat. Monftrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum. Nunquam exiftimabam quidem fore, ut citur, quæ ad virtutem fatis magna eft? Sed neque exilis admodum eo fane animo iifque viribus ut cum ætas vitæque ratio fic ferebat, nec ferrum tractare, nec ftringere quotidiano ufu exercitatus nefcirem; eo accinctus ut. plerumque eram cuivis vel multo robuftiori exæquatum me putabam, fecurus quid mihi quis injuriæ vir viro inferre poffet. Idem hodie animus, eædem vires, oculi non iidem; ita tamen extrinfecus illæfi, ita fine nube clari ac lucidi, ut eorum qui acutiffimum cernunt; in hac folum parte, meinet invito, simulator fum. In valtu quo" nihil exfan"guius" effe dixit, is manet etiamnum color exfangui et pallenti planè contrarius, ut quadragenario major vix fit cui non denis prope. annis videar natu minor; neque corpore, contracto neque cute. In his ego fi ulla ex parte mentior multis millibus popularium meorum qui de facie me norunt, exteris etiam non paucis, ridiculus meritò fim: fin ifte in re minimè neceflariâ tam impudenter gratuito mendax comperietur poteritis de reliquo eandem conjecturam facere. Atque hæc de forma mea vel coactus. represents |