JOHN MILTON

(1608-1674).

PORTRAITS OF MILTON.

Milton at the Age of Ten.-The earliest known portrait of Milton is one painted by Cornelius Janssen when the poet was only ten years old. Janssen came from Leyden to England in 1618, and this picture must have been one of the first that he painted after his arrival. It is the face of a solid, chubby, sweet, predestined-Puritan cherub. Janssen came over to paint the portraits of James I. and his family, and he made many pictures of the nobility and of people in the court circle.... The portrait he made was bought for twenty guineas of the executors of Milton's widow by C. Stanhope. At the sale of the effects of this Mr. Stanhope it was bought by T. Hollis, Esq., for whose "Memoirs" Cipriani engraved it. The child is in a striped jacket, with a lace collar.- CLARENCE COOK: Scribner's Magazine, vol. xi.

Milton at the Age of Twenty-one.—This is a portrait of the poet when a student at Cambridge. It is not known who painted it.

Milton in Advanced Life.-There are three portraits of the poet, taken when he was well advanced in years—one by Faithorne, one by Robert White, and an anonymous one. These are in crayon, and well known through numerous engravings. That by Faithorne, taken about 1670, is the best. It was on seeing this portrait, in 1725, that Deborah, Milton's youngest daughter, exclaimed, "Oh Lord! that is the picture of my father!" and stroking the hair, added, "Just so my father wore his hair." Professor Mas

son prefers this likeness to any other, and considers it the truest representation of the noble, sorrowful, and blind face.

The Hollis Bust of Milton.--This bust, in Christ's College, Cambridge, was made known to the world in 1861 by Samuel L. Sotheby, who placed a photograph of it as the frontispiece to his work on Milton published in that year. Its authenticity is not fully established, but considerable interest has been aroused, as the poet is here represented in the full vigor and prime of life.

There are other portraits of Milton, but the three mentioned those of the poet at the age of ten, and of twentyone, and the Faithorne likeness-are the best known.

MILTON'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE.

His person was so refined and beautiful in his youth. that at Cambridge he was known as "the Lady of Christ's College;" and in Italy the famous Giovanni Baptista Manso expressed his admiration in a Latin epigram, thus translated:

"So perfect thou in mind, in form, and face,
Thou'rt not of English, but angelic race."

The following portraiture is given by Elijah Fenton: "In his youth he is said to have been extremely handsome; the color of his hair was a light brown, the symmetry of his features exact, enlivened with an agreeable. air, and a beautiful mixture of fair and ruddy. His stature (as we find it measured by himself) did not exceed the middle size, neither too lean nor corpulent; his limbs well proportioned, nervous, and active, serviceable in all respects. to his exercising the sword, in which he much delighted, and wanted neither skill nor courage to resent an affront from men of the most athletic constitutions. In his diet he was abstemious; not delicate in the choice of his dishes; and strong liquors of all kinds were his aversion. His deportment was erect, open, affable; his conversation easy, cheerful, instructive; his wit on all occasions at command, facetious, grave, or satirical, as the subject required."

COMMENTS.

The Lady of the College. [A title applied to Milton by his fellow-students at Cambridge.]

Three poets in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn :
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,
The next in majesty, in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third she joined the other two.
JOHN DRYDEN.

Milton has acknowledged to me that Spenser was his original. -Ibid.

There Milton dwells; the mortal sung
Themes not presum'd by mortal tongue;
New terrors or new glories shine

In every page, and flying scenes divine

Surprise the wond'ring sense, and draw our souls along,
Behold his muse sent out t' explore

The unapparent deep, where waves of chaos roar,

And realms of night unknown before.-WATTS's Lyrics. The first place among our English poets is due to Milton.— JOSEPH ADDISON.

Is not each great, each amiable Muse

Of classic ages in thy Milton met?
A genius universal as his theme;
Astonishing as Chaos; as the bloom

Of blooming Eden fair; as Heaven sublime.

JAMES THOMSON.

There is no force in his reasonings, no eloquence in his style, and no taste in his compositions.-OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

Nor second he that rode sublime

Upon the seraph-wings of Ecstasy,
The secrets of th' abyss to spy

He pass'd the flaming bounds of space and time :
The living throne, the sapphire blaze,

Where angels tremble while they gaze,

He saw, but, blasted with excess of light,

Closed his eyes in endless night.-THOMAS GRAY,