167

and occasional agency of Providence, yet grew old without any visible worship. In the distribution of his hours, there was no hour of prayer, either solitary or with his household; omitting publick prayers, he omitted all.

Of this omission the reason has been sought, upon a supposition which ought never to be made, that men live with their own approbation, and justify their conduct to themselves. Prayer certainly was not thought superfluous by him, who represents our first parents as praying acceptably in the state of innocence, and efficaciously after their fall. That he lived without prayer can hardly be affirmed; his studies and meditations were an habitual prayer. The neglect of it in his family was probably a fault for which he condemned himself, and which he intended to correct, but that death, as too often happens, intercepted his reformation 3. 168 His political notions were those of an acrimonious and surly republican, for which it is not known that he gave any better reason than that 'a popular government was the most frugal; for the trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth +.' It is surely very shallow policy, that supposes money

chester, and published in 1825. The translation was reprinted by Bohn in 1861. 'The opinions of Milton,' writes Sumner, 'were in reality nearly Arian, ascribing to the Son as high a share of divinity as was compatible with the denial of his self-existence and eternal generation, but not admitting his co-equality and co-essentiality with the Father.' A Treatise of Christian doctrine, &c., ed. 1861, Preface, p. 31. On the other hand 'the doctrine of the satisfaction of Christ is so scripturally enforced as to leave on that point nothing to be desired.' Ib. P. 33. In these two points Dr. Samuel Clarke was like Milton. Boswell's Johnson, iii. 248; iv. 416.

'Milton was undoubtedly a high Arian in his mature life.' COLERIDGE, Table Talk, 1884, p. 24. See also Masson's Milton, vi. 816–38; ante, MILTON, 18, 83 n.

'It is said that the discovery of his Arianism in this rigid generation has already impaired the sale of Paradise Lost.' HALLAM, Introd. to the Lit. of Europe, 1837-9, iv. 418.

In the latter part of his life he was not a profest member of any

particular sect among Christians; he frequented none of their assemblies, nor made use of their peculiar rites in his family.' Toland's Life of Milton, p. 151.

'He frequented no public worship, nor used any religious rite in his family.' Newton's Milton, Pref. p. 76.

The reviewer of the Lives in Ann. Reg. 1779, ii. 184 m., writes of the statement in the text: 'As to family prayer it appears to be a calumny drawn from an expression of Toland's. .. Bishop Newton has altered this into his not using any religious rites in his family. From the Bishop Dr. Johnson roundly concludes that he never used prayer in his family?'

2 Paradise Lost, v. 209; x. 1097.

3

Johnson is here thinking of himself. On his seventy-first birthday he recorded:-'I have forgotten or neglected my resolutions, or purposes which I now humbly and timorously renew. Surely I shall not spend my whole life with my own total disapprobation.' John. Misc. i. 94.

4 Sir Robert Howard [post, DRYDEN, 17] having demanded of him what made him side with the

to be the chief good; and even this without considering that the support and expence of a Court is for the most part only a particular kind of traffick, by which money is circulated without any national impoverishment'.

Milton's republicanism was, I am afraid, founded in an envious 169 hatred of greatness, and a sullen desire of independence; in petulance impatient of controul, and pride disdainful of superiority. He hated monarchs in the state and prelates in the church; for he hated all whom he was required to obey 2. It is to be suspected that his predominant desire was to destroy rather than establish, and that he felt not so much the love of liberty as repugnance to authority 3.

It has been observed that they who most loudly clamour for 170 liberty do not most liberally grant it. What we know of Milton's character in domestick relations is, that he was severe and arbitrary. His family consisted of women; and there appears in his books something like a Turkish contempt of females, as subordinate and inferior beings. That his own daughters might not break the ranks, he suffered them to be depressed by a mean and penurious education". He thought woman made only for obedience, and man only for rebellion.

republicans, Milton answered, among other reasons, "because theirs was the most frugal government; for that the trappings of a monarchy might set up an ordinary commonwealth." Toland's Life of Milton, p. 139.

1 Considering the vicious use of money in the Court of Charles II, Johnson is here upholding Mandeville's doctrine, that private vices are public benefits. Boswell's Johnson, iii. 291. For money circulating see ib. ii. 429; iii. 177, 249.

2 Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.' MILTON, Works, i. 325.

'I never knew that time in England when men of truest religion were not counted sectaries.' Ib. ii. 399.

...

'He was a most determined aristocrat, an enemy to popular elections. He was of opinion that the government belonged to the wise, and he thought the people fools.' COLERIDGE, H. C. Robinson's Diary, i. 311.

In The Ready and Easy Way to establish a Free Commonwealth (ante, MILTON, 94) there are such passages as the following:-'Most voices ought not always to prevail where main matters are in question.' Works, iii. 404. 'Safest therefore to me it seems, ... that none of the Grand Council be moved, unless by death or just conviction of some crime; for what can be expected firm or steadfast from a floating foundation?' lb. p. 414.

4 For clamours for liberty' see post, THOMSON, 22.

5

Ante, MILTON, 124, 140.

'Of all that men have said of woman nothing is more loftily conceived than the well-known passage at the end of Book viii of Paradise Lost [11. 546-559]. ... But in directing the bringing up of his daughters, Milton

171

Of his family some account may be expected'. His sister, first married to Mr. Philips, afterwards married Mr. Agar, a friend of her first husband, who succeeded him in the Crown-office 2. She had by her first husband Edward and John, the two nephews whom Milton educated 3; and by her second two daughters*. 172 His brother, Sir Christopher, had two daughters, Mary and Catherine, and a son Thomas, who succeeded Agar in the Crown-office, and left a daughter living in 1749 in Grosvenorstreet 6.

173 Milton had children only by his first wife: Anne, Mary, and Deborah. Anne, though deformed, married a master-builder, and died of her first child. Mary died single. Deborah married Abraham Clark, a weaver in Spitalfields, and lived seventy-six years, to August 17277. This is the daughter of whom publick mention has been made. She could repeat the first lines of Homer, the Metamorphoses, and some of Euripides, by having often read

puts his own typical woman entirely on one side. His practice is framed on the principle that

"nothing lovelier can be found In woman, than to study household good."' [Paradise Lost, ix. 233.] Pattison's Milton, p. 146.

One of Evelyn's daughters knew Italian and French. Another, he wrote, 'has read most of the Greek and Latin authors, using her talents with great modesty.' Diary, ii. 223, 336.

'Learning and knowledge are perfections in us, not as we are men, but as we are reasonable creatures, in which order of beings the female world is upon the same level with the male.' ADDISON, The Guardian, No. 155.

I

Cunningham (Lives of the Poets, i. 138) quotes from Add. MSS. in the British Museum, 4244, p. 53, an account by Dr. Birch of Milton's family, partly copied by him from the poet's entries on a blank leaf of a Bible.

Phillips' Milton, p. 7; ante, MILTON, 5. Agar, in his will, 'disposed of such "goods and chattels" as "with much industry" he had "scrambled for amongst others in this wicked world." Masson's Milton, vi. 771. 3 Ante, MILTON, 5, 35, 42. any descendants of theirs nothing is known. Masson's Milton, vi. 767,

Of

4 One of these died early; the other was the wife of a David Moore.' Of their son, afterwards Sir Thomas Moore, there are many descendants of high respectability?' Ib. vi. 771, 775.

5 They were living at Holloway about 1734. Their names were corrupted into Melton.' Johnson's Works, 1787, ii. 44. 'A third daughter was married to Mr. Pendlebury, a clergyman.' Birch MS. 'Nothing more is known of her.' Masson's Milton, vi. 763.

• Newton wrote in 1748:-' There is a Mrs. Milton living in Grosvenor Street, the granddaughter of Sir Christopher.' Newton's Milton, Pref. P. 83.

7 Deborah was born on May 2, 1652. Masson's Milton, iv. 468. When she married, Clarke was a 'weaver' in Dublin. He came over to London "during the troubles in Ireland under King James II."' Ib. vi. 751. 'She married in Dublin to one Mr. Clarke (sells silk &c.); very like her father.' AUBREY, Brief Lives, ii. 68. Aubrey had at first described Clarke as a

mercer.

them. Yet here incredulity is ready to make a stand. Many repetitions are necessary to fix in the memory lines not understood; and why should Milton wish or want to hear them so often! These lines were at the beginning of the poems. Of a book written in a language not understood the beginning raises no more attention than the end, and as those that understand it know commonly the beginning best, its rehearsal will seldom be necessary. It is not likely that Milton required any passage to be so much repeated as that his daughter could learn it, nor likely that he desired the initial lines to be read at all; nor that the daughter, weary of the drudgery of pronouncing unideal sounds, would voluntarily commit them to memory.

To this gentlewoman Addison made a present, and promised 174 some establishment; but died soon after 1. Queen Caroline sent her fifty guineas. She had seven sons and three daughters; but none of them had any children, except her son Caleb and her daughter Elizabeth. Caleb went to Fort St. George3 in the East Indies, and had two sons, of whom nothing is now known *. Elizabeth married Thomas Foster, a weaver in Spitalfields, and had seven children, who all died. She kept a petty grocer's or chandler's shop, first at Holloway, and afterwards in Cock-lane near Shoreditch Church 5. She knew little of her grandfather, and that little was not good. She told of his harshness to his daughters, and his refusal to have them taught to write; and, in

* See Appendix O.

2 Pounds. Dr. Birch, who records this, had it from Elizabeth Foster, whom he visited in the spring of 1738. Birch's Milton, 1753, Pref., p. 77.

3 Now known as Madras.

* Caleb Clarke was there certainly as early as 1703. In 1717 he was parish-clerk. He died in 1719. There is an entry on April 2, 1727, of the baptism of his elder son's daughter. 'With this registration all trace of Milton's posterity in India ceases.' Masson's Milton, vi. 755. Milton's grandson probably arrived at Fort St. George when its governor was Elihu Yale, who gave his name to the American University. He was certainly under Thomas Pitt, grandfather of the Earl of Chatham, and Gulston Addison, brother of Joseph Addison. See Addison's Works, v. 374.

5 She has now [1748] for some years, with her husband, kept a little chandler's or grocer's shop, lately at the lower Halloway [sic] in the road between Highgate and London, and at present in Cock Lane not far from Shoreditch Church.' Newton's Milton, p. 84. (This is not the Cock Lane famous for its ghost, which was near Smithfield. Boswell's Johnson, i. 406.) She died on May 9, 1754, at her house, the sign of the Sugar Loafe, opposite to the Thatched House in Islington.' She was born in Nov. 1688. N. & 2. 2 S. iii. 265.

That he kept his daughters at a great distance, and would not allow them to write, which he thought unnecessary for a woman.' Birch's Milton, Preface, p. 77. In the Chetham Soc. Misc. vol. i. p. 1, there is a facsimile of the signatures of Milton's

175

opposition to other accounts, represented him as delicate, though temperate in his diet1.

In 1750, April 5, Comus was played for her benefit. She had so little acquaintance with diversion or gaiety, that she did not know what was intended when a benefit was offered her. The profits of the night were only one hundred and thirty pounds2, though Dr. Newton 3 brought a large contribution; and twenty pounds were given by Tonson, a man who is to be praised as often as he is named. Of this sum one hundred pounds was placed in the stocks, after some debate between her and her husband in whose name it should be entered; and the rest augmented their little stock, with which they removed to Islington. This was the greatest benefaction that Paradise Lost ever procured the author's descendents 5; and to this he who has now attempted to relate his Life, had the honour of contributing a Prologue 6.

daughters to three receipts. Anne, not being able to write, made her mark. Mary spelt her name 'Millton' and began it with a small letter; Deborah wrote her Christian name 'Deboroh.' See ante, MILTON, 124, 140.

'He was very temperate in his eating and drinking, but what he had he always loved to have of the best.' Newton's Milton, Pref. p. 82. Ante, MILTON, 44, 159.

2 The benefit produced her above £130. Gent. Mag. 1750, p. 183.

Dr. Thomas Newton, afterwards Bishop of Bristol, who for his edition of Paradise Lost with a Life of Milton prefixed (1749) received £630, and for Paradise Regained (1752) £105. Gent. Mag. 1787, p. 76.

4

The elder Tonson from about 1720 seems to have transferred his business to his nephew Jacob Tonson,' who died in 1736, four months before his uncle, and was succeeded by his son, also named Jacob, who, after having carried on the business of a bookseller with great liberality, died without issue in 1767.' He is the man praised in the text. From about 1712, their shop was opposite Catherine Street in the Strand, now No. 141 (since rebuilt). Their successor was Andrew Millar, and his was Thomas

Cadell. Malone's Dryden, i. 523-39;
Hume's Letters to Strahan, p. 33.

For Johnson's character of Richard Tonson, 'the last commercial name of a family which will be long remembered,' see post, DRYDEN, 184 n.

'The Tonsons had a virtual [? a real] monopoly of Milton's poetry for forty years.... When they were rolling in wealth, a goodly portion of it derived from traffic in Milton's poetry, Milton's widow was alive in very straitened gentility at Nantwich, and Milton's youngest daughter and her children were in penury in Spitalfields.' Masson's Milton, vi. 788. For copyright see ante, MILTON, 130n.

5 In 1725 Parliament, on the recommendation of the king, showed its gratitude to John Hampden, 'by empowering the Commissioners of the Treasury to compound with his great-grandson, late Treasurer of the Navy, for a debt of £48,000 he owed to the Crown. This deficiency was occasioned by his embarking in the South Sea scheme.' SMOLLETT, Hist. of Eng. ii. 445.

What though she shine with no
Miltonian fire,

No fav'ring muse her morning
dreams inspire;

Yet softer claims the melting heart

engage,