but sharp rebuke; and, having tired both himself and his friends, was given up to poverty and hopeless indignation, till he fhewed how able he was to do greater fervice. He was then made Latin fecretary, with two hundred pounds a year; and had a thousand pounds for his Defence of the People. His widow who, after his death, retired to Namptwich in Cheshire, and died about 1729, is faid to have reported that he loft two thousand pounds by entrufting it to a fcrivener; and that, in the general depredation upon the Church, he had grafped an eftate of about fixty pounds a year belonging to WestminsterAbbey, which, like other fhaters of the plunder of rebellion, he was afterwards obliged to return. Two thousands pounds, which he had placed in the Excifeoffice, were also loft. There is yet no reason to believe that he was ever reduced to indigence. His wants, being few, were competently fupplied. He fold his library before his death, and left his family fifteen hundred pounds, on which his widow laid hold, and only gave one hundred to each of his daugh

ters.

His literature was unquestionably great. He read all the languages which are confidered either as learned or polite; Hebrew, with its two dialects, Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish. In Latin his kill was fuch as places him in the first rank of writers and criticks; and he appears to have cultivated Italian with uncommon diligence. The books in which his daughter, who ufed to read to him, reprefented him as moft delighting, after Homer, which he could almoft repeat, were Ovid's Meta- VOL. IX. morphofes

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morphofes and Euripides. His Euripides is, by Mr. Cradock's kindness, now in my hands: the margin is fometimes noted; but I have found nothing remarkable.

Of the English poets he fet moft value upon Spenfer, Shakspeare, and Cowley. Spenfer was apparently his favourite; Shakspeare he may eafily be fuppofed to like, with every other fkilful reader; but I fhould not have expected that Cowley, whofe ideas of excellence were fo different from his own, would have had much of his approbation. His character of Dryden, who fometimes visited him, was, that he was a good rhymift, but no poet.

His theological opinions are faid to have been first Calviniftical; and afterwards, perhaps when he began to hate the Prefbyterians, to have tended towards Arminianifm. In the mixed queftions of theology and government, he never thinks that he can recede far enough from popery, or prelacy but what Baudius fays of Erafmus feems applicable to him, magis babuit quod fugeret, quam quod fequeretur. He had determined rather what to condemn, than what to approve. He has not affociated himself with any denomination of Proteftants: we know rather what he was not, than what he was. He was not of the Church of Rome; he was not of the Church of England.

To be of no Church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are diftant, and which is animated only by Faith and Hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind, unlcfs it be invigorated and reimpreffed by external ordinances, by ftated calls to worship, and

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the falutary influence of example. Milton, who appears to have had full conviction of the truth of Christianity, and to have regarded the Holy Scriptures with the profound eft veneration, to have been untainted by any heretical peculiarity of opinion, and to have lived in a confirmed belief of the immediate and occafional agency of Providence, yet grew old without any vifible worship. In the diftribution of his hours, there was no hour of prayer, either folitary or with his houthold; omitting publick prayers, he omitted all.

Of this omiffion the reafon has been fought upon a fuppofition which ought never to be made, that men live with their own approbation, and juftify their conduct to themfelves. Prayer certainly was not thought fuperfluous by him, who reprefents our first parents as praying acceptably in the ftate of innocence, and efficaciously after their fall. That he lived without prayer can hardly be affirmed; his ftudies 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.

His political notions were thofe of an acrimonious and furly republican, for which it is not known that he gave any better reafon than that a popular government was the most frugal; for the trappings of a monarchy would fet up an ordinary commonwealth. It is furely very fhallow policy that fuppofes money to be the chief good and even this, without confidering that the fupport and expence of a Court is, for the

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the most part, only a particular kind of traffick, for which money is circulated, without any national impoverishment.

Milton's republicanism was, I am afraid, founded in an envious hatred of greatnefs, and a fullen defire of independence; in petulance impatient of controul, and pride difdainful of fuperiority. He hated monarchs in the State, and prelates in the Church; for he hated all whom he was required to obey. It is to be fufpected, that his predominant defire was to deftroy rather than establish, and that he felt not fo much the love of liberty as repugnance to authority.

It has been observed, that they who moft loudly clamour for liberty do not moft liberally grant it. What we know of Milton's character, in domeftick relations, is, that he was fevere and arbitrary. His family confifted of women; and there appears in his books fomething like a Turkifh contempt of females, as fubordinate and inferior beings. That his own daughters might not break the ranks, he fuffered them to be depreffed by a mean and penurious education. He thought women made only for obedience, and man only for rebellion.

Of his family fome account may be expected. His fifter, first married to Mr. Philips, afterwards married to Mr. Agar, a friend of her first husband, who fucceeded him in the Crown-office. She had, by her first hufband, Edward and John, the two nephews whom Milton educated; and, by her fecond, two daughters.

His brother, Sir Chriftopher, had two daughters, Mary and Catharine*; and a fon Thomas, who fucceeded Agar in the Crown-office, and left a daughter living in 1749 in Grofvenor-ftreet.

Milton had children only by his firft wife; Anne, Mary, and Deborah. Anne, though deformed, married a master-builder, and died of her firft child. Mary died fingle. Deborah married Abraham Clark, a weaver in Spital-fields, and lived feventy-fix years, to August 1727. This is the daughter of whom publick mention has been made. She could repeat the first lines of Homer, the Metamorphofes, and fome of Euripides, by having often read them. Yet here incredulity is ready to make a ftand. Many repetitions are neceffary to fix in the memory lines not understood; and why fhould Milton wifh or want to hear them fo often?

Thefe lines were at the beginning of the poems. Of a book written in a language not understood, the beginning raifes no more attention than the end; and as thofe that understand it know commonly the beginning beft, its rehearsal will feldom be neceffary. It is not likely that Milton required any paffage to be fo much repeated as that

Both thefe perfons were living at Holloway about the year 1734, and at that time poffeffed fuch a degree of health and ftrength as enabled them on Sundays and Prayer-days to walk a mile up a steep hill to Highgate chapel. One of them was Ninety-two at the time of her death. Their parentage was known to few, and their names were corrupted into Melton. By the Crown-office mentioned in the two laft paragraphs, we are to understand the Crown-office of the Court of Chancery. H.