was owing to Elwood the Quaker. When Milton had lent him the manufcript of Paradife Loft at St. Giles Chalfont, and he returned it, Milton afked him how he liked it, and what he thought of it?" Which I "modeftly, but freely told him," fays Elwood; " and "after fome further difcourfe about it, I pleasantly * faid to him, Thou haft faid much of Paradife Loft, "but what haft thou faid of Paradise Found? He

H

made me no answer, but fat fome time in a mufe; "then broke off that difcourfe, and fell upon another fubject." When Elwood afterwards waited upon him in London, Milton fhowed him his Paradise Regain'd, and in a pleasant tone faid to him, "This is owing to you, for you put it into my head by the question you put me at Chalfont, which before I "had not thought of." This poem has also been tranflated into French, together with fome other pieces of Milton, Lycidas, L'Allegro, Il Penferofo, and the Ode on Chrift's nativity. In 1732 was printed a critical differtation with notes upon Paradife Regain'd, pointing out the beauties of it, written by Mr. Meadowcourt, Canon of Worcester: And the very learn- ed and ingenious Mr. Jortin has added fome observations upon this work at the end of his excellent remarks upon Spenfer, publifhed in 1734: And indeed this poem of Milton, to be more adinired, needs only to be: better known. His Samfon Agoniftes is the only tragedy that he has finished, though he has fketched out the plans of feveral, and propofed the fubjects of more,. in his manufcript preferved in Trinity-college library. We may fuppofe that he was determined to the choice of this particular subject by the fimilitude of his own circumftances to thofe of Samfon, blind and among the Philistines; and it seems to be the laft of his poetical pieces. It has been brought upon the ftage in the form of an oratorio; and Mr. Handel's mufic is never employed to greater advantage, than when it is adapted to Milton's words. That great artist has done equal juftice to our Author's L'Allegro and II Penfero- fo, as if the fame spirit poffeffed both mafters, and as if the god of mufic and of verfe was ftill one and the fame;

C. 6

There

There are alfo fome other pieces of Milton, for he continued publishing to the laft. In 1672 he publifhed Artis legica plenior inftitutio ad Petri Rami methodum concinnata, An institution of logic after the me thod of Petrus Ramus; and the year following, A treatife of true religion, and the beft means to prevent the growth of Popery, which had greatly increased through the connivance of the King, and the more open encouragement of the Duke of York; and the fame year his poems, which had been printed in 1645, were re printed with the addition of feveral others. His fa miliar epiftles and fome academical exercifes, Epiftolarum familiarum, lib. 1 & prolufiones quædam oratoria in collegio Chrifti habite, were printed in 1674; as was alfo his tranflation out of Latin into English of the Poles declaration concerning the election of their King John III. fetting forth the virtues and merits of that prince. He wrote alfo a brief history of Muscovy, collected from the relations of feveral travellers; but it was not printed till after his death in 1682. He had likewife his ftate-letters tranfcribed at the request of the Danish resident; but neither were they printed till after his death in 1676. and were tranflated into Englifh in 1694. To that translation a Life of Milton was prefixed by his nephew Mr. Edward Philips; and at the end of that Life his excellent fonnets to Fairfax, Cromwell, Sir Henry Vane, and Cyriac Skinner on his blindness, were firft printed. Befides thefe works which were published, he wrote a fyftem of divinity, which Mr. Toland fays was in the hands of his friend Cyriac Skinner; but where at prefent is uncertain. And Mr. Philips fays, that he had prepared for the press an answer to fome little scribbling quack in London, who had written a scurrilous libel against him: But whether by the diffuafion of friends, as thinking him a fellow not worth his notice, or for what other caufe Mr. Philips knoweth not, this answer was never published. And indeed the best vindicator of him and his writings hath been Time. Pofterity hath univerfally paid that honour to his merits, which was denied him by great part of his contemporaries.

After

After a life thus fpent in study and labours for the public, he died of the gout at his house in BunhillRow, on or about the 10th of November 1674, when he had within a month completed the fixty fixth year of his age. It is not known when he was first attacked by the gout; but he was grievously afflicted with it feveral of the last years of his life, and was weakened to such a degree, that he died without a groan, and thofe in the room perceived not when he expired. His body was decently interred near that of his father, who had died very aged about the year 1647, in the chancel of the church of St. Giles's, Cripplegate; and all his great and learned friends in London, not without a friendly concourse of the common people, paid their last refpects in attending it to the grave. It does not appear that any monument was erected to his memory till 1737, in which one was erected in West-minster-abbey by Auditor Benson. But the best mo nument of him is his writings.

In his youth he was efteemed extremely handfome;: fo that while he was a student at Cambridge, he was called the lady of Chrift's college. He had a very fine fkin and fresh complexion; his hair was of a light brown, and parted on the foretop hung down in curls waving upon his fhoulders; his features were exact and i regular; his voice agreeable and mufical; his habit clean and neat; his deportment erect and manly. He was middle-sized and well proportioned, neither tall nor fhort, neither too lean nor too corpulent, ftrong and active in his younger years; and though afflicted with frequent headachs, blindnefs, and gout, was yet a comely and well-looking man to the laft. His eyes were of a light-blue colour, and from the first are faid to have been none of the brightest; but after he loft the fight of them, (which happened about the 43d year of his age), they ftill appeared without fpot or blemith, and at firft view, and at a little distance, it was not easy to know that he was blind. But there is the lefs need to be particular in the defcription of his perfon, as the idea of his face and countenance is pret ty well known from the numerous prints, pictures, bufts,

bufts, medals, and other reprefentations which have been made of him.

In his way of living he was an example of sobriety and temperance. He was very sparing in the use of wine or itrong liquors of any kind. Let meaner poets make ufe of fuch expedients to raife their fancy, and› kindle their imagination. He wanted not any artifi-cial fpirits; he had a natural fire, and poetic warmth' enough of his own. He was likewise very abftemious in his diet, not faftidiously nice or delicate in the choice of his difhes, but content with any thing that was moft in feafon, or easiest to be procured, eating and drinking (according to the diftinction of the philofo-pher) that he might live, and not living that he might' eat and drink. So that probably his gout defcended by inheritance from one or other of his parents; or if it was of his own acquiring, it must have been owing to his ftudious and fedentary life: And yet he delighted fometimes in walking and ufing exercise, but wer hear nothing of his riding or hunting. Having learned to fence, he was fuch a master of his fword, that he was not afraid of resenting an affront from any man. Before he loft his fight, his principal recreation was the exercife of his arms; but after he was confined by age and blindness, he had a machine to fwing in for the prefervation of his health. In his youth he was accustomed to fit up late at his ftudies, and seldom went to bed before midnight; but afterwards, finding it to be the ruin of his eyes, and looking on this cuf toin as very pernicious to health at any time, he used: to go to reft early, feldom later than nine; and would be tirring in the fummer at four, and in the winter at five in the morning; but if he was not difpofed to rife at his ufual hours, he ftill did not lie fleeping, but had fome body or other by his bedfide to read to him. At his first rising he had usually a chapter read to him out of the Hebrew Bible; and he commonly ftudied all the morning till twelve, then used fome exercise for an hour, afterwards dined, and after dinner played on the organ, and either fung himself or made his wife fing, who (he faid) had a good voice but no ear: then

he

!

he went up to ftudy again till fix, when his friends came to visit him, and fat with him perhaps till eight; then he went down to fupper, which was ufually olives, or fome light thing; and after fupper he fmoaked his pipe, drank a glafs of water, and went to bed. He loved the country, and commends it, as poets ufually do; but after his return from his travels, he was very little there, except during the time of the plague in London. The civil war might at first detain him in town; and the pleasures of the country were in a great measure loft to him, as they depend moftly upon fight; whereas a blind man wanteth company and converfation, which is to be had better in populous cities. But he was led out fometimes for the benefit of the fresh air, and in warm funny weather he ufed to fit at the door of his houfe near Bunhill-Fields, and there, as well as in the house, received the vifits of perfons of quality and diftinction; for he was no lefs vifited to the laft, both by his own countrymen and foreigners, than he had been in his flourishing condition before the Restoration.

Some objections indeed have been made to his temper; and there was a tradition in the university of Cambridge, that he and Mr. King (whofe death he laments in his Lycidas) were competitors for a fellowfhip, and when they were both equal in point of learning, Mr. King was preferred by the college for his character of good nature, which was wanting in the other; and this was by Milton grievously refented. But the difference of their ages, Milton being at least four years elder, renders this ftory not very probable; and, befides, Mr. King was not elected by the college, but was made a fellow by a royal mandate: So that there can be no truth in the tradition; but if there was any, it was no fign of Milton's refentment, but a proof of his generofity, that he could live in fuch friendship with a fuccefsful rival, and afterwards fo paffionately lament his deceafe. His method of writing controverfy is urged as another argument of his want of temper. But fome allowance must be made for the cuf toms and manners of the time. Controverfy, as well

as