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with Milton was again interrupted by a fecond calamity; a party of foldiers rufhed into a meeting of quakers, that included this unfortunate fcholar, and he was hurried, with his friends, from prison to prifon. Though ten-pence was all the money he poffeffed, his honeft pride prevented his applying to Milton for relief in this exigence, and he contrived to fupport himself by his industry, in confinement, with admirable. fortitude..

Moderate prosperity, however, vifited at last this honeft and devout man, affording him an agreeable opportunity of being useful to the great poet, who had deigned to be his preceptor.

An affluent quaker, who refided at Chalfont, in Buckinghamshire, fettled Ellwood in his family, to inftruct his children, and in 1665, when the peftilence raged in London, Milton requested his friendly difciple to find a refuge for him in his neighbourhood.

I took a pretty box for him," fays this af fectionate friend, "in Giles Chalfont, a mile from me, of which I gave him notice, and intended to have waited on him, and seen him well settled in it, but was prevented by imprifonment."

This was a fecond captivity that the unfortunate young man had to sustain; for in confequence of a recent and most iniquitous perfecution of the quakers, he was apprehended at the funeral of a friend, and confined in the gaol of Aylesbury.

"But being now released," continues Ellwood, "I foon made a vifit to him, to welcome him into the country.

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"After fome common difcourfes had passed between us, he called for a manuscript of his, which, being brought, he delivered to me, bidding me take it home with me, and read it at my leisure, and when I had so done, return it to him, with my judgment thereupon.

"When I came home, and fet myself to read it, I found it was that excellent poem, which he entitled Paradife Loft.

"After I had, with the best attention, read it through, I made him another visit, and returned him his book, with due acknowledgment of the favor he had done me in communicating it to me. He asked me how I liked it, and what I thought of it? which I modeftly and freely told him; and after fome farther difcourfe about it, I pleasantly said to him, 'Thou haft faid much here of Paradise Loft, but what haft thou to say of Paradise found.' He made me no answer, but fat fome time in a muse, then brake off that discourse, and fell upon another subject.

"After the ficknefs was over, and the city well cleansed, and become fafely habitable again, he returned thither; and when afterwards I went to wait on him there (which I feldom failed of doing, whenever my occafions led me to London) he showed me his fecond poem, called Paradife Regain'd, and in a pleasant tone faid to

me,

me, 'This is owing to you, for you put it into my head by the queftion you put to me at Chalfont, which before I had not thought of'."

The perfonal regard of this ingenuous quaker for Milton, and his giving birth to a compofition of fuch magnitude and merit as Paradise Regain'd, entitle him to diftinction in a life of his great poetical friend, and I have therefore rather tranfcribed than abridged his relation. My reader, I doubt not, will join with me in withing that we had more sketches of the venerable bard thus minutely delineated from the life, in the colors of fidelity and affection.

The laft of Milton's familiar letters in Latin relates to this period; it speaks with devotional gratitude of the fafe afylum from the plague which he had found in the country; it speaks also with so much feeling of his paft political adventures, and of the present inconvenience which he suffered from the lofs of fight, that I apprehend an entire tranflation of it can hardly fail of being acceptable to the English reader. It is dated from London, Auguft 15, 1666, and addreffed to Heimbach, an accomplished German, who is ftyled counsellor to the elector of Brandenburgh. An expreffion in a former letter to the fame correfpondent seems to intimate, that this learned foreigner, who vifited England in his youth had refided with Milton, perhaps in the character of a disciple-But here is the interesting letter:

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"If among fo many funerals of my countrymen, in a year fo full of peftilence and forrow, you were induced, as you fay, by rumor to believe that I alfo was fnatched away, it is

* Ornatiffimo Viro Petro Heimbachio, Electoris Brandenbur gici Confiliario.

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Si inter tot funera popularium meorum, anno tam gravi ac peftilenti, abreptum me quoque, ut fcribis, ex rumore præfertim aliquo credidifti, mirum non eft, atque ille rumor apud veftros, ut videtur, homines, fi ex eo quod de falute mea foliciti effent, increbuit, non difplicet; indicium enim fuæ erga me benevolentiæ fuiffe exiftimo. Sed Dei benignitate, qui tutum mihi receptum in agris paraverat, & vivo adhuc & valeo; utinam ne inutilis, quicquid muneris in hac vita reftat mihi peragendum. Tibi vero tam longo intervallo veniffe in mentem mei, pergratum eft; quamquam prout rem verbis exornas, præbere aliquem fufpicionem videris, oblitum mei te potius effe, qui tot virtutum diverfarum conjugium in me, ut fcribis, admirere. Ego certe ex tot conjugiis numerofam nimis prolem expavefcerem, nifi conftaret in re arcta, rebufque duris, vir tutes ali maxime & vigere: tametfi earum una non ita belle charitatem hofpitii mihi reddidit: quam enim politicam tu vocas, ego pietatem in patriam dictam abs te mallem, ea me pulchro nomine delinitum prope, ut ita dicam, expatriavit. Reliquarum tamen chorus clare concinit. Patria eft, ubicunque eft bene. Finem faciam, fi hoc prius abs te impetravero, ut, fi quid mendofe defcriptum aut non interpunctum repereris, id puero, qui hæc excepit, Latine prorfus nefcienti velis imputare; cui fingulas plane literulas annumerare non fine miferia dictans cogebar. Tua interim viri merita, quem ego adolefcentem fpei eximiæ cognovi, ad tam honeftum in principis gratia provexiffe te locum, gaudeo, cæteraque faufta omnia & cupio tibi, & fpero vale.

Londini, Aug. 15, 1666

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not surprising; and if fuch a rumor prevailed among those of your nation, as it feems to have done, because they were folicitous for my health, it is not unpleafing, for I muft efteem it as a proof of their benevolence towards me. But by the graciousness of God, who had prepared for me a fafe retreat in the country, I am ftill alive and well; and I truft not utterly an unprofitable fervant, whatever duty in life there yet remains for me to fulfil. That you remember me, after fo long an interval in our correfpondence, gratifies me exceedingly, though, by the politeness of your expreffion, you feem to afford me room to fufpect, that you have rather forgotten me, fince, as you fay, you admire in me fo many different virtues wedded together. From fo many weddings I fhould affuredly dread a family too numerous, were it not certain that, in narrow circumftances and under severity of fortune, virtues are most excellently reared, and are most flourishing. Yet one of these faid virtues has not very handsomely rewarded me for entertaining her; for that which you call my political virtue, and which I fhould rather wifh you to call my devotion to my country (enchanting me with her captivating name) almoft, if I may fay fo, expatriated me. Other virtues, however, join their voices to affure me, that wherever we profper, in rectitude there is our country. In ending my letter, let me obtain from you this favor, that if you find any parts of it incorrectly written,

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