matical confufion, and the trouble of leffons unneceffarily repeated.

About this time Elwood the quaker, being recommended to him as one who would read Latin to him, for the advantage of his converfation, attended him every afternoon, except on Sundays. Milton, who, in his letter to Hartlib, had declared, that to read Latin with an English mouth is as ill a bearing as Low French, required that Elwood should learn and practise the Italian pronunciation, which, he said, was neceffary, if he would talk with foreigners. This feems to have been a task troublefome without ufe. There is little reason for preferring the Italian pronunciation to our own, except that it is more general; and to teach it to an Englishman is only to make him a foreigner at home. He who travels, if he speaks Latin, may so soon learn the founds which every native gives it, that he need make no provifion before his journey; and if strangers vifit us, it is their business to practife fuch conformity to our modes as they expect from us in their own countries. Elwood complied with the directions, and improved himself by his atten

dance,

dance, for he relates, that Milton, having a curious ear, knew by his voice when he read what he did not understand, and would ftop him, and open the most difficult paffages.

In a fhort time he took a house in the Artillery Walk, leading to Bunhill Fields; the mention of which concludes the register of Milton's removals and habitations. He lived longer in this place than any other.

He was now bufied by Paradife Loft. Whence he drew the original defign has been variously conjectured by men who cannot bear to think themselves ignorant of that which, at last, neither diligence nor fagacity can discover. Some find the hint in an Italian tragedy. Voltaire tells a wild and unauthorised story of a farce seen by Milton in Italy, which opened thus: Let the Rainbow be the Fiddleftick of the Fiddle of Heaven. It has been already fhewn, that the first conception was a tragedy or mystery, not of a narrative, but a dramatick work, which he is fuppofed to have begun to reduce to its prefent form about the time (1655) when he finished

finished his difpute with the defenders of the king.

He long had promised to adorn his native country by fome great performance, while he had yet perhaps no settled defigu, and was ftimulated only by fuch expectations as naturally arofe from the furvey of his attainments, and the conscioufnefs of his powers. What he fhould undertake, it was difficult to determine. He was long chufing, and began late.

While he was obliged to divide his time between his private ftudies and affairs of state, his poetical labour must have been often interrupted; and perhaps he did little more in that busy time than conftruct the narrative, adjust the episodes, proportion the parts, accumulate images and fentiments, and trea fure in his memory, or preserve in writing, fuch hints as books or meditation would fupply. Nothing particular is known of his intellectual operations while he was a statesman; for, having every help and accommodation at hand, he had no need of uncommon expedients.

Being driven from all publick ftations, he is yet too great not to be traced by curiofity to his retirement; where he has been found by Mr. Richardfon, the fondeft of his ad mirers, fitting before his door in a grey coat of coarfe cloth, in warm fultry weather, to enjoy the fresh air; and fo, as in his own room, receiving the vifits of people of diftinguished parts as well as quality. His vifitors of high quality must now be imagined to be few; but men of parts might reafonably court the conversation of a man fo generally illuftrious, that foreigners are reported, by Wood, to have visited the house in Bread-street where he was born.

According to another account, he was feen in a small house, neatly enough dressed in black cloaths, fitting in a room bung with rufty green; pale but not cadaverous, with chalkstones in his bands. He faid, that if it were not for the gout, bis blindness would be tolerable.

In the intervals of his pain, being made unable to use the common exercifes, he used

to fwing in a chair, and fometimes played

upon an organ.

He was now confeffedly and visibly em→

ployed upon his poem, of which the progrefs might be noted by thofe with whom he was familiar; for he was obliged, when he had compofed as many lines as his memory would conveniently retain, to employ fome friend in writing them, having, at least for part of the time, no regular attendant. This gave opportunity to obfervations and reports.

Mr. Philips obferves, that there was a very remarkable circumftance in the compofure of Paradife Loft, "which I have a particular "reafon," fays he, "to remember; for "whereas I had the perufal of it from the

very beginning, for fome years, as I went "from time to time to vifit him, in parcels "of ten, twenty, or thirty verfes at a time (which, being written by whatever hand "came next, might poffibly want correction

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as to the orthography and pointing), having,

as the fummer came on, not been fhewed any for a confiderable while, and defiring "the reafon thereof, was anfwered, that his ❝ vein

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