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 English in 1694; and to that tranflation 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 his 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 prefs an anfwer to fome little fcribbling quack in London, who had written a fcurrilous libel against him; but whether by the diffuafion of friends, as thinking him a fellow not worth his notice, or for what other cause, Mr. Philips knoweth not, this answer was never published. And indeed the beft vindicator of him and his writings hath been Time. Pofterity hath univerfally paid that honor to his merits, which was denied him by great part of his contempora ries. After a life thus spent in ftudy and labors for the public, he died of the gout at his house in Bunhill Row 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 fuch a degree, that he died without a groan, and those 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 concourfe of the common people, paid their last respects in attending it to the grave. Mr. Fenton in his short but elegant account of the life of Milton, speaking of our author's having no monument, fays that "he defired a friend to inquire at St. "Giles's Church; where the fexton fhowed him a small "monument, which he said was fuppofed to be Milton's; but the inscription had never been legible fince he was employed in that office, which he has poffeffed about forty years. This fure could never have happened in "fo fhort a space of time, unless the epitaph had been industriously erased: and that supposition, says Mr. "Fenton, carries with it fo much inhumanity, that I think we ought to believe it was not erected to his memory." It is evident that it was not erected to his memory, and that the fexton was mistaken. For Mr. Toland in his account of the life of Milton fays, that he was buried in the chancel of St. Giles's church, "where the piety of "his admirers will fhortly erect a monument becoming "his worth and the encouragement of letters in King "William's reign." This plainly implies that no monument was erected to him at that time, and this was written in 1698: and Mr. Fenton's account was first published, I think, in 1725; fo that not above twenty feven years intervened from the one account to the other; and consequently the fexton, who it is faid had been poffeffed of his office about forty years, must have been mistaken, and the monument must have been defigned for fome other person, and not for Milton. A monument indeed has been erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey by Auditor Benson in the year 1737; but the best monument of him is his writings. In his youth he was esteemed extremely handsome, so that while he was a ftudent at Cambridge, he was called the Lady of Chrift's College. He had a very fine skin 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 regular; his voice agreeable and mufical; his habit clean and neat; his deportment erect and manly. He was middle fized and well proportioned, neither tall nor short, neither too lean nor too corpulent, ftrong and active in his younger years, and though afflicted with fre quent head-akes, blindness, and gout, was yet a comely and well-looking man to the laft. His eyes were of a light blue color, and from the first are faid to have been none of the brighteft; but after he loft the fight of them, (which happened about the 43d year of his age) they ftill appeared without fpot or blemifh, and at firft view and at a little distance it was not eafy to know that he was blind. Mr. Richardson had an account of him from an ancient clergyman in Dorfetfhire, Dr. Wright, who found him in a fmall house, which had (he thinks) but one room on a floor; in that, up one pair of stairs, which was hung with a rufty green, he faw John Milton fitting in an elbow chair, with black clothes, and neat enough, pale but not cadaverous, his hands and fingers gouty, and with chalk ftones; among other difcourfe he expreffed himself to this purpose, that was he free from the pain of the gout, his blindness would be tolerable. But there is the lefs need to be particular in the defcription of his person, as the idea of his face and countenance is pretty well known from the numerous prints, pictures, bufls, medals, and other representations which have been made of him. There are two pictures of greater value than the rest, as they are undoubted originals, and were in the poffeffion of Milton's widow: the firft was drawn when he was about twenty one, and is at prefent in the collection of the Right Honorable Arthur Onflow Efq; Speaker of the House of Commons; the other in crayons was drawn when he was about fixty two, and was in the collection of Mr. Richardson, but has fince been purchased by Mr. Tonfon. Several prints have been made from both these pictures; and there is a print done, when he was about about fixty two or fixty three, after the life by Faithorn, which tho' not fo handfome, may yet perhaps be as true a resemblance, as any of them. It is prefixed to fome of our author's pieces, and to the folio edition of his profe works in three volumes printed in 1698. In his way of living he was an example of fobriety and temperance. He was very fparing in the use of wine or ftrong liquors of any kind. Let meaner poets make use of such expedients to raise their fancy and kindle their imagination. He wanted not any artificial spirits; 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 dishes, but content with any thing that was most in seafon, or eafieft to be procured, eating and drinking, (according to the distinction of the philofopher) 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 studious and sedentary life. And yet he delighted fometimes in walking and using exercise, but we hear nothing of his riding or hunting; and having early learned to fence, he was fuch a master of his sword, that he was not afraid of resenting an affront from any man; and 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 preservation of his health. In his youth he was accustomed to fit up late at his ftudies, and feldom went to bed before midnight; but afterwards, finding it to be the ruin of his eyes, and looking on this custom as very pernicious to health at any time, he used to go to reft early, feldom later than nine, and would be stirring in the fummer at four, and in the winter at five in the morning; but if he was not difpofed to rise at his usual hours, he ftill did not lie fleeping, but had h had fome body or other by his bed fide to read to him, At his firft rifing he had ufually a chapter read to him out of the Hebrew Bible, and he commonly ftudied all the morning till twelve, then ufed 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; and then 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 usually olives or fome light thing; and after supper he smoked his pipe, and drank a glass 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 mostly upon fight, whereas a blind man wanteth company and conversation, 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 used 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 diflinction; for he was no less vifited to the last both by his own countrymen and foreigners, than he had been in his florifhing condition before the Restoration. Some objections indeed have been made to his temper; and I remember 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 fellowship, 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, ren ders |