account of the interview he informs us, that he was then "a practicer of the law, and a Bencher of the Inner Temple," and that he used to spend his vacations at Ipswich, where it would seem that he had some property,—and that further, he was in the habit of going to take leave of his brother before he left town. We may thence infer, that the brothers continued to live upon friendly, if not very intimate, terms.

In the charter granted to the town of Ipswich by Charles II., Christopher Milton was nominated as deputy-recorder of that town. In the next reign he rose still higher; he was knighted, and made a judge. His nephew's account,-written, we may observe, after his death, is that "he was a person of a modest and quiet temper, preferring justice before all worldly pleasure and grandeur; but that in the beginning of the reign of James II., for his known integrity and ability in law, he was by some persons of quality recommended to the King; and at a call of the Sergeants received the coif, and the same day was sworn one of the Barons of the Exchequer, and soon after made one of the Judges of the Common Pleas. But his years and indisposition not well brooking the fatigue of public employment, he continued not long in either of these stations; but, having his Quietus est, retired to a country life, his study, and devotion." Phillips however omits a very essential portion of the causes of his venerable relative's elevation,namely, his compliance with the King's religion; for his conscience, with its usual elasticity, allowed him, when beyond his seventieth year, to adopt the Roman Catholic creed, in the hope of legal preferment. Toland's account of him is less favourable, and apparently more just. He tells us, "that he was of a very superstitious

nature, and a man of no parts or ability; and that James, wanting a set of judges that could declare his will to be superior to our legal constitution, appointed him one of the Barons of Exchequer." Very possibly it was the Revolution that gave the old judge his Quietus est. He is said to have inhabited, in Ipswich, a house which had formerly belonged to the ancient family of Wingfield, a part of which he fitted up for the celebration of the Roman Catholic worship. He afterwards moved to the village of Rushmore, about two miles from that town; where he occupied a house, now called the White House, and in which he died, in the early part of the year 1692, in the seventy-seventh year of his He was buried in the Church of St. Nicholas, in

age. Ipswich.†

Sir Christopher Milton had two daughters, named Mary and Catherine; and a son, named Thomas, who was bred to the law, and succeeded his uncle Agar, in his situation in the Crown Office. Milton's granddaughter, Mrs. Foster, informed Dr. Birch that her greatuncle Christopher had, beside those two daughters, a third, who was married to a Mr. Pendlebury, a clergyman; that the others never married, and that they lived for many years at Highgate, and that one of them died at her (Mrs. Foster's) house, at Lower Holloway, at the age of about ninety years.‡

* Todd, from the information of the Rev. James Ford. †“1692, March 22. Sir Christopher Melton, of Rushmore, was buried in the church of this parish." Registry of St. Nicholas, ap. Todd, who also informs us that there is an entry in it of C. Milton's daughter Mary, March 29, 1656.

See Hunter, Milton, p. 34.

ANNE, MARY, AND DEBORAH MILTON.

We are now to consider Milton in his relation to his daughters more fully than we have done hitherto. Of these, we see, he had three, all by his first wife. Anne, called probably after his sister, who may have been her godmother, had, we are told, a fair face, but she had some kind of impediment in her speech, for which reason her father excused her from reading to him like her sisters, and she was in her person somewhat deformed, or, as it was termed, “lame and helpless." She married notwithstanding, after her father's death, when she was probably about nine and twenty or thirty years of age. Her husband is called a master builder, probably answering to the architect of the present day, so that there may have been nothing derogatory in the alliance. Like her mother and stepmother she died in childbed, of her first child.

Of Mary, the second daughter, we know much less. She was named after her mother, "whom," Aubrey says, "she resembled more than her sisters did;" perhaps we might extend the resemblance to her mind and disposition. She seems to have been, by far, the most unamiable of the three. We have seen a very unfeeling expression respecting her father attributed to her, and it was her probably that he had chiefly in view when he spoke of the unkindness of his children. She died unmarried, but in what year we are not informed.

Deborah was the youngest and the best of Milton's children. She resembled her father in face, and perhaps in temper and disposition. It was natural therefore that she should have been his favourite, as we are told As she was only twelve years old at the time.

she was.

of her father's last marriage, it does not seem reasonable to include her among those whom he charged with unkindness, though she may at times have acted under the influence of her sisters. Aubrey tells us that she was her father's amanuensis, and that he taught her Latin and to read Greek. Some time before her father's death, -in consequence, according to her daughter's account, of the ill-treatment she received from her stepmother, -she went over to Ireland, to Dublin we may presume, with a lady named Merian, probably a friend of Lady Ranelagh's, who undertook to provide for her. She might then have been from eighteen to twenty years of age. With this lady she remained till her marriage, which may have taken place before her father's decease, as, though in the legal proceedings which followed it she is termed Deborah Milton, the receipt for the money paid her by her stepmother is signed by herself and her husband. Aubrey tells us expressly, that she married in Dublin "one Mr. Clarke, a mercer, sells silk;" and her daughter adds, "that she (and her husband) came over again to England during the troubles in Ireland under King James II.,"-that is, probably in the year 1687; so that she had, it would appear, been at least fifteen years out of England. We may presume that her husband commenced business either as a mercer or as a master silk-weaver in Spitalfields, and that hence it is that the biographers, with an utter disregard of the statements of Aubrey and her daughter, follow Warton in saying briefly that "she married Abraham Clarke, a weaver, in Spitalfields." She had a large family of seven sons and three daughters. She died in August, 1727, in the seventy-sixth year of her age. Richardson and Professor Ward, of Gresham College,

were both well acquainted with her, and learned from her many particulars respecting her father. She is said to have been a woman of a very cultivated understanding, and not inelegant of manners. The excellent and amiable Joseph Addison, out of veneration to her illustrious sire, sought her out; and finding her in narrow circumstances, made her a handsome present. We are told that when she came, at his desire, to wait upon him, he was so struck with her resemblance to the pictures of Milton, that he said to her, "Madam, you need no other voucher; your face is a sufficient testimonial whose daughter you are." On his representation, the Princess of Wales (afterwards Queen Caroline) sent her a purse of fifty guineas. We are also told that in 1725, --that is, two years before her death,—Vertue the engraver took Faithorn's crayon-drawing of Milton, with some other engravings and paintings reputed to be likenesses of him, to her house. He had them brought in, as if by chance, while he was conversing with her; and at the sight of Faithorn's drawing, without taking any notice of the others, she suddenly cried out in great surprise, “O Lord! that is the picture of my father! How came you by it?" and shaking down the hair of her forehead, added, "just so my father wore his hair."

Of all the children of Deborah Clarke, only two are known anything of,—a son named Caleb, and her youngest daughter Elizabeth. The former went to Madras, in the service of the East India Company; and according to the information given to Mr. Todd by Sir James Mackintosh, he acted as parish-clerk in that factory, where he probably died. Elizabeth married Thomas Foster, a weaver (whether a master or not, we are not informed) in Spitalfields, by whom she had seven children, who all