In the year 1652, or the following year, two important events occurred in the life of Milton,—the death of his wife, and the total loss of his sight. As to the former, if the supposition above-mentioned be incorrect, Mrs. Milton, who probably nursed Deborah, as she may be presumed to have nursed all her children, did not probably lie-in again till the end of 1653, or the early part of 1654, at which time she lost her life in giving birth to a fifth child; and Milton thus was deprived of a helpmate, ill-suited to him no doubt, but one who probably had managed his household concerns well, and who was therefore no small loss to him, now that he was bereaved of vision.

We

The date of his total blindness is also uncertain. have seen that in May, 1652, he was able to write; and if, as seems to be the case, the letter written by him to Bradshaw in favour of Andrew Marvell, dated February the 21st, 1652-3, be in his own handwriting, he could not have been totally blind in the early part of 1653. His biographers however with tolerable unanimity assert that his sight was wholly gone in 1652, because Du Moulin in his work published that year upbraids him with his blindness, and that, in a letter from the Hague, dated 20th June, 1653, in Thurloe's State Papers, he is spoken of as "un aveugle nommé Milton." This last authority however goes for nothing, as he may have been blind at the time it was written; and as to the former, we may observe that a charge of blindness does not imply a total want of vision, for even short-sighted people are sometimes termed blind.

In a letter dated September 28, 1654, and addressed to Leonard Philares, a learned Athenian, envoy from the Duke of Parma at the Court of France,-who had re

quested a statement of his case, that he might lay it before Thevenot, who was then in great repute for his treatment of diseases of the eye,-Milton says that, about ten years before, he had felt his sight beginning to decay, while at the same time he was troubled with flatulence and indigestion, and whenever he looked at a candle he saw an iris about it. Soon after, the left side of his left eye, the one first affected, became so clouded that he could discern nothing at that side; and when he closed his right eye, objects appeared to him with their magnitude reduced. His right eye also had been declining for three years before he became quite blind, and during the latter months of that period objects used to swim before him, and he felt, especially after his meals, a sense of oppression and drowsiness, and when he retired to bed and closed his eyes, a copious light used to flash in them, followed by vivid colours; but all this ceased as soon as his sight was entirely gone. It is quite plain then that his disease was the paralysis of the optic nerve, named gutta serena, from an erroneous idea of its cause.

We now have Milton in the year 1654 totally blind, with three little girls, the eldest not eight, the youngest not two years old, while his time was in a great measure engrossed by his public avocations. It is strange that it never seems to have entered into the mind of his nephew to inform us, or of his biographers to inquire, how he managed his domestic concerns under these circumstances. The most natural supposition would be, that he got some respectable matron to take the charge of his family; but we fear that the truth is that he did not act so prudently, but, to the manifest injury of his daughters, d.d as well as he could with ordinary servants.

He probably soon grew weary of this unpleasant mode

of life, and perhaps was anxious to give his daughters the advantage of a mother's care; for on the 12th of November, 1656, he entered a second time into the bands of matrimony. His wife's name was Catherine, daughter of Captain Woodcock, of Hackney. The marriage was performed according to the civil service then in use, "by Sir John Dethicke, knight and alderman, by the then Act of Parliament, after the publications of their agreement and intention on three market-days.' It is possible that on this occasion also Milton, like his Samson, married out of his own tribe; for among those arrested for a Royalist conspiracy against Cromwell in 1658, we find the name of Captain Woodcock. He may however have been a different person from Milton's father-in-law, and we doubt if a Royalist or a Presbyterian† would have been content with a merely civil marriage. With his new wife however Milton seems to have enjoyed connubial bliss; but his enjoyment was of brief duration, for only fifteen months after her marriage, she also died in childbed of a daughter, who did not survive her. This melancholy event occurred in the beginning of February, 1657-8. A beautiful sonnet by her husband embalms her memory, and ever, we are confident, will preserve it from decay; for even the tasteless Johnson, though grudgingly, gives it praise.

We may here pause and inquire a little into Milton's office of Foreign Secretary. We have seen that he was appointed to it early in 1649, and that toward the end of that year he was assigned apartments at Whitehall,

*Gentleman's Magazine, 1840, June, p. 598, quoted by Todd.

"The only Captain Woodcock of the Civil War times, with whose name I am acquainted, is a Captain John Woodcock, who, on October 6, 1653, gives a receipt to the Treasurer-at-War on the disbanding of his troop."-Hunter, Milton, p. 35.

which were afterwards taken from him without any reason being given. The amount of his salary is nowhere expressly mentioned. It is only said in the Order of Council" that he have the same salarie which Mr. Wecherlyn formerly had for the same service," but what that salary was is not specified. We shall see however presently that Milton's salary was nearly £300 a year. Like Blake and other sincere friends of their country, he acquiesced in, or rather approved of, Cromwell's assumption of the sole authority in the State; and he was by him continued in office. In an Order in Council, dated April 17, 1655, for the reduction of salaries, it is directed "that the former yearly salary of Mr. John Milton of £288, etc.* be reduced to £150 per annum, and paid to him during his life out of his Highness' Exchequer." As among the warrants which his Highness is in this Order advised to issue for the payment of salaries there is one "for the fee of Mr. Philip Meadows, Secretary for the Latin Tongue, after the rate of £200 per annum," it has been inferred that Milton's was a retiring pension, and that Meadows had taken the place at a reduced salary. But this cannot be the case, for the payment to Meadows is for past services. It would seem therefore to be the fact that Meadows had been for some time joint secretary with Milton, and that the

. . .

* In an Order of Feb. 13, 1653-4, signed OLIVER P., there is " Mr. John Milton for halfe a yeare, from 4th July to the first of Jan. last inclusive, at 15s. 10d. per diem, £144. 98. 3d."

+ Meadows had been for some time in employment, for we find among the Orders of Council, "1653. Oct. 17. Ordered that Mr. Philip Meadows, now employed by the Councell in Latin translations, doe alsoe assist Mr. Thurloe in the dispatch of the Forreigne businesse; and that he have in consideration thereof one hundred pounds per annum, to be added to the one hundred pounds per annum he now receives of the Councell."

latter was now relieved from the ordinary business of the office, and was only to be required to give his aid when papers of importance were to be written. It is certain that he continued to write State-papers up to the year of the Restoration.

It would seem however that this reduction of his salary did not take place to the extent proposed; for on the 25th of October, 1659, there is an Order for the payment of John Milton and Andrew Marvell at the rate of £200 a year each. Marvell had then succeeded Meadows, and probably through Milton's influence; for there is a letter from him to Bradshaw so far back as Feb. 21, 1652-3, in which he recommended him for the situation. "If," says he, " upon the death of Mr. Wakerley [Wecherlyn] the Council shall think that I shall need any assistant in the performance of my place,-though for my part I find no encumbrances of that which belongs to me except it be in point of attendance at conferences with ambassadors, which I must confess, in my condition, I am not fit for, it would be hard for them to find a man so fit every way for that purpose as this gentleman." It therefore appears that Wecherlyn did not go out of office, but remained as assistant to Milton;* and that on his death the Council, or rather Cromwell, who then had the supreme power, appointed Meadows to the vacant situation.

There is no doubt but that the arrangement effected in 1655 left Milton more time at his own disposal. He appears to have devoted it partly to his History of England, partly to the making collections for a copious Latin

*"1652. April 7. Ordered that the answer to the King of Denmark, now read, bee approved of, and translated into Latine by Mr. Wecherlyn."