perfonal prejudice affect the most excellent performances!

About two years after, together with Samfon AgoAn. Et. 63. nistes, (a tragedy not unworthy the Grecian stage when Athens was in her glory) he published Paradife Regain'd*. But, Oh! what a falling off was there!Of which I shall say no more, than that there is fcarcely a more remarkable inftance of the frailty of human reafon than our Author gave in preferring this Poem to Paradife Loft; nor a more inftructive caution to the best writers, to be very diffident in deciding the merit of their own productions.

And thus, having attended him to the fixty-sixth year of his age, as closely as fuch imperfect lights as men of letters and retirement usually leave to guide our inquiry would allow, it now only remains to be An. Etat. 66-67. recorded, that, in the year 1674, the gout put a period to his life at Bunhill near London; from whence his body was conveyed to St, Giles's church by Cripplegate, where it lies interred in the chancel; but neither has nor wants a monument to perpetuate his memory.

In his youth he is faid to have been extremely handfome: the colour of his hair was a light-brown; the fymmetry of his features exact, enlivened with an agreeable air, and a beautiful mixture of fair and

They were licensed July 2, 1670, but not printed before the year enfuing.

ruddy; which occasioned the Marquis of Villa to give his Epigram the fame turn of thought which Gregory, Arch-deacon of Rome, had employed above a thousand years before, in praifing the amiable complexions of fome English youths before their converfion to Christianity *. His ftature (as we find it meafured by himself †) did not exceed the middle size; neither too lean, nor corpulent; his limbs well proportioned, nervous, and active; ferviceable in all respects to his exercising the sword, in which he much delighted, and wanted neither skill nor courage to refent an affront from men of the most athletic confitutions. In his diet he was abstemious; not delicate in the choice of his dishes; and strong liquors of all kinds were his averfion. Being too fadly convinced how much his health had fuffered by night-studies in his younger years, he used to go early (feldom later than nine) to rest, and rose commonly before five in the morning. It is reported, (and there is a paffage in one of his Latin Elegies to countenance the tradi❤ zion) that his fancy made the happiest flights in the Spring: but one of his nephews used to deliver it as Milton's own obfervation, that his invention was in its highest perfection from September to the Vernal Equinox: however it was, the great inequalities to be found in his composures are inconteftible proofs that, • Ut mens, forma, decor, facies, mos, fi pietas fic Non Anglus, verum hercle Angelus ipfe fores. + Defenfio Secunda, p. 87. Fol.

in fome feasons, he was but one of the people. When blindness restrained him from other exercises, he had a machine to fwing in for the preservation of his health; and diverted himself in his chamber with playing on an organ. His deportment was erect, open, affable; his converfation easy, cheerful, instructive; his wit on all occafions at command, facetious, grave, or fatirical, as the subject required. His judgment, when disengaged from religious and political speculations, was just and penetrating; his apprehenfion quick; his memory tenacious of what he read; his reading only not fo extenfive as his genius, for that was univerfal. And having treasured up such immense stores of science, perhaps the faculties of his foul grew more vigorous after he was deprived of his fight; and his imagination (naturally fublime, and enlarged by reading romances, of which he was much inamoured in his youth) when it was wholly abstracted from material objects, was more at liberty to make such amazing excurfions into the ideal world, when, in compofing his Divine Work, he was tempted to range

Beyond the visible diurnal sphere.

With fo many accomplishments, not to have had fome faults and misfortunes, to be laid in the balance with the fame and felicity of writing Paradise Loft, would have been too great a portion for humanity.

ELIJAH FENTON,

His Apolegy for Smecty manuus, p. 177. Fal.

To this account of Milton it may be proper to add fomething concerning his family. We said before, that he had a younger brother and a sister. His brother, Christopher Milton, was a man of totally oppofite principles; was a strong Royalist, and after the Civil war made his composition through his brother's interest; had been entered young a student in the Inner Temple, of which house he lived to be an ancient bencher; and being a professed Papist, was, in the reign of James II. made a judge and knighted; but foon obtained his quietus by reason of his age and infirmities, and retired to Ipswich, where he lived all the latter part of his life. His fifter, Anne Milton, had a confiderable fortune given her by her father in marriage with Mr. Edward Philips, (fon of Mr. Ed ward Philips of Shrewsbury) who coming young to London, was bred up in the Crown-office in Chancery, and at length became fecondary of the office under Mr. Bembo. By him she had, befides other children who died infants, two fons, Edward and John. Among our Author's juvenile poems there is a copy of verfes on the Death of a fair Infant dying of a cough; and this being written in his 17th year, as it is faid in the title, it may be naturally inferred that Mrs. Philips was elder than either of her brothers. She had likewife two daughters, Mary, who died very young, and Anne, who was living in 1694, by a fecond

husband, Mr. Thomas Agar, who fucceeded his intimate friend Mr. Philips in his place in the Crownoffice, which he enjoyed many years, and left to Mr. Thomas Milton, son of Sir Chriftopher before mentioned.

Our Author, by his first wife, had four children; a fon, who died an infant, and three daughters, who furvived him. By his fecond wife he had only one daughter, who died foon after her mother, who died in childbed; and by his last wife he had no children at all. His daughters were not fent to school, but were instructed by a mistress kept at home for that purpose; and he himself, excusing the eldest on account of an impediment in her speech, taught the two others to read and pronounce Greek and Latin, and feveral other languages, without understanding any but English, for he used to say that one tongue was enough for a woman; but this employment was very irksome to them, and this, together with the sharpness and severity of their mother-in-law, made them very uneasy at home; and therefore they were all sent abroad to learn things more proper for them, and particularly embroidery in gold and filver. As Milton, at his death, left his affairs very much in the power of his widow, tho' she acknowledged that he died worth one thoufand five hundred pounds, yet she allowed but one hundred pounds to each of his three daughters. Anne, the eldest, was decrepit and deformed, but had a ve