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and never appears to have had social prayers in his family. We will consider the former when we come to speak of his daughters; the latter we will notice in this place.

It is but too prevalent an opinion that religion consists chiefly in a regular attendance at some place of worship, and at the bottom of this persuasion there seems to be an idea, apparently derived from the language of the Old Testament, that God is more in one place than in another, or that devotions offered in such a place are more acceptable than if offered elsewhere. Hence we may see persons who are so deaf as to be unable to hear any part of the service most regular attendants at church. Such however we know could never have been the belief of Milton, and therefore he may have regarded his blindness as a sufficient excuse for not frequenting any place of worship. This and other reasons have been assigned by Toland, Newton, and others; but the discovery of his work on Christian Doctrine enables us to see more clearly into the grounds of his not joining himself to any religious society. From his opinions as there developed, we may discern that he differed in his theologic views from every sect then in existence. He says, no doubt, quoting the well-known passage Heb. x. 25, that "it is the duty of believers to join themselves, if possible, to a church duly constituted;" but he did not regard any society of Christians that he knew of as forming "a church duly constituted" in his eyes, and therefore it was not possible for him to join any. He further defines the universal Church as consisting of those who worship God through Christ anywhere, and either individually or in conjunction with others; and he adds, that those who cannot do this last "conveniently or with full satisfaction of conscience," are not to be sup

posed not to partake of the blessings bestowed on the Church.

As to his not having social prayer in his family, this we think may be elucidated by the remark he makes respecting our Lord, who, he says, "appears seldom to have prayed in conjunction with his disciples, or even in their presence, but either wholly alone or at some distance from them." This was probably the model which he set before himself, and he may have deemed it sufficient to give his family an example of true and rational devotion. He commenced every day with the reading of the Scriptures, and spent some time in silent and serious meditation thereon, saying thus, as it were, to those around him, "Go and do thou likewise." He did not seek apparently to impress his own peculiar views on his family. He must have been married to his last wife according to the rites of the Church of England, and it is very probable that she frequented some place of worship, as she died a member of the Baptist society. To judge by one of the interrogatories put to the witnesses in the case of his will, and probably suggested by the malicious Mary Milton, his daughters were regular in their attendance at church.*

In what precedes we have endeavoured to arrange and narrate all the circumstances relating to the life, manners, pursuits, and occupations of the ever-illustrious John Milton. Scanty as they may appear to be, they are, in reality, more copious than those which have reached us of any other distinguished man anterior to the 18th century. Thus, what do we know of the lives of Dante,

* See Note H. at end of this Part.

of Shakespeare, of Spenser? Almost nothing. Of Torquato Tasso and a few others we know somewhat more, yet still comparatively little. And perhaps though we are far from asserting it of Milton-it is better for the fame of great writers that their history should be involved in a kind of mythic envelope, and that thus, like superior beings, they should be known to the after-world only by the products of their creative genius. We say this, knowing no human being to be exempt from imperfection, and judging by the effects of some of the copious biographies of modern times.

MILTON'S FAMILY.

ANNE MILTON.

THE eldest child of John Milton of Bread-street of whom we have any account was a daughter named Anne. Of the date of her birth we are not informed,* but as she had a child before her brother John had completed his seventeenth year, she was probably at least two or three years older than he was; and we may therefore venture to place her birth in the year 1605 or 1606. Her father gave her in marriage, with a handsome fortune,-probably in the year 1624,-to Mr. Edward Phillips, a native of Shrewsbury; who, having come up young to London, as his son tells us, had obtained in process of time the lucrative office of Secondary in the Crown Office in the Court of Chancery. Of his age at that time we have no information, but he was probably not very young, as he did not survive his marriage many years. Beside the daughter who died soon after her birth, and whose memory has been embalmed by the genius of her youthful uncle, they had two sons, named Edward and John; the former born in 1630, the latter

Todd informs us that her birth is not to be found in the register of Allhallows, and assigns as a reason that she may have been born before her father settled in Bread-street. See above, p. 3.

about a year later, of whom we will presently treat more at large; and it is not improbable that in the interval between 1625 and 1630 they lost another child or two. We are completely in the dark also as to the time of the death of Mr. Phillips; but in 1639, when our poet returned from his travels, his sister was, and may have been for some time, married to Mr. Agar, a friend of her first husband's, and his successor in the Crown Office. By him she had two daughters,―Mary, who died young, and Anne, who was living in 1694 when her brother Edward was writing the life of his illustrious kinsman. It is from this narrative that we have derived all our information respecting his mother, and here his communications end. Perhaps we might infer from her brother's verses on the death of her child that Mrs. Phillips was an amiable woman.

CHRISTOPHER MILTON.

The only surviving child of John Milton, beside his daughter Anne and his son John, was a son named Christopher, born, as it would appear,* toward the end of November, in the year 1615, and therefore seven years younger than his brother John. His father, who, as we have seen, had destined his elder son for the Church, put his younger to the legal profession, and he became a barrister-at-law. He was, like most of his profession, a Royalist in principle. He established himself in the town of Reading in Berkshire; and, probably soon after the departure of his brother John for

*Todd quotes from the register of Allhallows :-"The third daye of December, 1615, was baptized CHRISTOPHER, the sonne of John Mylton of this pishe, scrivenor."

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