Republican. Randiloquence of voice and vision, peculiar diction and phraseology.

The Milton family came originally from Milton near Halton and Thame in Oxfordshire, where it florished several years, till at last the estate was sequestered, one of the family having taken the unfortunate side in the Wars of the Roses.  John Milton, the poet`s grandfather, was keeper of the forest of Shotover near Halton; he was of the religion of Rome, and such a bigot that he disinherited his son only for being a Protestant.  Upon this, the son, the poet`s father, named likewise John Milton, settled in London and became a scrivener by the advice of a friend eminent in that profession: but he was not so devoted to gain and to business, as to lose all taste of the politeJohn Milton was born on the 9th of December, 1608, in the morning between 6 and 7 o`clock, in Bread-street (between Cheapside and Cannon), London, at a house called "White Bear", where his father lived at the Sign of the Spread Eagle, which was also the coat of arms of the family.  He was named John, as his father and grand-father had been before him; and from the beginning discovering the marks of an uncommon genius, he was designed for a scholar, and had his education partly under private tutors, and partly at a public school.  

It appears from the fourth of his Latin elegies, and from the first and fourth of his familiar epistles, that Mr. Thomas Young, who was afterwards pastor of the company of English merchants residing at Hamburg, was one of his private preceptors; and when he had made good progress in his studies at home, he was sent to St. Paul`s school, to be fitted for the university under the care of Mr. Gill, who was the master at that time.  In this early time of his life such was his love of learning, and so great was his ambition to surpass his equals, that from his 12th year he commonly continued his studies till midnight, which (as he says himself in his second Defense) was the first ruin of his eyes, to whose natural debility were added too frequent headaches: but all could not extinguish or abate his laudable passion for letters.  He was now in the 17th year of his age, and was a very good classical scholar and master of several languages, when he was sent to the university of Cambridge, and admitted at Christ`s College (as appears from the register) on the 12th of February 1624-5, under the tuition of Mr. William Chappel, afterwards Bishop of Cork and Ross in Ireland.  He continued above seven years at the university, and took two degrees, that of Bachelor of Arts in 1628-9, and that of Master in 1632.  

He had given early proofs of his poetic genius before he went to the university, and there he excelled more and more, and distinguished himself by several copies of verses upon occasional subjects, as well as by all his academical exercises, many of which are printed among his other works, and show him to have had a capacity above his years: and by his obliging behaviour added to his great learning and ingenuity he deservedly gained the affection of many, and admiration of all.  We do not find however that he obtained any preferment in the university, or a fellowship in his own college; which seems the more extraordinary, as that society has always encouraged learning and learned men, had the most excellent Mr. Mede at that time a fellow, and afterwards boasted the great names of Cudworth, and Burnet author the Theory of the Earth, and several others.  And this together with some Latin verses of his to a friend, reflecting upon the university seemlingly on this account, might probably have given occasion to the reproach which was afterwards cast upon him by his adversaries, that he was expelled from the university for irregularities committed there, and forced to fly to Italy : but he sufficiently refutes this calumny in more places than one of his works; and indeed it is no wonder, that a person so engaged in religious and political controversies, as he was, should be calumniated and abused by the contrary party.

He was designed by his parents for holy orders; and among the manuscripts of Trinity College in Cambridge there are two draughts in Milton`s own hand of a letter to a friend, who had importuned him to take orders, when he had attained the age of twenty-three : but the truth is, he had conceived early prejudices against the doctrine and discipline of the Church, and subscribing to the Articles was in his opinion subscribing to slavery.  This no doubt was a disappointment to his friends, who, though in comfortable, were yet by no means in great circumstances: and neither does he seem to have had any inclination to any other profession; he had too free a spirit to be limited and confined; and was for comprehending all sciences, but professing none. 

And therefore after he had left the university in 1632, he retired to his father`s house in the country; for his father had by this time quitted business, and lived at an estate which he had purchased at Horton, near Colebrooke, in Buckinghamshire.  Here he resided with his parents for the space of five years, and, as he himself has informed us, (in his second Defense, and the 7th of his familiar epistles) read over all the Greek and Latin authors, particularly the historians; but now and then made an excursion to London, sometimes to buy books or to meet his friends from Cambridge, and at other times to learn something new in the mathematics or music, with which he was extremely delighted.

About the time of Lycidas, in 1637, he had some thoughts of taking chambers at one of the Inns of Court, for he was not very well pleased with living so obscurely in the country: but his mother dying, he prevailed with his father to let him indulge a desire, which he had long entertained, of seeing foreign countries, and particularly Italy: and having communicated his design to Sir Henry Wotton, who had formly been embassador at Venice, and was then Provost of Eton College, and having so sent him his Mask of which he had not yet publicly acknowledged himself the author, he received from him the following friendly letter dated from the College the 10th of April 1638.

Soon after this he set out upon his travels. He was attended by only one servant, who accompanied him through all his travels; and he went first to France, where he had recommendations to the Lord Scudamore, the English embassador there at that time; and as soon as he came to Paris, he waited upon his Lordship, and was received with wonderful civility; and having an earnest desire to visit the learned Hugo Grotius, he was by his Lordship`s means introduced to that great man, who was then embassador at the French court from the famous Christina Queen of Sweden; and the visit was to their mutual satisfaction; they were each of them pleased to see a person, of whom they had heard such commendations.  But at Paris he stayed not long; his thoughts and his wishes hastened into Italy; and so after a few days he took leave of the Lord Scudamore, who very kindly gave him letters to the English merchants in the several places through which he was to travel, requesting them to do him all the good offices which lay in their power.

From Paris he went directly to Nice, where he took shipping for Genoa, from whence he went to Leghorn, and thence to Pisa, and so to Florence, in a stay of two months. For besides the curiosities and other beauties of the place, he took great delight in the company and conversation there, and frequented their academies as they are called, the meetings of the most polite and ingenious persons, which they have in this, as well as in the other principal cities of Italy, for the exercise and improvement of wit and learning among them.  And in these conversations he bore so good a part, and produced so many excellent compositions, that he was soon taken notice of, and was very much courted and caressed by several of the nobility and prime wits of Florence.  For the manner is, as he says himself in the preface to his second book of the Reason of Church-government, that everyone must give some proof of his wit and reading there, and his productions were received with written encomiums which the Italian is not forward to bestow on men of this side of the Alps.  

The conversation between Galileo and Milton must have been one of extreme interest. Who would not wish that some faithful scribe had written it down? All that we know of it we know from an incidental reference in Milton`s Areopagitica :--

"I could recount what I have seen and heard in other countries, where this kind of inquisition tyrannizes; when I have sat among their learned men (for that honour I had), and been counted happy to be born in such a place of philosophic freedom as they supposed England was, while themselves did nothing but bemoan the servile condition into which learning among them was brought; that this was it which had damped the glory of Italian wits; that nothing had been written there now these many years but flattery and fustian.  There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old, a prisoner to the Inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought."

Jacomo Gaddi, Antonio Francini, Carlo Dati, Beneditto Bonmatthei, Cultellino, Frescobaldi, Clementilli are reckoned among his particular friends.  At Gaddi`s house the academies were held, which he constantly frequented.  Antonio Francini composed an Italian ode in his commendation.  Carlo Dati wrote a Latin eulogium of him and corresponded with him after his return to England. Bonmatthei was at that time about publishing an Italian grammar; and the eighth of our authors familiar epistles, dated at Florence Sept. 10. 1638, is addressed to him upon that occasion, commending his design, and advising him to add some observations concerning the true pronunciation of that language for the use of foreigners.

From Rome he went to Naples, in company with a certain hermit; and by his means was introduced to the acquaintance of Giovanni Baptista Manso, Marquis of Villa, a Neopolitan nobleman, of singular merit and virtue.  Having been in the finest parts of Italy, Milton was now thinking of passing over into Sicily and Greece, when he was diverted from his purpose by the news from England, that things were tending to a civil war between the King and Parliament; for he thought it unworthy of himself to be taking his pleasure abroad, while his countrymen were contending for liberty at home.  He resolved therefore to return by the way of Rome, though he was advised to the contrary by the merchants, who had received intelligence from their correspondents, that the English Jesuits there were forming plots against him, in case he should return there, by reason of the great freedom which he had used in all his discourses of religion.  But he had a soul above dissimulation and disguise; he was neither afraid, nor ashamed to vindicate the truth; and if any man had, he had in him the spirit of an old martyr.  He was so prudent indeed, that he would not of his own accord begin any discourse of religion; but at the same time he was so honest, that if he was questioned at all about his faith, he would not dissemble his sentiments, whatever was the consequence.  And with this resolution he went to Rome the second time, and stayed there two months more, neither concealing his name, nor declining openly to defend the truth, if any thought proper to attack him: and yet, God`s good providence protecting him, he came safe to his kind friends at Florence, where he was received with as much joy and affection, as if he had returned into his own country.

Here likewise he stayed two months, as he had done before, excepting only an excursion of a few days to Lucca: and then crossing the Apennine, and passing through Bologna and Ferrara, he came to Venice, in which city he spent a month; and having shipped off the books, which he had collected in his travels, and particularly a chest or two of choice music books of the best masters flourishing about that time in Italy, he took his course through Verona, Milan, and along the lake Leman to Geneva.  In this city he tarried some time, meeting here with people of his own principles, and contracted a friendship with Giovanni Deodati, the most learned professor of divinity, whose annotations upon the Bible are published in English.  And from thence returning through France, the same way that he had gone before, he arrived safe in England, after a peregrination of 1 year and about 3 months, having seen more, and learned more, and conversed with more famous men, and made more real improvements, than most others in double the time.

His first business after his return was to pay his duty to his father, and to visit his other friends; but this pleasure was much diminished by the loss of his dear friend and schoolfellow Charles Deodati in his absence.  While he was abroad, he heard it reported that he was dead; and upon coming home he found it but too true, and lamented his death in an excellent Latin eclogue entitled Epitaphium Damonis.  This Deodati had a father originally of Lucca, but his mother was English, and he was born and bred in England, and studied physic, and was an admirable scholar, and no less remarkable for his sobriety and other virtues than for his great learning and ingenuity. 

Milton, soon after his return, had taken a lodging at one Russel`s, a tailor, in St. Bride`s Churchyard; but he continued not long there, having not sufficient room for his library and furniture; and therefore determined to take a house, and accordingly took a handsome garden-house in Aldersgate-street, situated at the end of an entry, which was the more agreeable to a studious man for its privacy and freedom from noise and disturbance. And in this house he continued several years, and his sister`s two sons were put to board with him, first the younger and afterwards the elder: and some other of his intimate friends requested of him the same favour for their sons, especially since there was little more trouble in instructing half a dozen than two or three: and he, who could not easily deny anything to his friends, and who knew that the greatest men in all ages had delighted in teaching others the principles of knowledge and virtue, undertook the office, not out of any sordid and mercenary views, but merely from a benevolent disposition, and a desire to do good.  And his method of education was as much above the pedantry and jargon of the common schools, as his genius was superior to that of a common school-master.  

The Sunday`s exercise for his pupils was for the most part to read a chapter of the Greek Testament, and to hear his learned exposition of it.  The next work after this was to write from his dictation some part of a system of divinity, which he had collected from the ablest divines, who had written upon that subject.  Such were his academic institutions; and thus by teaching others he in some measure enlarged his own knowledge; and having the reading of so many authors as it were by proxy, he might possibly have preserved his sight, if he had not moreover been perpetually busied in reading or writing something himself.  It was certainly a very recluse and studious life, that both he and his pupils led; but the young men of that age were of a different turn from those of the present; and he himself gave an example to those under him of hard study and spare diet; only now and then, once in three weeks or a month, he made a gawdy day with some young gentleman of his acquaintance, the chief of whom, says Mr. Philips, were Mr. Alphry and Mr. Miller, both of Gray`s-Inn, and two of the greatest beaus of those times.

In the year 1643, and the 35th of his age, he married; and indeed his family was now growing so numerous, that it wanted a mistress at the head of it. Milton`s father, who had lived with John`s younger brother at Reading, was, upon the taking of that place by the forces under the Earl of Essex, necessitated to come and live in London with Milton, with whom he continued in tranquility and devotion to his dying day.  Some addition too was to be made to the number of his pupils.  But before his father or his new pupils were come, he took a journey in the Whitsuntide vacation, and after a month`s absence, returned with a wife, Mary the eldest daughter of Mr. Richard Powell, of Foresthill near Shotover in Oxfordshire.  But she had not cohabited with her husband about a month, before she was earnestly solicited by her relations to come and spend the remaining part of the sumer with them in the country.  If it was not at her instigation that her friends made this request, yet at least it was agreeable to her inclination; and she obtained her husband`s consent upon a promise of returning at Michaelmas.  And in the meanwhile his studies went on very vigorously; and his chief diversion, after the business of the day, was now and then in an evening to visit the Lady Margaret Lee, daughter of the Earl of Marborough, Lord High Treasurer of England, and President of the Privy Council to King James I. This Lady, being a woman of excellent wit and understanding, had a particular honor for our author, and took great delight in his conversation; as likewise did her husband Captain Hobson, a very accomplished gentleman.  And what a regard Milton again had for her, he has left upon record in a sonnet to her praise.

Michaelmas was now come, but he heard nothing of his wife`s return.  He wrote to her, but received no answer. He wrote again letter after letter, but received no answer to any of them.  He then dispatched a messenger with a letter, desiring her to return; but she positively refused, and dismissed the messenger with contempt. Whyever this was, it so highly incensed John Milton that he thought it would be dishonourable ever to receive her again, and he determined to repudiate her as she had in effect repudiated him, and to consider himself no longer married.  

And to fortify this his resolution, and at the same time to justify it to the world, he wrote the "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce."  He published it at first without his name, but the style easily betrayed the author; and afterwards a 2nd edition, much augmented, with his name; and he dedicated it to the Parliament of England with the Assembly of Divines, that as they were then consulting about the general reformation of the kingdom, they might also take this particular case of domestic liberty into their consideration.  And then, as it was objected, that his doctrine was a novel notion, and a paradox that nobody had ever asserted before, he endeavoured to confirm his own opinion by the authority of others, and published in 1644 the "Judgement of Martin Bucer" &c: And as it was still objected, that his doctrine could not be reconciled to Scripture, he published in 1645 his "Tetrachordon or Expositions upon the four chief places in Scripture, which treat of marriage, or nullities in marriage."  At the first appearing of the "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce" the clergy raised a heavy outcry against it, and daily solicited the Parliament to pass some censure upon it; and at last one of them, in a sermon preached before the Lords and Commons on a day of humiliation in August 1644, roundly told them, that there was a book abroad which deserved to be burnt, and that among their other sins they ought to repent, that they had not yet branded it with some mark of their displeasure. 

Milton determined to marry again, and courted a young lady of great wit and beauty, one of the daughters of Dr. Davis.  But intelligence of this coming to his wife, the Powell family set all engines on work to restore the wife again to her husband.  And his friends too for different reasons seem to have been as desirous of bringing about a reconciliation as her`s, and this method of effecting it was concerted between them.  He had a relation, one Blackborough, living in the lane of St. Martin`s Le Grand, whom he often visited; and one day when he was visiting there, it was contrived that the wife should be ready in another room; and as he was thinking of nothing less, he was surprised to see her, whom he had expected never to have seen any more, falling down upon her knees at his feet, and imploring his forgiveness with tears.  At first he showed some signs of aversion, but he continued not long inexorable; his wife`s entreaties, and the intercession of friends on both sides soon wrought upon his generous nature, and procured a happy reconciliation with an act of oblivion of all that was past. But he did not take his wife home immediately; it was agreed that she should remain at a friend`s till the house, that he had newly taken, was fitted for their reception; for some other gentleman of his acquaintance, having observed the great success of his method of education, had recommended their sons to his care; and his house in Aldersgate-street not being large enough, he had taken a larger in Barbican: and till this could be got ready, the place pitched upon for his wife`s abode was the widow Webber`s house in St. Clement`s Churchyard.  The part, that Milton acted in this whole affair, showed plainly that he had a spirit capable of the strongest resentment, but yet more inclinable to pity and forgiveness: and neither in this was any injury done to the other lady, whom he was courting, for she is said to have been always been against Milton`s advances.

After this he retired again to his private studies; and thinking that he had leisure enough for such a work, he applied himself to the writing of a History of England, which he intended to deduce from the earliest accounts down to his own times: and he had finished four books of it, when neither courting nor expecting any such preferment, he was invited by the Council of State to be their Latin Secretary for foreign affairs.  And he served in the same capacity under Oliver, and Richard, and the Rump, till the Restoration; and without doubt a better Latin pen could not have been found in the kingdom.  For the Republic of Cromwell scorned to pay that tribute to any foreign prince, which is usually paid to the French king, of managing their affairs in their language; they thought it an indignity and meanness, to which this or any free nation ought not to submit; and took a noble resolution neither to write any answers from them, but in the Latin tongue, which was common to them all. 

It is probable that Milton, when he was first made Latin Secretary, removed from his house in High Holborn to be nearer Whitehall: and for some time he had lodgings at one Thomson`s next door to the Bull-head tavern at Charing-Cross, opening into Spring-Garden, till the apartment, appointed for him in Scotland-Yard, could be got ready for his reception.  He then removed thither; and there his 3rd child, a son was born and named John, who through the ill usage of bad constitution of the nurse died an infant.  His own health too was greatly impaired; and for the benefit of the air, he removed from his apartment in Scotland-Yard to a house in Petty-France Westminster, which was next door to Lord Scudamore`s, and opened into St. James`s Park; and there he remained 8 years, from the year 1652 till within a few weeks of the King`s restoration.  In this house he had not been settled long, before his 1st wife died in childbed; and his condition requiring some care and attenance, he was easily induced after a proper interval of time to marry a 2nd, who was Catharine, the daughter of Captain Woodcock of Hackney; and she too died in childbed within a year after their marriage, and her child, who was a daughter, died in a month after her. Milton honoured her memory in one of his sonnets.

Two or three years before this second marriage he had totally lost his sight.  And his enemies triumphed in his blindness, and imputed it as a judgement upon him for writing against the King: but his sight had been decaying several years before, through his close application of study, and the frequent headaches to which he had been subject from his childhood, and his continual tampering with physic, which perhaps was more pernicious than all the rest: and he himself has informed us in his 2nd Defense, that when he was appointed by the authority to write his Defense of the people against Salmasius, he had almost lost the sight of one eye, and the physicians declared to him, that if he undertook that work, he would also lose the sight of the other: but he was nothing discouraged, and chose rather to lose both his eyes than desert what he thought his duty. His blindness however did not disable him entirely from performing the business of his office.  An assistant was allowed him, and his salary as secretary still continued to him.

A little before the King`s landing he was discharged from his office of Latin Secretary, and was forced to leave his house in Petty France, where had lived 8 years with great reputation, and had been visited by all foreigners of note, who could not go out of the country without seeing a man who did so much honour to it by his writings, and whose name was as well known and as famous abroad as in his own nation; and by several persons of quality and of both sexes, particularly the pious and virtuous Lady Ranelagh, whose son for some time he instructed, the same who was Paymaster of the forces in King William`s time; and by many learned and ingenious friends and acquaintance, particularly Andrew Marvel, and young Laurence, son to the President of Oliver`s Council, to whom he has inscribed one of his sonnets, and Marchamont Needham the writer of Politicus, and above all Cyriac Skinner, whom he has honoured with two sonnets.  

But now it was not safe for him to appear any longer in public, so that by the advice of some who wished him well and were concerned for his preservation he fled for shelter to a friend`s house in Bartholomew Close near West Smithfield, where he lay concealed till the worst of the storm was blown over. The first notice that we find taken of him was on Saturday the 16th of June 1660, when it was ordered by the House of Commons, that his Majesty should be humbly moved to issue his proclamation for the calling in of Milton`s two books, his Defense of the people and Iconoclastes, and also Goodwyn`s book entitled the Obstructors of justice, written in justification of the murder of the late King, and to order them to be burnt by the hands of the common hangman.  At the same time it was ordered, that the Attorney General should proceed by way of indictment or information against Milton and Goodwyn in respect of their books, and that they themselves should be sent for in custody of the Serjeant at arms attending the House.  

On Wednesday June 27th an order of Council was made agreeable to the order of the House of Commons for the proclamation against Milton`s and Goodwyn`s books; and the proclamation was issued the 13th of August following, wherein it was said that the authors had fled or did abscond: and on Monday August 27th Milton`s and Goodwyn`s books were burnt according to the proclamation at the Old Baily by the hands of the common hangman.  On Wednesday August 29th the act of indemnity was passed, which proved more favourable to Milton than could well have been expected; for though John Goodwyn, Clerk was excepted among the twenty persons, who were to have penalties inflicted upon them, not extending to life, yet Milton was not excepted at all, and consequently included in the general pardon.  We find indeed that afterwards he was in custody of the Serjeant at arms; but the time, when he was taken into custody, is not certain.  He was not in custody on the 12th of September, for that day a list of the prisoners in custody of the Serjeant at arms was read in the House, and Milton is not among them; and on the 13th of September the House adjourned to the 6th of November.  

It is most probable therefore, that after the act of indemnity was passed, and after the House had adjourned, he came out of his concealment, and was afterwards taken into custody of the Serjeant at arms by virtue of the former order of the House of Commons: but we cannot find that he was prosecuted by the Attorney General, nor was he continued in custody very long: for on Saturday the 15th of December 1660, it was ordered by the House of Commons, that Mr. Milton now in custody of the Serjeant at arms should be forthwith released, paying his fees; and on Monday the 17th of December, a complaint being made that the Serjeant at arms had demanded excessive fees for his imprisonment, it was referred to the Committee of privileges and elections to examine this business, and to call Mr. Milton to the Serjeant before them, and to determine what was fit to be given to the Serjeant for his fees in this case; so courageous was he at all times in defense of liberty against all the encroachments of power, and though a prisoner, would yet be treated like a freeborn Englishman.  This appears to be the matter of fact, as it may be collected partly from the Journals of the House of Commons, and partly from Kennet`s Historical Register: and the clemency of the government was surely very great towards him, considering the nature of his offenses; for though he was not one of the King`s judges and murderers, yet he contributed more to murder his character and reputation than any of them all: and to what therefore could it be owing, that he was treated with such lenity, and was so easily pardoned?  

It is certain, there was not wanting powerful intercession for him both in Council and in Parliament.  It is said that the Secretary Morrice adn Sir Thomas Clargis greatly favoured him, and exerted their interest in his behalf; and his old friend Andrew Marvel, member of Parliament for Hull, formed a considerable party for him in the House of Commons; and neither was Charles II. (as Toland says) such an enemy to the Muses, as to require his destruction.  But the principal instrument in obtaining Milton`s pardon was Sir William Davenant, out of gratitude for Milton`s having procured his release, when he was taken prisoner in 1650.  It was life for life.  This story Mr. Richardson relates upon the authority of Mr. Pope; and Mr. Pope had it from Betterton the famous actor, who was first brought upon the stage and patronized by Sir William Davenant, and might therefore derive the knowledge of this transaction from the fountain.

Milton having thus obtained his pardon, and being set at liberty again, took a house in Holborn near Red Lion Fields; but he removed soon into Jewen Street near Aldersgate Street: and while he lived there, being in his 53rd or 54th year, and blind and infirm, and wanting somebody better than servants to tend and look after him, he employed his friend Dr. Paget to choose a proper consort to him; and at his recommendation married his third wife, Elizabeth Minshul, of a gentleman`s family in Cheshire, and related to Dr. Paget.  His third wife is said to have been a woman of a most violent spirit, and a hard step-mother to his children.  She died very old, in about 1730, at Nantwich in Cheshire.

It was not long after his 3rd marriage that he left Jewen Street, and removed to a house in the Artillery Walk leading to Bunhill Fields: and this was his last stage in this world; he continued longer in this house than he had done in any other, and lived here to his dying day: only when the plague began to rage in London in 1665, he removed to a small house at St. Giles Chalfont in Buckinghamshire; and there he remained during that dreadful calamity. 

"Paradise Lost" had principally engaged his thoughts for some years past, and was now completed. It is probable, that his first design of writing an epic poem was owing to his conversations at Naples with the Marquis of Villa about Tasso and his famous poem of the delivery of Jerusalem; and in a copy of verses presented to that nobleman before he left Naples, he intimated his intention of fixing upon King Arthur for his hero.  And in an eclogue, made soon after his return to England upon the death of his friend Deodati, he proposed the same design and the same subject, and declared his ambition of writing something in his native language. But King Arthur had another fate, being reserved for the pen of Sir Richard Blackmore.  The first hint of Paradise Lost is said to have been taken from an Italian tragedy; and it is certain, that he first designed it for a tragedy himself, and there are several plans of it in the form of a tragedy still to be seen in the author`s own manuscript preserved in the library of Trinity College Cambridge.  Though Milton received no more than £10 at two different payments for "Paradise Lost", yet Hoyle, author of the treatise on the Game of Whist, after having disposed of all the first impression, sold the copy to the bookseller (Tonson), for two hundred guineas.

In 1670 he published his "History of Britain, that part especially now called England." He began it above 20 years before, but was frequently interrupted by other avocations; and he designed to have brought it down to his own times, but stopped at the Norman Conquest; for indeed he was not well able to pursue it any farther by reason of his blindness.  When his History was printed, it was not printed perfect and entire; for the licencer expunged several passages, which reflecting upon the pride and superstition of the Monks in the Saxon times, were understood as a concealed satire upon the Bishops in Charles II.`s reign.  But the author himself gave a copy of his unlicenced papers to the Earl of Anglesea, who, as well as several of the nobility and gentry, constantly visited him: and in 1681 a considerable passage, which had been supressed at the beginning of the third book, was published, containing a character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines in 1641, which was inserted in its proper place in the edition of 1738.  In 1670 likewise "Paradise Regain`d" and "Samson Agonistes" were licenced together, but were not published till the year following.  

After a life thus spent in study and labours 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 66th year of his age.  It is not known when he was first attacked with the gout, but he was grievously afflicted with it several of the last years of his life, and was weakened to such 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-without-Cripplegate, in Barbican, London; and all his great and learned friends in London, not without a friendly concourse of common people, paid their last respects in attending it to the grave.  A monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey by Auditor Benson in the year 1737.  

In his youth he was esteemed extremely handsome, so that while he was a student at Cambridge, he was called the "Lady of Christ`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 shoulders; his features were exact and regular; his voice agreeable and musical; his habit clean and neat; his deportment erect and manly. He was middle-sized and well proportioned, neither tall nor short, neither too lean nor too corpulent, strong and active in his younger years, and though afflicted with frequent headaches, blindness, and gout, was yet a comely and well-looking man to the last. His eyes were of a light blue colour, and from the first are said to have been none of the brightest; but after he lost his sight, (which happened about the 43rd of his age) they still appeared without spot or blemish, and at first view and a a little distance it was not easy to know that he was blind.  In his younger years, he delighted sometimes in walking and using exercise, but we hear nothing of his riding or hunting; and having early learned to fence, he was such a master of his sword, that he was not afraid of resenting an affront from any man; and before he lost his sight, his principal recreation was the exercise of his arms; but after he was confined by age and blindness, he had a machine to swing in for the preservation of his health.