the death only of Sarah, to be recorded. Chrif topher was a royalift, and became, long after his brother's death, a judge. Through his brother's intereft, he had compounded for his eftate, in the rebellion, at the easy price of eighty pounds. Anne muft have been elder than either of her brothers; for her birth is not to be found in the register already mentioned: She was probably the eldest child, and born before her father fettled in Breadstreet. Milton's Verfes on her daughter, written in his feventeenth year, ferve to corroborate this fuppofition. She was firft married to Mr. Phillips, afterwards to Mr. Agar, a friend of her first hufband, who fucceeded him in the Crown-Office of the Court of Chancery. By her firft hufband fhe had two fons, Edward and John, whom Milton educated; by her fecond, two daughters. His brother, Chriftopher, had two daughters, Mary and Catherine; and a fon, Thomas, who fucceeded Mr. Agar in his office. Of Milton's children, who furvived him, Mr. Warton's concluding Note on the Nuncupative Will gives a diftinct account. The feveral branches of his family appear to be now extinct. I may here obferve that the cafe of Deborah, the youngest, which Mr. Warton deplores with true fenfibility, was firft noticed in a very feeling manner, in Mist's Weekly Journal, April 29, 1727, and commended her to part of the little patronage which the obtained. While it has been obferved,

с

So recorded in the volume of Compofitions, already mentioned, p. 60.

It is alfo printed in the European Magazine for 1787, p. 65.

that the Nuncupative Will of Milton prefents indeed a melancholy picture of domeftick connections, and that his conduct towards his daughters has been feelingly defended even by an eminent female pen; it has not been noticed, that part of the charge brought against him, I mean his teaching his children to read and pronounce Greek and feveral other languages without understanding any but English, may be thought more ftrange and unaccountable, inafmuch as he appears to have been diftinguished for the estimation in which he once held literary women; a circumftance which no biographer of Milton has hitherto recorded. Doctor Newton, indeed, facetioufly tells us, that Milton ufed to fay that one tongue was enough for a woman! But contemporary information will beft illuftrate this curious point in the hiftory of the poct. "We believe," fays the anfwerer to his Doctrine and Difcipline of Divorce,

you count no woman to due conversation acceffible, AS TO YOU, except fhe can speak Hebrew, Greek, Latine, and French, and difpute against the Canon law as well as you, or at least be able to hold discourse with you. But other gentlemen of good qualitie are content with meaner and fewer endowments, as you know well enough."-I, now recur to the defence of Milton by the diftinguifhed lady, who fpeaking of the modern revolutionary fpirit in families, and elegantly enforcing the fubordination of domeftick manners, obferves" that, among the faults with which

Answer to the Doct. and Difc. of Divorce, 4. 1644. p. 16. • Strictures on the Modern Syftem of Female Education, by Mrs. Hannah More, vol. i. p. 147, 6th edit. 1799.

it has been too much the fashion of recent times to load the memory of the incomparable Milton, one of the charges brought against his private character (for with his political character we have here nothing to do) has been, that he was fo fevere a father as to have compelled his daughters, after he was blind, to read aloud to him, for his fole pleafure, Greek and Latin authors of which they did not understand a word. But this is in fact nothing more than an inftance of the strict domestick regulations of the age in which Milton lived; and fhould not be brought forward as a proof of the feverity of his individual temper. Nor indeed in any cafe fhould it ever be confidered as an hardship for an affectionate child to amuse an afflicted parent, even though it fhould be attended with a heavier facrifice of her own pleafure than in the present inftance."

f

From Milton's laft wife, (whofe good name alfo has been calumniated,) the early admirers of the poet learned that he used to compofe his poetry chiefly in winter, and on his waking in a morning dictated to her fometimes twenty or thirty verses; that Spenfer, Shakfpeare, and Cowley, were his favourite English poets; and that he pronounced Dryden to be a rhymift rather than a poet. Dryden's best poems had not yet appeared. To Dryden, who often vifited him, Milton acknowledged that Spenfer was his original.

From Aubrey's manuscript it appears that Milton's "familiar learned acquaintance" were Andrew Marvell, Cyriack Skinner, and Dr. Paget. I have

See Mr. Warton's notes, f and r, on the Nuncupative Will.

often wondered that Milton, who has affectionately recorded the good qualities of many friends, fhould have omitted to grace his pages with a tribute of respect to the name of Henry More, the celebrated Platonist, his fellow-collegian; by whom Mr. Warton supposes him to have been led to the ftudy of the divine philofophy, and of whofe poetry I am perfuaded, he was an attentive reader.

I must not close this humble account of the great poet, without venturing to observe, that Dr. Johnson, in ridiculing the notion that a writer fhould fuppofe himself influenced by times or feasons, has not only too haftily decided on the intellectual impulses of Milton, but has alfo contradicted himself.

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i For

Nor can I here forbear to deplore the unwarranted afperity, with which the laft biographer of Milton would confign to oblivion and contempt the critical labours of Milton's beft commentator. borrowing two or three expreflions from Il Penferofo and the Comus," fays Dr. Symmons, "Mr. Warton could thus fpeak of Pope: 'Pope was a gleaner of the old English poets; and he was here pilfering from obfolete English poetry without the leaft fear or danger of being detected.' A few years, however, will sweep this acute and candid detector of plagiarifm to oblivion; and will leave the laurel of Eloifa's poet without the veftige of a stain." It is

8 See the note on Comus, ver. 429.

"He [Johnfon] here admits an opinion of the human mind. being influenced by feafons, which he ridicules in his writings. Bofwell's Life of Dr. Johnson, 3d. edit. vol. ii. p. 264. iLife of Milton, 1806, p. 543.

not my intention, in defending Mr. Warton, tó infinuate that any "ftain thould be fixed on the laurel of Eloifa's poet;" nor is it my province here to illuftrate the beautiful application of his borrowings; but I will not hesitate to affure the learned biographer and the world, that the obligations of Pope to our elder poetry, and especially to the poetry of Milton, are more numerous than have hitherto been noticed.