ii. 442.) 'He was middle sized and well proportioned, his deportment erect and manly, his hair of a light brown, his features exactly regular, his complexion wonderfully fair when a youth, and ruddy to the very last.' (Toland, p. 149.) 1. 10. Paradise Lost, iv. 301-3.

1. 13. 'Not short and thick, but he would have been so had he been something shorter and thicker than he was.' (Richardson, p. ii.) Milton, in his ‘Defensio Secunda,' gives a description of himself which is thus translated by Toland: 'My stature I confess is not extraordinary tall, yet I am rather a middle-sized than a little man... Neither am I so slender; for I was strong and capable enough in my youth to handle my weapons, and to exercise daily fencing: so that wearing a sword by my side, as became a gentleman, I thought myself a match for those that were much stronger, and was not afraid of receiving an affront from anybody.'

1. 30. Milton's daily habits in his last years are described by Toland and Aubrey, on whose accounts this summary is based.

P. 51, 1. 6. The publication of 'Paradise Lost' increased the number of Milton's visitors. Phillips, writing of the time when Milton lived in Artillery Walk, remarks, 'The Earl of Anglesea, came often here to visit him, as very much coveting his society and converse; as likewise others of the nobility, and many persons of eminent quality; nor were the visits of foreigners ever more frequent than in this place, almost to his dying day.' (p. xl.) Aubrey, speaking of an earlier period, says: 'He was visited by the learned much more than he did desire; . . . foreigners came much to see him and much admired him,. and the only inducement of several foreigners that came over into England was chiefly to see Oliver Protector and Mr. J. Milton; and would see the house and chamber where he was born.' (Letters from the Bodleian, iii. 443.)

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1. 28. Phillips gives the following account of Milton's pecuniary affairs: 'He is said to have died worth £1500 in money (a considerable estate, all things considered), besides household goods; for he sustained such losses as might well have broke any person less frugal and temperate than him

self; no less than £2000 which he had put for security and improvement into the Excise Office, but neglecting to recall it in time could never get it out, with all the power and interest he had in the great ones of those times; besides another great sum by mismanagement and for want of good advice.' (p. xliii.) Toland simply copies the account of Phillips. The transactions relating to the settlement of Milton's affairs after his death prove that his property came to about £1000 or rather less. (Masson, vi. 743.) Wood adds to the facts given by Phillips the statement that 'by the great fire in 1666 a house in Bread Street, belonging to the poet, was burnt, which was all the real estate he then had left.' (Athenae Oxonienses, Fasti, 1635.) The story about the estate belonging to Westminster Abbey, acquired by Milton, and lost at the Restoration, rests on the authority of Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, and first appears in Birch's Life of Milton, 1738.

1. 33. A dispute took place about Milton's will. He left no written will, but announced his intentions by word of mouth to his brother, Christopher Milton: 'The portion due to me from Mr. Powell, my former wife's father, I leave to the unkind children I had by her; but I have received no part of it and my will and meaning is they shall have no other benefit of my estate than the said portion and what I have besides done for them, they having been very undutiful to me. And all the residue of my estate I leave to the disposal of Elizabeth, my loving wife.' A will made in this manner, a nuncupative will, was valid if certain conditions were observed, but on inquiry in the Prerogative Court of Chancery, it was decided that the necessary conditions had not been fulfilled, and the widow's application for probate was refused. Letters of Administration were granted to her however, and the result was that she received two-thirds of the property of her husband, and the remaining third was divided between the daughters. The daughters received £100 each, and the widow about £600. The question of the dowry of Mary Powell, which the Powell family had never paid, seems to have been left for future arrangement. Johnson's strictures on the conduct of the widow seem to

be undeserved. She removed to Nantwich about 1681 and (Masson, Life of Milton, vi. 727-747.)

died in 1727. P. 52, l. 12. The history of this copy of Euripides is traced by Masson (Life of Milton, i. 531, ed. 1859).

1. 15. Spenser.-' Milton,' says Dryden, 'was the poetical son of Spenser. Milton has acknowledged to me that Spenser was his original.' (Dryden, Preface to Fables, Globe ed. p. 494.) In 'Areopagitica' Milton terms Spenser 'our sage and serious poet, whom I dare be known to think a better teacher than Scotus or Aquinas.' He refers to him also in Il Penseroso, 1. 116-120. Other references are given by Hales, 'Areopagitica,' pp. 18, 96. Milton's admiration for Shakespeare is shown by the poem prefixed to the 1632 folio Shakespeare ('What needs my Shakspeare for his honoured bones'). It is often said that Milton as he grew more puritanical adopted the prejudices of his party, and denounced King Charles for reading 'one whom we well knew was the closet companion of his solitudes, William Shakespeare.' But the passage in the 'Eikonoklastes,' in which Shakespeare is thus mentioned, does not bear out this charge. Newton states that Milton's widow when asked 'whom he approved most of our English poets,' answered, 'Spenser, Shakspeare and Cowley'; and being asked 'what he thought of Dryden,' she said 'Dryden used sometimes to visit him, but he thought him no poet, but a good rimist.' (Newton's Milton, ed. 1754, p. lxv.)

1. 32. Milton's religious views are summed up in a Latin treatise on religion which he left in manuscript. It was discovered in the Record Office in 1823, and published two years later by Charles Sumner, afterwards Bishop of Winchester. Sumner also published an English translation of it, entitled 'A posthumous treatise on the Christian doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone, in two books: by John Milton.' An analysis of this treatise is given by Masson, Life of Milton, vi. 817. Had it been known to Johnson he could not have described Milton as 'untainted by any heretical peculiarity of opinion,' for the Arianism of which he had been suspected finds utterance in it.

P. 53, l. 13. 'In the latter part of his life, he was not a pro

fessed member of any particular sect among Christians, he frequented none of their assemblies, nor made use of their peculiar rites in his family.' (Toland, Life of Milton, p. 151.) Johnson's strictures are based solely on this statement of Toland's. Milton gives his views on this question in his treatise of Christian Doctrine, Bk. i. chap. xxix; Bk. ii. chaps. iv, vii.

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1. 28. 'Sir Robert Howard . . . was a great admirer of Milton to his dying day; and being his particular acquaintance would tell many pleasant stories of him, as that he himself having demanded of him once what made him side with the Republicans? Milton answered, among other reasons, because theirs was the most frugal government; for that the trappings of a monarchy might set up an ordinary commonwealth.' (Toland, Life of Milton, p. 139.) Johnson might have found Milton's better reasons in the 'Ready and Easy Way to establish a free Commonwealth.' Milton declares a free Commonwealth to be, 'not only held by wisest men in all ages the noblest, the manliest, the equallest, the justest government, the most agreeable to all due liberty, and proportioned equality, both human, civil, and Christian, but also (I may say it with greatest probability) plainly commended, or rather enjoined by our Saviour himself, to all Christians, not without remarkable disallowance, and the brand of gentilism upon kingship. . . . A king must be adored like a demigod, with a dissolute and haughty court about him, of vast expense and luxury, masks, and revels, to the debauching of our prime gentry both male and female; not in their pastimes only, but in earnest, by the loose employments of court service, which will be then thought honourable.' (Prose Works, ii. 116, ed. 1848.)

P. 54, 1. 14. Milton's views may be gathered from Paradise Lost, iv. 295-311, 635-638; viii. 540-559; ix. 1182-1186; x. 145-156, 867-908; xi. 614-636; Samson Agonistes, 1010-1060. Some of these utterances are of course dramatic; others Milton's biographers have taken to represent the opinions and experiences of the author himself.

1. 23. See note to p. 2, l. 16. The date of Anne Milton's death is uncertain. Of her two children by Phillips, Edward Phillips

is last heard of, 1696, and John Phillips in 1706. By her marriage with Thomas Agar she had two daughters, of whom Mary, the elder, died young, and Anne, the second, married David Moore, of Sayes House, Chertsey. Descendants of Anne Moore are said to be still living. (Masson, vi. 763–775.) 1. 27. This daughter seems to have been the last living descendant of Sir Christopher Milton. She died in 1769. (Masson, vi. 761–3.)

1. 30. The name of the husband of Anne Milton is unknown, and the date of her death uncertain. She died some time before October 1678. (Masson, vi. 750.)

1. 30. Mary Milton died before 1694. (Masson, vi. 751.) 1. 32. An account of Deborah Clark and her descendants is given by Masson (vi. 751-761). The story of her power of repeating lines from Homer rests on the authority of Professor Ward of Gresham College, and was reported by him to Birch. (Life of Milton, 1738, p. 61.)

P. 55, l. 16. 'Mr. Addison was desirous to see her once, and desired she would bring with her testimonials of being Milton's daughter; but as soon as she came into the room he told her she needed none, her face having much of the likeness of the pictures he had seen of him.' Letter of George Vertue, August 21, 1721. (Masson, i. 277; Cunningham, p. 137.) Addison died in 1719.

1. 17. A fund appears to have been raised for the benefit of Mrs. Clark. 'I was in London,' says Voltaire, 'when it became known that a daughter of blind Milton was still alive, old and in poverty, and in a quarter of an hour she was rich.' Richardson speaks of her as 'nobly relieved' for her father's sake. This appears to have taken place about 1727, a few months before her death. (Masson, vi. 754.) 1. 21. Caleb Clark died parish-clerk of Fort St. George (Madras) in 1710. All trace of his family ceases in 1727. 1. 24. Mrs. Foster died childless in May 1754.

1. 28. Thomas Birch derived some information from Mrs. Foster for the life of Milton prefixed to his edition of Milton's Prose Works (1738), and some more details were gleaned from the same source by Newton.