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was owing to Elwood the Quaker. When Milton had lent him the manufcript of Paradise Lost at St. Giles Chalfont, and he returned it, Milton afked him how he liked it, and what he thought of it? Which I modeftly, but freely told him," says Elwood; "after some further discourse about it, I pleasantly " faid to him, Thou hast faid much of Paradise Lost, " but what haft thou faid of Paradise Found? He

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made me no answer, but fat some time in a muse; " then broke off that difcourse, and fell upon another fubject." When Elwood afterwards waited upon him in London, Milton showed him his Paradife Re gain'd, and in a pleasant tone faid to him, "This is owing to you, for you put it into my head by the question you put me at Chalfont, which before I " had not thought of." This poem has alfo been translated into French, together with some other pieces of Milton, Lycidas, L'Allegro, Il Penserofo, and the Ode on Chrift's nativity. In 1732 was printed a crítical differtation with notes upon Paradife Regain'd, pointing out the beauties of it, written by Mr. Mea-dowcourt, Canon of Worcester: And the very learn-ed and ingenious Mr. Jortin has added some obfervations upon this work at the end of his excellent remarks upon Spenser, published in 1734: And indeed this poem of Milton, to be more admired, needs only to be: better known. His Samson Agonistes is the only tragedy that he has finished, though he has sketched out the plans of several, and proposed the subjects of more,. in his manufcript preserved in Trinity-college library. We may suppose that he was determined to the choice: of this particular fubject by the fimilitude of his own circumstances to those of Samson, blind and among the Philistines; and it seems to be the last of his poeti-cal pieces. It has been brought upon the stage in the form of an oratorio; and Mr. Handel's mufic is never employed to greater advantage, than when it is adapt-ed to Milton's words. That great artist has done equal justice to our Author's L'Allegro and II Penfero... fo, as if the same spirit possessed both masters, and as if the god of music and of verse was still one and the fame There

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There are also some other pieces of Milton, for he continued publishing to the last. In 1672 he published Artis logica plenior inftitutio ad Petri Rami methodum concinnata, An institution of logic after the me thod of Petrus Ramus; and the year following, A treatise of true religion, and the best means to prevent the growth of Popery, which had greatly increased through the connivance of the King, and the more open encouragement of the Duke of York; and the same year his poems, which had been printed in 1645, were re printed with the addition of several others. His familiar epistles and some academical exercises, Epiftolarum familiarum, lib. 1 & prolufiones quædam oratoriæ in collegio Chrifti habite, were printed in 1674; as was alfo his tranflation out of Latin into English of the Poles declaration concerning the election of their King John III. fetting forth the virtues and merits of that prince. He wrote also a brief history of Muscovy, collected from the relations of feveral travellers; but it was not printed till after his death in 1682. He had likewife his state-letters tranfcribed at the request of the Danith refident; but neither were they printed till after his death in 1676. and were tranflated into English in 1694. To that tranflation a Life of Milton was prefixed by his nephew Mr. Edward Philips; and at the end of that Life his excellent sonnets to Fairfax, Cromwell, Sir Henry Vane, and Cyriac Skinner on his blindness, were first printed. Besides these works which were published, he wrote a system of divinity, which Mr. Toland says was in the hands of his friend Cyriac Skinner; but where at present is uncertain. And Mr. Philips says, that he had prepared for the press an answer to some little scribbling quack in London, who had written a scurrilous libel against him: But whether by the diffuafion of friends, as thinking him a fellow not worth his notice, or for what other cause Mr. Philips knoweth not, this answer was never published. And indeed the best vindicator of him and his writings hath been Time. Posterity hath univerfally paid that honour to his merits, which was denied him by great part of his contemporaries.

After

After a life thus spent in study and labours for the public, he died of the gout at his house in BunhillRow, on or about the 10th of November 1674, when he had within a month completed the fixty fixth year of his age. It is not known when he was first attacked by 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's, Cripplegate; and all his great and learned friends in London, not without a friendly concourse of the common people, paid their last respects in attending it to the grave. It does not appear that any monument was erected to his memory till 1737, in which one was erected in West-minster-abbey by Auditor Benson. But the best mo nument of him is his writings.

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-fized and well proportioned, neither talf nor short, neither too lean nor too corpulent, strong and active in his younger years; and though afflicted with frequent headachs, 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 faid to have been none of the brightest; but after he loft the fight of them, (which happened about the 43d year of his age), they still appeared without spot or blemish, and at first view, and at a little distance, it was not easy to know that he was blind. But there is the less need to be particular in the description of his person, as the idea of his face and countenance is pret▾ ty well known from the numerous prints, pictures, bufts, busts, medals, and other representations which have been made of him.

In his way of living he was an example of fobriety and temperance. He was very sparing in the use of wine or itrong liquors of any kind. Let meaner poets make use of fuch expedients to raise their fancy, and kindle their imagination. He wanted not any artifi-cial spirits; he had a natural fire, and poetic warmth enough of his own. He was likewise very abstemious in his diet, not faftidiously nice or delicate in the choice of his dishes, but content with any thing that was most in season, or easiest to be procured, eating and drinking (according to the distinction of the philofo-pher) that he might live, and not living that he might eat and drink. So that probably his gout defcended by inheritance from one or other of his parents; or if it was of his own acquiring, it must have been owing to his studious and fedentary life. And yet he delighted sometimes in walking and using exercise, but we hear nothing of his riding or hunting. Having learned to fence, he was such a master of his sword, that he was not afraid of resenting an affront from any man.. Before he loft his fight, his principal recreation was the exercife 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. In his youth he was accustomed to fit up late at his studies, and feldom went to bed before midnight; but afterwards, finding it to be the ruin of his eyes, and looking on this cuf-toin as very pernicious to health at any time, he used to go to rest early, feldom later than nine; and would be stirring in the fummer at four, and in the winter at five in the morning; but if he was not disposed to rife at his ufual hours, he still did not lie fleeping, but had fome body or other by his bedfide to read to him. At his first rifing he had usually a chapter read to him out of the Hebrew Bible; and he commonly studied all the morning till twelve, then used some exercise for an hour, afterwards dined, and after dinner played on the organ, and either fung himself or made his wife fing, who (he faid) had a good voice but no ear: then

he

he went up to study again till fix, when his friends came to visit him, and fat with him perhaps till eight; then he went down to supper, which was usually olives, or fome light thing; and after supper he smoaked his pipe, drank a glass of water, and went to bed. He loved the country, and commends it, as poets usually do; but after his return from his travels, he was very little there, except during the time of the plague in London. The civil war might at first detain him in town; and the pleasures of the country were in a great measure lost to him, as they depend mostly upon fight; whereas a blind man wanteth company and converfation, which is to be had better in populous cities. But he was led out fometimes for the benefit of the fresh air, and in warm funny weather he used to fit at the door of his house near Bunhill-Fields, and there, as well as in the house, received the vifits of persons of quality and distinction; for he was no less visited to the last, both by his own countrymen and foreigners, than he had been in his flourishing condition before the Restoration.

Some objections indeed have been made to his temper; and there was a tradition in the university of Cambridge, that he and Mr. King (whose death he laments in his Lycidas) were competitors for a fellowship, and when they were both equal in point of learning, Mr. King was preferred by the college for his character of good nature, which was wanting in the other; and this was by Milton grievously resented. Bat the difference of their ages, Milton being at least four years elder, renders this story not very probable; and, befides, Mr. King was not elected by the college, but was made a fellow by a royal mandate: So that there can be no truth in the tradition; but if there was any, it was no fign of Milton's resentment, but a proof of his generofity, that he could live in such friendship with a successful rival, and afterwards fo paffionately lament his decease. His method of writing controversy is urged as another argument of his want of temper. But some allowance must be made for the cuftoms and manners of the time. Controversy, as well

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