There is nothing more tender and delicate in all Petrarch's sonnets. To compensate for this loss, Milton entered a third time into the bands of matrimony with Elizabeth Minshull, of a good family in Cheshire, but "probably without a fortune," says Dr. Johnson. She has been represented as being a harsh mother-in-law to his children; and, unhappily, some circumstances of litigation between her and them, relative to the disposal of the poet's small property, on his decease, give colour to the imputation.

After the death of Cromwell, the retirement of his son Richard, and the restoration of Charles II., Milton was too conspicuous an object for retributive vengeance, not to fear a heavy visitation for his republican offences. He escaped, however, rather by being overlooked, than unsought for, if the contradictory statements are at all to be reconciled to truth or probability. Sir William Davenant, his brother-poet, and a zealous cavalier, had owed his life to the friendship of Milton, during the commonwealth's reign of terror; and now, on the turning of the scale, he repaid the obligation in kind, by interposing to save his quondam protector. This story is worth repeating, though, perhaps, not worth believing; yet (if apocryphal) it is one of those things concerning which we should not like to be undeceived. Another tradition, in a work called "A History of England" (Cunningham's) is, that, during the first keen search for victims, "Milton, Latin secretary to Cromwell, distinguished by his writings in favour of the rights and liberties of the people, pretended to be dead, and had a public funeral procession. The king applauded his policy in escaping the punishment of death by a seasonable show of dying." That the "merry monarch" would have laughed heartily at the hoax, if it had been successfully practised, is far more probable than that it was at all attempted.

It is pleasing to find that Dr. Johnson himself manifests

something of kindly feeling, on this occasion, towards the man whom he openly or insidiously persecutes in every other stage of public or private life; though he ungraciously affects to disguise that very feeling from himself, saying, "it is not certain that Milton's life ever was in danger;" and, under this notion, adds" it required no great interest to exempt Milton from a censure little more than verbal. Something may be reasonably ascribed to veneration and compassion; to veneration of his abilities, and compassion for his distresses, which made it fit to forgive his malice for his learning. He was now poor and blind, and who would pursue with violence an illustrious enemy, depressed by fortune, and disarmed by nature ?"-There is another plea why it should be "fit to forgive the malice for the learning," not of Milton only, but of his biographer himself, throughout this whole memoir. Both probably sinned "of malice prepense," but each, it may now be believed, acted conscientiously. In the courtesy of common charity, the sincerity of neither can be questioned; and here, at least, it may be forgiven to their present censor if he no longer seeks to "draw the frailties" of either illustrious offender "from their dread abode.”

Milton now turned the whole force of his genius to the completion of his earliest project-an heroic poem-always in his eye, never out of his mind, though the form of it was frequently changing, but not fully undertaken till he had been driven from the field of politics and controversy. Thus, till he had reached his sixtieth year, so little impatient was he of securing celebrity by the exercise of that very gift on which he most valued himself, that the whole bulk of his published poems scarcely amounted to a hundred pages of print; and when, at length, his greatest work was achieved, he committed it to its fate as confidently as though he had foreseen its posthumous fortune

"In the clear mirror of his ruling star."

And, if that was still to be a "hope deferred," it made not his "heart sick;" for he felt that it was within him already, like "the desire when it cometh"-the quickened germ of a "tree of life," under the shadow of whose boughs millions should sit with delight, and with the fruits of which generations unborn should be feasted.

Paradise Lost was published in 1667; Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes, a tragedy, three years afterwards. These, with L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Lycidas, Comus, and a series of Sonnets, with a few Juvenilia, in Latin, Italian, and English, completed his poetical works. Thus, though so early and passionately attached to the Muses, the products of his leisure till his thirtieth year were few and small; while, from that date, till he had nearly doubled the term, he neither published, nor has there been recovered from the spoils of time a single composition beyond the length of a psalm or a sonnet. Hence it appears that his youth and his old age he devoted to himself and his fame-his middle life to his country. The flower and the fruit of his genius were put forth and ripened in retirement; but, after the flower had fallen, and while the fruit was maturing, he stood as thick of foliage, and as unpicturesque in appearance, as any orchard-tree in the dog-days; while for here the metaphor must be dropped-he exerted, not expended his noble rage, and wielded, yet without exhaustion, his gigantic powers in polemical warfare and official drudgery as Latin secretary to Cromwell.

He died, in 1674, at his house in Bunhill-fields, and was buried next to his father, in the chancel of St. Giles, at Cripplegate.

The limits of this essay preclude any review of our author's numerous prose compositions. A few brief extracts, principally to illustrate his poetical character, may, however, be given.

In one of his bitterest controversial tracts, "The Apol

ogy for Smectymnuus," occur frequent passages of consummate beauty, referring to his early life and writings. Of his personal habits he thus speaks, in answer to his calumniators-"Those morning haunts are where they should be at home; not sleeping or concocting the surfeits of an irregular feast, but up and stirring in winter, often ere the sound of any bell awaken men to labour or devotion; in summer, as oft with the bird that first rouses, or not much tardier, to read good authors, or cause them to be read, till the attention be weary, or the memory have its full fraught. Then, with useful and generous labours, preserving the body's health and hardiness, to render lightsome, clear, and not lumpish obedience to the mind, to the cause of religion and our country's liberty, when it shall require firm hearts in sound bodies, to stand and cover their stations, rather than see the ruin of our protestantism, and the enforcement of a slavish life."

On the choice of modern authors in his youth, preferring the moral and the highest principled, he celebrates, “above them all, the two famous renowners of Beatrice and Laura (Dante and Petrarch), who never write but to the honour of those to whom they devote their verse, displaying sublime and pure thoughts without transgression. And long it was not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he who would not frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter, in things laudable, ought himself to be a true poem; that is, a composition and pattern of the best and honourablest things; not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men, or famous cities, unless he have himself experience and practice of all that is praiseworthy."

In the next paragraph he proceeds-" That I may tell ye whither my younger feet wandered, I betook me among those lofty fables and romances which recount, in solemn cantos, the deeds of knighthood, founded by our victorious kings, and from hence had in renown over all christen

b

dom. From the laureate fraternity of poets, riper years, and the ceaseless round of studying and reading, led me to the shady spaces of philosophy, but chiefly to the divine volumes of Plato and his equal, Xenophon, where, if I should tell ye what I learnt of chastity and love-I mean that which is truly so, whose charming cup is only virtue, which she bears in her hand to those that are worthy, the rest are cheated with a thick, intoxicating potion (which a certain sorceress, the abuser of love's name, carries about,) and how the first and chiefest of love begins and ends in the soul, producing those happy twins of her divine generation, knowledge and virtue:—with such abstracted sublimities as these, it might be worth your listening, readers, as I may one day hope to have ye in a still time, where there shall be no chiding."

On his studies in religion, and their result, he next expatiates; and then, in a strain of admirable eloquence, lays down the qualifications of a true preacher of the gospel. Take one glowing image:-" In times of opposition, when, either against new heresies arising, or old corruptions to be reformed, the cool, unpassionate mildness of positive wisdom is not sufficient to damp and astonish the proud resistance of carnal and false doctors; then-that I may have leave to soar awhile, as the poets use-Zeal, whose substance is ethereal, arming in complete diamond, ascends his fiery chariot, drawn with two blazing meteors, figured like beasts, but of a higher breed than any the zodiac yields, resembling two of those four which Ezekiel and St. John saw-the one visaged like a lion, to express power, high authority, and indignation; the other of countenance like a man, to cast derision and scorn upon perverse and fraudulent seducers :-with these, the invincible warrior, Zeal, shaking loosely the slack reins, drives over the heads of scarlet prelates, and such as are insolent to maintain traditions, bruising their stiff necks under his flaming wheels." This is poetry of the highest proof;