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Sir William Davenant, who, ten years before, had been saved through Milton's interest, when he had fallen into the hands of the Parliamentary party. This story, however, rests on no solid foundation; the probability is, that respect for his abilities, and compassion for his distress, had something to do with the lenient treatment which he experienced. He was now poor and blind, and it might have seemed ungenerous to persecute him.

Upon being obliged to leave the residence in Westminster, which he had occupied when he held the office of secretary to the government, he retreated to a small house in Holborn; but soon exchanged it for one in Jewin Street, near his old abode in Aldersgate. He now devoted himself diligently to literary work, and his young friend Ellwood, a Quaker, attended him every afternoon, except Sundays, for the purpose of reading Latin to him. He was now busy with his great epic poem, Paradise Lost. He commenced it in 1658, and it appears from some sketches of poetical subjects left in manuscript, that his first idea was to write a kind of sacred drama, similar to those mysteries which were so common in the middle ages. Happily, he changed his mind, and the result has been one of the noblest, if not the noblest epic in existence. When the plague raged in London (1665), Milton took refuge at Chalfont, in Buckinghamshire, and here Ellwood first saw a complete copy of the poem. Having perused it, he said, "Thou has said a great deal upon Paradise Lost; what hast thou to say on Paradise Found?" This suggested to Milton another poem which he afterwards wrote.

Shortly before leaving town for Chalfont, Milton had made the last of his many changes of residence in London by removing to a house in Artillery Walk, leading to Bunhill Fields. When all fear of the plague was over, Milton returned to London, and made arrangements for the publication of his poem. He made over to his publishers the right to bring out three successive editions, of fifteen hundred copies each, for £5 in hand, and further payments of the same amount on the sale of thirteen

hundred copies of each edition. The third edition did not appear until after his death, and his widow then sold all her claims for a further sum of £8, so that the total amount received by Milton and his family for this immortal work was only £23.

Paradise Lost was published in 1667, and in two years thirteen hundred copies had been sold, entitling Milton to his second instalment. A second edition was issued in 1674, and a third in 1678, so that 3000 copies had been sold in eleven years. This shows that the poem had been better received by the public than is generally supposed. A great drawback to its popularity at first was the blank verse in which it is written; so long a poem in blank heroics had never been attempted before. In 1671 were published Samson Agonistes, and Paradise Regained; the former is a drama written on the model of the ancient Greek tragedies, the latter is an Epic poem, and contains some passages of great descriptive beauty and dramatic power, but as a whole is much inferior to Paradise Lost. Milton continued to write up to the time of his death, and several works more or less complete were published after his decease. Among these was a complete system of Christian theology written in Latin. The manuscript, extending to seven or eight hundred pages, was discovered in the State Paper Office in 1825, and was published two years afterwards, under the superintendence of the Rev. Charles Sumner, afterwards bishop of Winchester.

Milton is described as being of the middle size, and in youth his countenance was remarkable for mildness and beauty of expression. His manner was calm and tranquil almost to sternness, and he seems to have been deficient in passion and sympathy. The strongest feeling of his nature seems to have been his ardent love of liberty. His life was singularly pure in a very corrupt age, and his habits were temperate. Towards the close of his life he was accustomed to retire to rest about nine, and to rise at four in summer, and five in the winter. The first thing he did on rising was to have a chapter of

the Hebrew Bible read to him. The morning up to twelve o'clock was occupied in study, after which he took an hour's exercise before dinner. Playing upon the organ, an hour or two of further study, and conversation with his friends in the evening, brought the day to a close. He generally smoked a pipe and drank a glass of water before retiring to rest. In advanced age he suffered much from gout, and he is described as having a pale, but not cadaverous countenance. In bright sunny weather it was his custom to sit outside his door in Bunhill Fields to enjoy the fresh air, clad in a coarse grey coat. He died on the 8th November 1674, and was buried beside his father in the parish church of St. Giles, Cripplegate. In 1737, a monument to his memory was erected in Westminster Abbey.

As a prose writer, Milton takes high rank. His style is lofty, clear, and vigorous, and adorned with glowing imagery. Its great defect is a want of simplicity, caused by his adopting the Latin idiom in the construction of his sentences. Occasionally, his style is harsh and rugged, but more frequently there is a musical flow of words, and there are numerous passages of stately and majestic eloquence. But his fame as a writer rests mainly on his poetry. His minor poems, especially L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, the Ode to the Nativity, and Comus, are remarkable for sweetness of versification, beauty of sentiment, and richness of imagination, and were sufficient to place him among our greatest poets; but in Paradise Lost he reaches a height of sublimity which has never been surpassed, and but rarely equalled. As Shakespeare is the first of dramatists, Milton is the first of Epic poets. Dryden, in some well-known lines, places him above Homer and Virgil:

"Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn;
The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd,
The next in majesty, in both the last.
The force of Nature could no further go;
To make a third she joined the former two."

SAMUEL BUTLER.-1612-1680.

SAMUEL BUTLER, the author of the wittiest poem in the English language, was born at Strensham, Worcestershire, in 1612. His father was a small farmer, possessing an estate of his own, and the poet, after being educated at the Grammar School at Worcester, was sent to Cambridge. How long he continued there we do not know, as he never seems to have matriculated; he probably left almost immediately for want of the necessary funds. He appears to have spent some years of his youth as clerk to a justice of the peace. In this service he would seem to have had abundance of leisure, and he amused himself with the study of music and painting.

He was afterwards admitted into the family of the Countess of Kent, where he had the use of a library and the advantage of conversation with the celebrated Selden, at that time steward to her ladyship. Butler so recommended himself to Selden that he was often employed by him in literary work. How long he continued in this family, or why he left it, is not known. He is next found in the family of Sir Samuel Luke, a Bedfordshire gentleman, where he probably acted as tutor. Sir Samuel was one of Cromwell's officers, and here, no doubt, Butler became intimately acquainted with those eccentricities of the Puritans which he afterwards ridiculed: Sir Luke himself is supposed to be depicted in "Sir Hudibras."

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At the Restoration, Butler was made secretary to the Eari of Carbury, who conferred upon him the stewardship of Ludlow Castle. About this time he married a lady of good family who possessed some property; but her money was lent on bad securities, and lost. It was now that Butler became an author. The first part of the poem Hudibras was published in 1663, and immediately became popular. By the Earl of Dorset it was introduced to the notice of the Court, and was very generally admired: "The king quoted, the courtiers studied, and the whole party of the royalists applauded it. Every eye watched

for the golden shower which was to fall upon the author, who certainly was not without his part in the general expectation;" but the reward did not come. It is said that on one occasion, through the intercession of a friend, he succeeded in obtaining a brief interview with the Duke of Buckingham, who had promised to recommend him to the liberality of the king. The duke appointed a place of meeting; Butler and his friend attended accordingly, and Buckingham joined them. Unfortunately, at this very moment some ladies of the duke's acquaintance passed the open door of the room in which they were sitting, and his Grace, utterly unmindful of the poet, followed after them; and from that time to the day of his death poor Butler never experienced the least benefit from his promise. In 1664, the second part of Hudibras appeared, and the author was again praised and elated; but praise was his only recompense. It is said that the king ordered him a present of £300, which was insufficient to pay his debts; but it is very doubtful whether such a sum was ever paid him.

Notwithstanding this discouragement and neglect, Butler still prosecuted his design, and in 1678 published the third part of the poem, which still, however, leaves it unfinished. He died in 1680, in an obscure street near Covent Garden. A friend having tried, without success, to raise a subscription in order that he might be interred in Westminster Abbey, buried him at his own cost, in the churchyard at Covent Garden. He was

buried at the west end, on the south side, under the wall of St. Paul's Church. About sixty years later, Mr. Barber, a printer, then Lord Mayor of London, erected a monument to his memory in Westminster Abbey.

The poem of Hudibras was written with the object of throwing contempt and ridicule upon the Puritans. The hero is a Presbyterian Justice who, in the confidence of legal authority and the rage of zealous ignorance, sallies out with his attendant, an Independent Clerk, to put down superstition, and correct abuses. The Puritans of the seventeenth century, along with many noble qualities

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