ture than his own election would have done) adversus malos injucundus; and was so ill a dissembler of his dislike and disinclination to ill men, that it was not possible for such not to discern it. There was once, in the House of Commons, such a declared acceptation of the good service an eminent member had done to them, and (as they said) to the whole kingdom, that it was moved, he being present, "That the Speaker might, in the name of the whole House, give him thanks, and then that every member might, as a testimony of his particular acknowledgement, stir or move his hat toward him: the which (though not ordered) when very many did, the Lord Falkland (who believed the service itself not to be of that moment, and that an honourable and generous person could not have stooped to it for any recompence), instead of moving his hat stretched both his arms out, and clasped his hands together upon the crown of his hat, and held it close down to his head, that all men might see, how odious that flattery was to him, and that very approbation of the person, though at the same time most popular.

When there was any overture or hope of peace, he would be more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press any thing, which he thought might promote it; and sitting among his friends, often after a deep silence, and frequent sighs, would with a shrill and sad accent ingeminate the word 'Peace, Peace;' and would passionately profess, "That the very agony of the war, and the view of the calamities and desolation the kingdom did and must endure, took his sleep from him, and would shortly break his heart." This made some think, or pretend to think, that he was so much enamoured of peace, that he

would have been glad the King should have bought it at any price; which was a most unreasonable calumny. As if a man, that was himself the most punctual and precise in every circumstance that might reflect upon conscience or honour, could have wished the King to have committed a trespass against either. And yet this senseless scandal made some impression upon him, or at least he used it for an excuse of the daringness of his spirit; for at the leaguer before Gloucester, when his friends passionately reprehended him for exposing his person unnecessarily to danger (for he delighted to visit the trenches, and nearest approaches, and to discover what the enemy did) as being so much beside the duty of his place, that it might be understood rather to be against it, he would say merrily, "That his office could not take away the privileges of his age, and that a Secretary in War might be present at the greatest secret of danger; but withal alleged seriously, "That it concerned him to be more active in enterprises of hazard, than other men; that all might see, that his impatience for peace proceeded not from pusillanimity, or fear to adventure his own person."

• In the morning before the battle, as always upon action, he was very cheerful, and put himself into the first rank of the Lord Byron's regiment, then advancing upon the enemy, who had lined the hedges on both sides with musqueteers; whence he was shot with a musket in the lower part of the belly, and in the instant falling from his horse, his body was not found till the next morning, till when there was some hope he might have been a prisoner; though his nearest friends, who knew his temper, received small comfort from that imagination. 2 G

VOL. III.

Thus fell that incomparable young man, in the four-and-thirtieth year of his age, having so much despatched the true business of life, that the eldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not into the world with more innocency whosoever leads such a life needs be the less anxious upon how short warning it is taken from him.'

1

451

JOHN MILTON.*

[1608-1674.]

THIS illustrious man was of a family, which had been long established at Milton, near Halton and Thame in Oxfordshire; and which, having lost it's property in consequence of it's connexion with the losing party in the wars between the houses of York and Lancaster, was preserved from indigence by a wealthy intermarriage.

John Milton, the grandfather of the poet, was under-ranger of the forest of Shotover near Halton; and, being a zealous Papist, disinherited the intermediate link of connexion, on his adoption of the Protestant faith. Under this stroke of paternal bigotry the son, leaving Christ Church, Oxford, where he had been placed for his education, repaired to London, and there sought the means of support from the practice of the law and the business of a scrivener. Having married a lady of good family, he purchased a house and settled in Bread Street, where his eldest son, the subject of this Memoir, was born December 9, 1608.

* AUTHORITIES. Wood's Fasti Oxonienses, and Toland's, Ellwood's, Fenton's, Richardson's, Birch's, Peck's, Newton's Johnson's, and Symmons' Life of Milton.

His education was at first conducted, beneath the immediate eye of his father, by a domestic tutor; and was continued at St. Paul's School, under the management at that time of Mr. Alexander Gill. In these successive situations, the industry and the genius of the pupil, so perfectly corresponded with the attentions and the abilities of his masters, that his progress in classical knowledge far exceeded the customary attainments even of brilliant boys, during the years which are allotted to the initiatory studies of a school.

From the age of twelve, as he himself tells us, he usually passed the greater part of the night in the company of his books; and of this intense and unseasonable application the effects were those pains in his head, and that weakness of his eyes, which he regarded as the remote intimations and causes of his final and total loss of sight.

In the year 1624-5, he was removed from St. Paul's School to Christ's College, Cambridge, and was there consigned to the tuition of Mr. William Chappell, who was raised at a late period to the bishoppric of Ross in Ireland.

On the larger theatre of an University, young Milton soon distinguished himself by the superiority of his erudition and his talents. His poetic compositions, indeed, in Latin and in English, could not fail of diffusing his youthful fame: as by the former he established his claim to an eminent place among the scholars of modern Europe; and in the latter, he discovered bright glimpses of that transcendent genius, which was destined subsequently to enthrone him on the summit of the Aonian hill.

On taking the degree of M. A. in 1631, he quitted