and that they themselves fhould be fent for in cuftody of the Serjeant at arms attending the House. On Wednesday June 27th an order of council was made agreeable to the order of the House of Commons for a proclamation against Milton's and Goodwyn's books; and the proclamation was iffued the 13th of Auguft following, wherein it was faid that the authors had fled or did abfcond: and on Monday August 27th Milton's and Goodwyn's books were burnt according to the proclamation at the Old Baily by the hands of the common hangman. On Wednesday Auguft 29th the act of indemnity was passed, which proved more favorable to Milton than could well have been expected; for tho' John Goodwyn Clerk was excepted among the twenty perfons, who were to have penalties inflicted upon them, not extending to life, yet Milton was not excepted at all, and confequently was included in the general pardon. We find indeed that afterwards he was in cuftody of the Serjeant at arms; but the time when he was taken into cuftody, is not certain. He was not in custody on the 12th of September, for that day a lift of the prisoners in cuftody of the Serjeant at arms was read in the Houfe, and Milton is not among them; and on the 13th of September the House adjourned to the fixth of November. It is most probable therefore, that after the act of indemnity was paffed, and after the House had adjourned, he came out of his concealment, and was afterwards taken into cuftody of the Serjeant at arms by virtue of the former order of the House of Commons: but we cannot find that he was profecuted by the Attorney General, nor was he continued in cuftody very long: for on Saturday the 15th of December 1660, it was ordered by the House of Commons, that Mr. Milton now in cuftody of the Serjeant at arms fhould be forthwith released, paying his fees; and on Monday the 17th of December, a complaint being made that the Serjeant at arms had demanded exceffive fees for his imprison ment, any ment, it was referred to the committee of privileges and elections to examine this business, and to call Mr. Milton and the Serjeant before them, and to determin what was fit to be given to the Serjeant for his fees in this cafe; fo courageous was he at all times in defense of liberty against all the encroachments of power, and tho' a prisoner, would yet be treated like a freeborn Englishman. This appears to be the matter of fact, as it may be collected partly from the Journals of the House of Commons, and partly from Kennet's Hiflorical Regifter: and the clemency of the government was furely very great towards him, confidering the nature of his offenfes; for tho' he was not one of the King's judges and murderers, yet he contributed more to murder his character and reputation than of them all: and to what therefore could it be owing, that he was treated with fuch lenity and was fo easily pardoned? It is certain, there was not wanting powerful interceflion for him both in Council and in Parlament. It is faid that Secretary Morrice and Sir Thomas Clargis greatly favored him, and exerted their intereft in his behalf; and his old friend Andrew Marvel, member of Parlament for Hull, formed a confiderable party for him in the House of Commons; and neither was Charles the Second (as Toland fays) fuch an enemy to the Mufes, as to require his deftruction. But the principal instrument in obtaining Milton's pardon was Sir William Davenant, out of gratitude for Milton's having procured his release, when he was taken prisoner in 1650. It was life for life. Davenant had been faved by Milton's intereft, and in return Milton was faved at Davenant's interceffion. This ftory Mr. Richardfon relates upon the authority of Mr. Pope; and Mr. Pope had it from Betterton the famous actor, who was firft brought upon the ftage and patronized by Sir William Davenant, and might therefore derive the knowledge of this tranfaction from the fountain. Milton having thus obtained his pardon, and being fet. at liberty again, took a house in Holborn near Red Lion Fields; but he removed foon into Jewen Street near Alderfgate Street: and while he lived there, being in his 53d or 54th year, and blind and infirm, and wanting fome body better than servants to tend and look after him, he employed his friend Dr. Paget to choose a proper confort for him; and at his recommendation married his third wife, Elizabeth Minfhul, of a gentleman's family in Cheshire, and related to Dr. Paget. It is faid that an offer was made to Milton, as well as to Thurloe, of holding the fame place of Secretary under the King, which he had discharged with fo much integrity and ability under Cromwell; but he perfifted in refusing it, tho' the wife preffed his compliance; "Thou art in the right, says "he; you, as other women, would ride in your coach; for me, my aim is to live and die an honest man." What is more certain is, that in 1661 he published his Accedence commenced Grammar, and a tract of Sir Walter Raleigh intitled Aphorifms of State; as in 1658 he had published another piece of Sir Walter Raleigh intitled the Cabinet Council difcabinated, which he printed from a manuscript, that had lain many years in his hands, and was given him for a true copy by a learned man at his death, who had collected feveral fuch pieces: an evident fign, that he thought it no mean employment, nor unworthy of a man of genius, to be an editor of the works of great authors. It was while he lived in Jewen Street, that Elwood the quaker (as we learn from the history of his life written by his own hand) was first introduced to read to him; for having wholly loft his fight, he kept always fome body or other to perform that office, and usually the fon of fome gentleman of his acquaintance, whom he took in kindness, that he might at the fame time improve him in his learning. Elwood was recommended to him by Dr. Paget, and went to his house every afternoon except Sunday, and read to him fuch books in the Latin tongue, as Milton thought proper. And Milton told him, that if he would have the benefit of the Latin tongue, not only to read and understand Latin authors, but to converse with foreigners either abroad or at home, he must learn the foreign pronunciation: and he inftructed him how to read accordingly. And having a curious ear, he understood by my tone, fays Elwood, when I understood what I read, and when I did not; and he would stop me, and examine me, and open the most difficult paffages to me. But it was not long after his third marriage, that he left Jewen Street, and removed to a house in the Artillery Walk leading to Bunhill Fields: and this was his last stage in this world; he continued longer in this houfe than he had done in any other, and lived here to his dying day: only when the plague began to rage in London in 1665, he removed to a small houfe at St Giles's Chalfont in Buckinghamshire, which Elwood had taken for him and his family; and there he remained during that dreadful calamity; but after the sickness was over, and the city was cleanfed and made fafely habitable again, he returned to his house in London. His great work of Paradise Loft had principally engaged his thoughts for fome years paft, and was now completed. It is probable, that his first design of writing an epic poem was owing to his conversations at Naples with the Marquis of Villa about Tafso and his famous poem of the delivery of Jerufalem; and in a copy of verses prefented to that.nobleman before he left Naples, he intimated his intention of fixing upon King Arthur for his hero. And in an eclogue, made soon after his return to England upon the death of his friend and School-fellow Deodati, he proposed the same design and the fame fubject, and declared his ambition of writing fomething in his native language, which might render his name illuftrious in these ilands, though he should be obfcure and inglorious inglorious to the rest of the world. And in other parts of his works, after he had engaged in the controverfies of the times, he still promised to produce some noble poem or other at a fitter feafon; but it doth not appear that he had then determined upon the subject, and King Arthur had another fate, being reserved for the pen of Sir Richard Blackmore. The first hint of Paradise Loft is faid to have been taken from an Italian tragedy; and it is certain, that he first designed it a tragedy himself, and there are several plans of it in the form of a tragedy ftill to be seen in the author's own manufcript preserved in the library of Trinity College Cambridge. And it is probable that he did not barely sketch out the plans, but also wrote fome parts of the drama itself. His nephew Philips informs us, that fome of the verses at the beginning of Satan's fpeech, addreffed to the fun in the fourth book, were shown to him and fome others as defigned for the beginning of the tragedy, several years before the poem was begun: and many other paffages might be produced, which plainly appear to have been originally intended for the scene, and are not fo properly of the epic, as of the tragic ftrain. It was not till after he was difengaged from the Salmafian controversy, which ended in 1655, that he began to mold the Paradise Loft in its prefent form; but after the Restoration, when he was dismissed from public business, and freed from controversy of every kind, he profecuted the work with closer application. Mr. Philips relates a very remarkable circumstance in the composure of this poem, which he fays he had reafon to remember, as it was told him by Milton himself, that his vein never happily flowed but from the autumnal 'equinox to the vernal, and that what he attempted at other times was not to his fatisfaction, tho' he courted his fancy never so much. Mr. Toland imagins that Philips might be mistaken as to the time, because our author, in his Latin elegy, written in his twentieth year, upon the approach f 2 |