evidently falfe, fince Aubrey, who was perfonnally acquainted with the poet, and who had probably confulted his widow in regard to many particulars of his life, exprefsly affirms, that his youngest daughter was his amanuenfis; a circumftance of which my friend Romney has happily availed himself to decorate the folio edition of this life with a production of his pencil. The youngest daughter of Milton had the moft frequent opportunities of knowing his temper, and the happens to be the only one of his children who has delivered a deliberate account of it; but her account, inftead of confirming Johnson's idea of her father's domeftic severity, will appear to the candid reader to refute it completely. "She fpoke of him (fays Richardson) with great tendernefs; fhe faid he was delightful company, the life of the conversation, and that on account of a flow of fubject, and an unaffected cheerfulnefs and civility." It was, this daughter who related the extraordinary circumftance, that she and one of her fifters read to their father feveral languages, which they did not understand; it is remarkable, that she did not speak of it as a hardship; nor could it be thought an intolerable grievance by an affectionate child, who thus affifted a blind parent in laboring for the maintenance of his family. Such an employment, however, must have been irkfome; and the confiderate father, in finding that it was fo, "fent out his children (according to the expreffion of his nephew) to learn fome curious and ingenious forts of manufacture, particularly, embroideries in gold or filver." That he was no penurious parent is ftrongly proved by an expreffion that he made use of in fpeaking of his will, when he declared, that "he had made provifion for his children in his life-time, and had spent the greatest part of his eftate in providing for them." It is the more barbarous to arraign the poet for domestic cruelty, because he appears to have fuffered from the fingular tendernefs and generofity of his nature. He had reafon to lament that excels of indulgence, with which he forgave and received again his disobedient and longalienated wife, fince their re-union not only difquieted his days, but gave birth to daughters, who feem to have inherited the perverfity of their mother: The wifeft and beft men full oft beguil'd These pathetic lines, in a fpeech of his Samfon Agonistes, ftrike me as a forcible allufion to his own connubial infelicity. If in his first marriage he was eminently unhappy, his fuccefs in the two laft turned the balance of fortune in his favor. That his fecond wife deferved, poffessed, and retained his affection, is evident from his fonnet occafioned by her death; of the care and kindness which he had long experienced from the partner of his declining life, he spoke with tender gratitude to his brother, in explaining his teftamentary intention; and we are probably indebted to the care and kindness, which the aged poet experienced from this affectionate guardian, for the happy accomplishment of his ineftimable works. A blind and defolate father must be utterly unequal to the management of difobedient daughters confpiring against him; the anguish he endured from their filial ingratitude, and the base deceptions, with which they continually tormented him, muft have rendered even the strongest mind very unfit for poetical application. The marriage, which he concluded by 'the advice and the aid of his friend Dr. Paget, feems to have been his only refource against a moft exafperating and calamitous fpecies of domestic disquietude; it appears, therefore, not unreasonable to regard thofe immortal poems, which recovered tranquillity enabled him to produce, as the fruits of that marriage. As matrimony has, perhaps, annihilated many a literary design, let it be remembered to its honor, that it probably gave birth to the brightest offspring of literature. The two eldest daughters of Milton appear to me utterly unworthy of their father; but those who adopt the dark prejudices of Johnson, and believe with him, that the great poet was an auftere domeftic tyrant, will find, in their idea of the father, an apology for his children, whose deftiny in the world I fall immediately mention, that I may have occation to speak of them no more. Anra, the eldeft, who with a deformed perfon had a pleafing face, married an architect, and died, with her first infant, in childbed. Mary, the fecond, and apparently the most deficient in affection to her father, died unmarried. Deborah, who was the favorite of Milton, and who, long after his decease, discovered, on a cafual fight of his genuine portrait, very affecting emotions of filial tenderness and enthufiafm, even Deborah deferted him without his knowledge, not in confequence of his paternal feverity, of which he was very far from complaining, but, as Richardfon intimates, from a difguft fhe had conceived against her mother-in-law. On quitting the house of her father, she went to Ireland with a lady, and afterwards became the wife of Mr. Clarke, a weaver, in Spital-fields. As her family was numerous, and her circumftances not affluent, the liberal Addison made her a present, from his regard to the memory of her father, and intended to procure her some decent establishment, but died before he could accomplish his generous defign. From Queen Caroline, fhe received fifty guineas, a donation as ill proportioned to the rank of the donor as to the mental dignity of the great genius, whofe indigent daughter was the object of this unprincely munificence. Mrs. Mrs. Clarke had ten children, but none of them appear to have attracted public regard, till Dr. Birch and Dr. Newton two benevolent and refpectable biographers of the poet, difcovered his grand-daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth Fofter, keeping a little chandler's-fhop in the city, poor, aged, and infirm; they publicly fpoke of her condition; Johnson was then writing as the coadjutor of Lauder in his attempt to fink the glory of Milton; but as the critic's charity was fill greater than his fpleen, he feized the occafion of recommending, under Lauder's name, this neceffitous defcendant of the great poet to the beneficence of his country; Comus was represented for her benefit, in the year 1750, and Johnson, to his honor, contributed a prologue on the occafion, in which noble sentiments are nobly expreffed. : The poor grand-daughter of Milton gained but one hundred and thirty pounds by this public benefaction; this fum, however, small as it was, afforded peculiar comfort to her declining age, by enabling her to retire to Iflington with her husband fhe had feven children, who died before her, and by her own death it is probable that the line of the poet became extinct. Let us haften from this painful furvey of his progeny to the more enlivening contemplation of his rare mental endowments. The moft diligent refearches into all that can elucidate the real temper of Milton only confirm the opinion, that his |