vernment, he never thinks that he can recede
far enough from popery, or prelacy; but
what Baudius fays of Erafmus feems ap-
plicable to him, magis habuit quod fugeret,
quam quod fequeretur. He had determined
rather what to condemn, than what to ap
prove. He has not affociated himself with
any
denomination of Proteftants: we know
rather what he was not, than what he was.
He was not of the church of Rome; he was
not of the church of England.

To be of no church, is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are diftant, and which is animated only by Faith and Hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind, unlefs it be invigorated and reimpreffed by external ordinances, by ftated calls to worship, and the falutary influence of example. Milton, who appears to have had full conviction of the truth of Christianity, and to have regarded the Holy Scriptures with the profoundest veneration, to have been untainted by an heretical peculiarity of opinion, and to have lived in a confirmed belief of the immediate and occafional agency of Providence, yet grew old without any vifible worVOL. I

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ship

ship. In the distribution of his hours, there was no hour of prayer, either folitary, or with his household; omitting publick prayers, he omitted all.

Of this omiffion the reafon has been fought, upon a fuppofition which ought never to be made, that men live with their own approbation, and juftify their conduct to themfelves. Prayer certainly was not thought fuperfluous by him, who represents our first parents as praying acceptably in the state of innocence, and efficaciously after their fall. That he lived without prayer can hardly be affirmed; his ftudies and meditations were an habitual prayer. The neglect of it in his family was probably a fault for which he condemned himself, and which he intended to correct, but that death, as too often happens, intercepted his reformation.

His political notions were those of an acrimonious and furly republican, for which it is not known that he gave any better reason than that a popular government was the most frugal; for the trappings of a monarchy would Set up an ordinary commonwealth. It is furely

very shallow policy, that fuppofes money to be the chief good; and even this, without confidering that the fupport and expence of a Court is, for the most part, only a particular kind of traffick, by which money circulated, without any national impoverish

ment.

is

Milton's republicanifm was, I am afraid, founded in an envious hatred of greatnefs, and a fullen defire of independence; in petulance impatient of controul, and pride dif dainful of fuperiority. He hated monarchs in the ftate, and prelates in the church; for he hated all whom he was required to obey. It is to be fufpected, that his predominant defire was to destroy rather than establish, and that he felt not fo much the love of liberty as repugnance to authority.

It has been observed, that they who most loudly clamour for liberty do not most liberally grant it. What we know of Milton's character, in domeftick relations, is, that he was severe and arbitrary. His family confifted of women; and there appears in his books fomething like a Turkish contempt of females,

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females, as fubordinate and inferior beings. That his own daughters might not break the ranks, he fuffered them to be depreffed by a mean and penurious education. He thought woman made only for obedience, and man only for rebellion.

Of his family fome account may be expected. His fifter, first married to Mr. Philips, afterwards married Mr. Agar, a friend of her first hufband, who fucceeded him in the Crown-office. She had by her first hufband Edward and John, the two nephews whom Milton educated; and by her fecond, two daughters.

His brother, Sir Chriftopher, had two daughters, Mary and Catherine, and a fon Thomas, who fucceeded Agar in the Crownoffice, and left a daughter living in 1749 in Grofvenor-street.

Milton had children only by his funft wife; Anne, Mary, and Deborah. Anne, though deformed, married a master-builder, and died of her first child. Mary died fingle. Deborah married Abraham Clark, a weaver in Spital

fields,

She could

fields, and lived feventy-fix years, to Auguft 1727. This is the daughter of whom publick mention has been made. repeat the first lines of Homer, the Metamorphofes, and fome of Euripides, by having often read them. Yet here incredulity is ready to make a stand. Many repetitions are neceffary to fix in the memory lines not understood; and why should Milton with or want to hear them fo often! Thefe lines were at the beginning of the poeras. Of a book written in a language not understood, the beginning raises no more attention than the end; and as thofe that understand it know commonly the beginning beft, its rehearsal will seldom be neceffary. It is not likely that Milton required any paffage to be fo much repeated as that his daughter could learn it; nor likely that he defired the initial lines to be read at all: nor that the daughter, weary of the drudgery of pronouncing unideal founds, would voluntarily commit them to memory.

To this gentlewoman Addifon made a prefent, and promised fome establishment; but died foon after. Queen Caroline fent her