SIGNATURE, AS M. A., IN TRE GRADUATION BOOK AT CAMBRIDGE, JULY 1632 Joannes Milton SONG, FROM THE ORIGINAL MS. OF COMUS, IN THE LIBRARY OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 1634. Song Listen birge where thon sont art sitting under the glassic cools translucent wabe in twisted braids of litliss knitting the loose this traine of the amber dropping hair listen and sabe CONCLUDING LINES OF COMUS, FROM THE SAME MS. morhalls that would follow me CONCLUDING LINES OF LYCIDAS, FROM THE ORIGINAL MS. DRAFT IN THE LIBRARY OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, NOV. 1637. with This gang the unconth smaine toth loakes erills gray Lay and more way drept in bo wybranithe western bay at last ke rose and twircht his mandla blew To morrow to fresh woods and pasturs new THE LIFE OF JOHN MILTON. CHAPTER I. ANCESTRY AND KINDRED. JOHN MILTON was born, in his father's house, in Bread-street, in the City of London, on Friday, the 9th of December, 1608, at halfpast six in the morning.1 The year of his birth was the sixth of the reign of the Scottish king, James I, in England. Milton's father, who was also named John, was by profession a "scrivener." He was settled, in the exercise of that profession, in Bread-street, at least as early as 1603. In a manuscript volume in the British Museum,2 containing miscellaneous notes relating to the affairs of one John Sanderson, a Turkey merchant of that day, there is a copy of a bond, dated the 4th of March, 1602-3, whereby two persons, styled "Thomas Heigheham of Bethnal-green in the county of Middlesex Esquire, and Richard Sparrow, citizen and goldsmith of London," engage to pay to Sanderson a sum of money on the 5th of May following, the payment to be made "at the new shop of John Milton, scrivener, in Bread-street, London." The name "Jo. Milton, Scrivar" is appended as that of the witness in whose 1 Aubrey and Wood. In Aubrey's MS. the circumstance is entered in a manner which vouches for its authenticity. Aubrey had first left the date blank thus:-"He was born Ao Daithe day of-about- o'clock in the;" adding a little farther on in the MS. these words: "Q. Mr. Chr Milton to see the date of his bro. birth." Then, farther on still, at the top of a new sheet of smaller size than the rest, there are written in a clear hand, which is certainly not Aubrey's, these words: "John Milton was born the 9th of December, 1608, die Veneris, half an hour after six in the morning." It is to be concluded that Aubrey had, in the interval, seen Christopher Milton, and procured from him the date he wanted. Possibly, indeed, Christopher wrote down the words himself. They seem as if they had been taken from the family Bible. Wood in his Fasti makes the time of Milton's birth "between six and seven o'clock in the morning;" but in a MS. of his which I have seen, containing brief notes for biographies of eminent persons (Ashm. 8519), he adheres to the more exact statement "half an hour after six." The note about Milton in this MS. contains nothing but the dates and places of his birth and death. 2 Lansdowne MS. 241, f. 58; first cited, I believe, by Mr. Hunter, in his Milton Gleanings, p. 10. presence the bond was sealed and delivered. In the same volume there is a copy of another document of nearly the same date, recording another transaction between Sanderson and one of the persons above named. It is a bill of sale, dated April 2, 1603, whereby, for the sum of £50, received from Sanderson, Richard Sparrow makes over to him a certain ornament of gold “set with a great ruby,” retaining the right to redeem it by paying to Sanderson £52 10s. on the 3d of October following, i.e. the principal with five per cent. of interest for the six months' loan. In this case the payment is to be made at Sparrow's own shop in Cheapside; but the witness who attests the transaction is “Peter Jones, servant to John Milton, scrivener.”1 Servant here means clerk or apprentice. The words “new shop” in the first of the above documents imply that the scrivener had then but recently removed to the particular house in Bread-street, where, some years afterwards, his son was born. The removal took place at an interesting time. On the day on which the scrivener attested the first document, Elizabeth was within twenty days of her death; on the day on which his servant Peter Jones attested the second, the body of Elizabeth was lying in state, and James, already proclaimed in her stead, was preparing to leave Edinburgh to take possession of his new kingdom. The entry into the new shop" in Bread-street would be associated in the scrivener's memory with the close of Elizabeth's reign and the coming in of her successor. In those days, houses in cities were not numbered as now; and persons in business, to whom it was of consequence to have a distinct address, effected the purpose by exhibiting over their doors some sign or emblem. This fashion, now left chiefly to publicans, was once common to all trades and professions. Booksellers and printers, as well as grocers and mercers, carried on their business at the Cross-keys, the Dial, the Three Pigeons, the Ship and Black Swan, and the like, in such and such streets; and every street in the populous part of such a city as London, presented a succession of these signs, fixed or swung over the doors. The scrivener Milton had a sign as well as his neighbors. It was an eagle with outstretched wings; and hence his house was known as the Spread Eagle in Bread-street. Most probably, the device of the Spread Eagle was adopted by the scrivener himself with reference to the armorial bearings of his family. Wood expressly tells us that “the arms that John Milton [the poet] did use and seal his letters with were, Argent, a spread 1 This document, which has escaped Mr. Hunter's notice, is at f. 863 of the MS. |