eagle with two heads gules, leggd and beak'd sable;” and there is still to be seen one important document on which an impression of the seal, exactly as it is here described, accompanies the poet's written signature - to wit, the original agreement with the bookseller, Symons, for the publication of “Paradise Lost.” 1 There is also extant a small silver seal, which once belonged to the poet, exhibiting the same double-headed spread eagle of the shield, but with the addition of the surmounting crest — a lion's claw, above a helmet, etc., grasping an eagle's head and neck. There is scarcely room to doubt that these arms came to the poet from his father as the recognized arms of the family. The association of the heraldic double-headed spread eagle and of the accompanying crest with the name Milton is traced back through our heraldic authorities as far as Sir William Segar, who was Garter King-at-Arms from 1603 to 1633, after having passed through the previous offices of Portcullis Somerset Herald, and Norroy King, in the reign of Elizabeth. In a manuscript volume in the British Museum, containing the grants and confirmations of arms made by Segar, there is this entry :

To

“Argent, a double-headed eagle, displayed gules, beaked and membered azure.

Mylton, alias Mytton of Com. Oxon. of ye abovesaid arms and crest: viz. out of a wreath, a lion's gamb couped and erect azure, grasping an eagle's head, erased gules.” 1

The entry, it will be seen, is not dated; the name of the person to whom the grant or confirmation was made is left blank; nor is it stated whether it was a grant or only a confirmation. As we read the entry, however, it purports that some one from Oxfordshire, claiming the arms of Milton in that county, applied to the College of Arms to have his title recognized. The all but perfect identity both of the arms and the crest with those above described as used by the poet makes it not unlikely that the applicant was the poet's father. It may be worth while to note that Segar himself had begun life as a scrivener, and also that the arms of the scriveners as a corporation contained the spread eagle. “Azure, an eagle with wings expanded, holding in his mouth a penner and inkhorn and standing on a book, all or," is the heraldic description. The elder Milton, therefore, might have helped himself to the spread eagle as a sign for his shop, even had it not figured in his own arms. The eagle in that case would not have been doubleheaded, and would have been all the easier to paint or carve.

The heraldic identification of the name Milton with the seemingly distinct name of Mitton is somewhat curious. “Mylton, alias Mytton of Com. Oxon.” is the designation in Segar's entry; there are at this day families of Mittons in Shropshire and in Staffordshire using the double-headed spread eagle in their arms, with heraldic variations; and there were Mittons in London in 1633 using the same arms. Neither the poet nor his father, however, ever wrote or pronounced their name as Mitton. They rather tended the other way; for, on more than one occasion, the elder, at least, is addressed as Melton. Nor, as far back as we can go, do we find the names of Milton and Mitton interchangeable. Milton, as we now write it, was a distinct English surname early in the fourteenth century. A William de Milton was one of a list of persons to whom, in 1338, letters of protection were granted prior to their going abroad in the retinue of Queen Philippa, the wife of Edward III;' and other Miltons of somewhat later date are to be heard of in different parts of England, quite independent of the contemporary Mittons. It is possible, however, that Milton Mitton, and Middleton, may originally have been analogous topographical surnames, signifying that the bearers of them had come from the “mill-town,” “mid-town," or "middle-town," of their districts. It is corroborative of this view, as regards the name Milton, that, as there are about twenty places of this name in different parts of England - two Miltons in Kent, two in Hants, one in Cambridgeshire, one in Northamptonshire, one in Cheshire, one in Somersetshire, one in Berkshire, two in Oxfordshire, etc.— so families bearing the same name, and yet not tracing any connection with each other, appear to have been living simultaneously in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in different English counties. There were Miltons in London; there were Miltons in Cheshire; there were Miltons in Somersetshire; and there were Miltons in Oxfordshire, extending themselves into the adjacent counties of Berks and Bucks.

It was from these last — the Oxfordshire Miltons — that the poet derived his pedigree. Indeed, beyond this fact, recognized in Segar's heraldic notice, little is to be known of the poet's genealogy. All that he has himself said on the subject is that he came of an honest or honorable stock (“genere honesto"); and what of more detailed information we have is from Aubrey, Wood, and Philips. We quote the three accounts:

Aubrey's Account. “Mr. John Milton was of an Oxfordshire family: his grandfather (a Rom. Cath.) of Holton in Oxfordshire, near Shotover. His father was brought up in ye Univ of Oxon at Christ Church; and his gr-father disinherited him because he kept not to the Catholique Religion [q. he found a Bible in English in his chamber]; so thereupon he came to London and became a scrivener [brought up by a friend of his: was not an apprentice] and got a plentiful estate by it.”

In addition to this, which occurs at the beginning of Aubrey's MS., there is appended, on the back of the last sheet, a formal pedigree of the poet drawn up by Aubrey so as to make the whole substance of his information on that head finally plain to the eye. For reasons which will appear, we give the first part of this pedigree in fac-simile from the MS., erasures and corrections included.

The erasures and corrections are to be noted. According to Aubrey's first

John Lolitarra

Millions

que Marthin lucem
nerer Zalone w Fathull.

и
Tangl.

wahon damals Mattel Mon
so hoy ware Grungs of the

like Mr. Milton lived next Towne to Fosthill within 4 a mile [Holton]

A and they were Raungers of the Forest.

John, he believes.

Q. Ubi vixit if not at Shotover.

impression, Milton's grandfather (named John, as his informant believed,) had married a Jeffrey, and had by her two sons — the elder being John, the poet's father; and the younger another Milton, whose Christian name was unknown, and who had most probably remained about Shotover. But before Aubrey had parted with the MS. certain changes were made both by addition and erasure. (1) In the first generation there is inserted the note conveying the additional information relating to the locality and the occupation of the old Milton, the poet's grandfather; and there is also inserted the additional information relating to the Jeffrey he had married, conveyed by the appended sketch of arms. The purport of the information in this second case seems to be that the Jeffrey was a widow of that name, whose original name had been Haughton." The arms appended are those which her first husband, Jeffrey, would have used to signify his marriage with her - to wit, the arms of Jeffrey (azure, a fret or; on a chief of the second, a lion passant sable) impaling those of Haughton (sable, three bars argent); and, to indicate the fact that, though a Haughton originally, she had been intermediately the wife of a Jeffrey, Aubrey has kept these arms, only drawing his pen through the Jeffrey side of the shield, to signify that, on her second marriage, the “ Jeff.” was done with. She came to Milton as a Jeffrey; but had he signified the fact of his marriage with her by a heraldic sketch, it would have been by substituting his own arms as Milton (argent, a double-headed eagle displayed gules, etc.) for those of the deceased Jeffrey on the one side of the shield, retaining her paternal arms as Haughton untouched on the other. In order to isolate all this information or put it in a corner by itself, Aubrey seems to have drawn the curved line; which curved line, lest it should look like a mark of total obliteration, he afterwards scrolled over. (2) In the second generation there is an erasure of the name of the supposed second son of the old Milton and his wife; as if the existence of this country brother of the scrivener had become doubtful.

Wood's Account. “His father, Joh. Milton, who was a scrivener living at the Spread-Eagle in the said street, was a native of Halton in Oxfordshire. His Grandfather Milton, whose Christian name was John, as he [Wood's chief informant, i.e. Aubrey] thinks, was an under-ranger or keeper of the Forest of Shotover, near to the said town of Halton, but descended from those of his name who had lived beyond all record at Milton near Halton and Thame in Oxfordshire. Which grandfather, being a zealous Papist, did put away, or, as some say, disinherit his son because he was a Protestant; which made him retire to London, to seek, in a manner, his fortune.”