gain the place, in which he was wounded, caused him to return without effecting his purpose. The disappointment of the Athenians was so great, that Miltiades was accused before the assembly of the people, either of treason, or of deceiving them by false representations; and though defended by his brother, who reminded them of his past services, the utmost he could obtain was an exemption from capital, punishment. He was condemned in a fine of fifty talents, the whole expence of the expedition; which being unable to pay, he was committed to prison. There, to the eternal disgrace of his ungrateful country, he was suffered to die of the consequences of his wound and a broken heart, in the year after the battle of Marathon. It is asserted that the liberation of his body was only obtained by the voluntary surrender in his stead of his illustrious son Cimon, who afterwards paid the fine. Herodotus. Corn. Nepos. Univ. Hist.-A.

MILTON, JOHN, the most eminent of English poets, was descended from an ancient family settled at Milton in Oxfordshire. His father, who had incurred paternal disinheritance on account of his desertion of the Roman catholic faith, to which the family had been firm adherents, settled in London as a scrivener; and marrying a woman of good family, had two sons and a daughter. John, the eldest son, was born in Bread-street, London, on December 9, 1608. He received the rudiments of learning from a domestic tutor, Thomas Young, afterwards chaplain to the English merchants at Hamburgh; a man whose merits are gratefully commemorated by his pupil in a Latin elegy. At a proper age he was sent to St. Paul's school, of which Mr. Alexander Gill was then master, and there began to distinguish himself by his intense application to study, and his poetical talents. In his 16th year he was removed to Christ's-college, Cambridge, of which he was admitted a pensioner under the tuition of Mr. W. Chappel. Of his course of studies in the university little is known, but he gave proof of the extraordinary skill he had acquired in writing Latin verse, by several exercises preserved among his works, and which are of a purer classical taste than any preceding compositions of the kind by English scholars. Not only from traditional record, but from allusions in his own works, it appears that some part of his conduct brought upon him academical punishment; but whatever were the cause, he seems to have felt no shame from it, since he refers spontaneously to the circum

stance. He took the degrees both of bachelor and master of arts, the latter in 1632, when he left the university. He renounced his original purpose of entering the church, for which he has given as a reason, that "coming to some maturity of years, he had perceived what tyranny had invaded it, and that he who would take orders must subscribe slave, and take an oath withal, which unless he took with a conscience that could retch, he must strait perjure or split his faith." This denotes a man resolved to think and act for himself; and it can scarcely be doubted that he was already marked with that firm unyielding temper, and repugnance to assumed authority, which may be unfavourably represented as a turbulent and rebellious spirit, but which in some degree is a necessary concomitant of a superior mind. Milton was indeed a man in no respect formed to shape his opinions by those of councils and synods, or to pay homage to the arbitrary claims of either civil or ecclesiastical do

mination.

Disinclined to engage in any other profession, he returned to his father, who had retired from business to a residence at Horton in Buckinghamshire, and there passed five years in a course of study of the best Roman and Grecian authors, and in the composition of some of his finest miscellaneous poems. This was the period of his Allegro and Penseroso, his Comus and Lycidas, which, at the same time that they display the exuberance of his genius, also prove the varied and extensive. view he had taken of nature and human society. In particular they shew that rapturous sensibility to the charms of the country, which is almost inseparable from a genuine poet. That his learning and talents had at this time excited considerable notice, appears from that solicitation of the Bridgewater family, which produced his "Mask of Comus," performed in 1634, at Ludlow castle, before the earl of that title, then lord president of Wales; and also by his "Arcades," part of an entertainment presented to the countess dowager of Derby at Harefield, by some of her family.

In 1638, having obtained his father's consent to improve himself by foreign travel, he set out for the continent. At Paris, where he passed a few days, he was gratified with an introduction to the celebrated Grotius. He proceeded thence to Italy, and reaching Florence, passed two months in that favourite seat of the fine arts, much distinguished in the polite and literary circles. He spent an equal time at

Rome, and then visited Naples, where he was kindly received by Manso, marquis of Villa, who had long before deserved the gratitude of poets by his patronage of Tasso. In return for a laudatory distich of Manso, Milton addressed to him a Latin poem of great elegance. Though it was only as a writer of Latin verse that his merit could be known to the Italians, he obtained several high-flown encomiums from that complimentary people, the intrinsic value of which could not be great; yet he might be allowed to feel some pride on account of honours seldom bestowed on a stranger, and purely the result of his merit. It is said that he would have been further favoured there, had he not, contrary to the advice of sir Henry Wotton, spoken freely on religious topics; and he was even warned of danger from the machinations of the Jesuits on that ground. He however passed unmolested a considerable time on his return, at Rome, Florence, and Venice, and left Italy by the way of Geneva, where he contracted an acquaintance with two learned divines, John Diodati and Frederic Spanheim. He returned through France to England, whence he had been absent a year and three months.

At his arrival he found the civil and religious commotions of his country hastening to a crisis; and as he had expressed impatience to be present on the theatre of these interesting disputes, it has been thought extraordinary that he did not instantly place himself in some active station. But his turn was not military, and his fortune did not afford him any prospect of a seat in parliament: the pulpit he had declined; and for the bar he had made no preparation. His tastes and habits were altogether literary; and he had long been pondering upon some subject of English poetry worthy of his genius, and capable of being made a passport to the immortality to which he aspired. For the present, therefore, he fixed himself in the metropolis; and undertook the education of his sister's two sons, of the name of Philips. Shortly after, he was applied to by several parents to admit their children to the benefit of his tuition. He therefore took a commodious house in a garden in Aldersgate-street, and opened an academy for board and education. As he disapproved the plan followed in the public schools and universities, he deviated from it as widely as possible. Instead of the common classics, he put into the hands of his scholars such Latin and Greek authors as treated on the arts and sciences, and philosophy, thus expecting to instil the knowledge

of things with that of words. It is singular that one who had himself drank so deeply at the muses' fount, should withhold the draught from others; and it is certain that the abstruse works which he substituted to those of the poets and common historians, were ill calculated to render learning pleasant to beginners; not to say, that from the imperfect state of ancient science, such a course was as likely to inculcate error as truth. He performed the duty of instruction with great assiduity, and set the example of hard study and spare diet to his pupils, whom he seems to have disciplined with the severity of old times. His principal relaxation was an occasional day of festivity with some gentlemen of Gray's-Inn.

Milton did not long deserve the censure of having forgotten the public cause in his private pursuits. His principles made it no matter of doubt which side he should espouse in the contentions of his country, and in 1641 he published four treatises relative to churchgovernment, in which he attacked episcopacy and supported the cause of the puritans. They were followed by another in the next year relative to the same controversy, and he numbered among his antagonists such men as bishop Hall and archbishop Usher. His father, who had been disturbed in his residence by the king's troops, came to live with him, and spent his latter years in tranquillity under his son's roof. It now became desirable that so large a family should have a female head; and accordingly, in 1643, Milton united himself in marriage with Mary, daughter of Richard Powell, esq. a magistrate in Oxfordshire. In more than one respect this was an unsuitable connexion, for the father-in-law was a zealous royalist, and the daughter had been accustomed to the jovial hospitality of the country gentlemen of that party. She had not been above a month in her husband's house, before the contrast in every respect that she experienced completely disgusted her; and having procured a request from her friends for permission to pay them a visit, she went to her father's house to spend the remainder of the summer. Milton's letters and messages to bring her back at the appointed time were treated with contempt. Justly incensed at this usage, he began to consider her conduct as a desertion which broke the nuptial contract, and he determined to punish it by repudiation. His learning soon supplied him with arguments for such a measure, and in order to justify it to the world, he published in 1644 "The Doctrine

and Discipline of Divorce," which was followed by "The Judgement of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce." In the next year apIn the next year appeared his "Tetrachordon, or Expofitions upon the four chief Places in Scripture which treat of Marriage," in which he endeavoured to obviate the objections to divorce which might be drawn from the New Testament. The presbyterian divines then sitting at Westminster were alarmed at this novelty, and procured the writer to be summoned before the House of Lords; but that body did not choose to enter into the question, and soon dismissed him. Milton now resolved to put his doctrine into practice, and began to pay his court to a young lady of great accomplishments, the daughter of a Dr. Davies. The rumour of this intended alliance effected what his remonstrances had been unable to do. As he was paying a visit to a neighbour and kinsman, he was surprised with the sudden entrance of his wife from another room, who threw herself at his feet and implored forgiveness. After a short struggle of resentment he relented, and again took her to his bosom. The reconciliation was sincere and lasting, and Milton nobly sealed it by opening his house to her father and brothers, when they had been driven from home by the triumph of the republican arms.

He continued to employ his pen on public topics, and in 1644 wrote a Tractate on Education," addressed to Mr. Hartlib, which contains his thoughts on that important subject. The presbyterians, now in power, having continued the subsisting restraints upon the press, he published in the same year his " Areopagitica, a Speech of Mr. John Milton, for the Liberty of unlicensed Printing." This is written with equal spirit and ability; and when reprinted in 1738, was affirmed by the editor to be the best defence that had ever then appeared of that essential article of public liberty. Milton was now become hostile to the presbyterian party, which change appears to be unjustly attributed by Dr. Johnson and others to their opposition to his doctrine of divorce, since the intolerant spirit which they displayed in other points could not fail of rendering them obnoxious to such a champion for religious freedom. Though his controversial and other engagements had for some time suspended the exertion of his poetical talents, yet he did not suffer his character as a poet to sink into oblivion: and in 1645 he pubished his juvenile poems, Latin and English.

Milton's principles of the origin and end of

government carried him to a full approbation of the trial and execution of the king, which was the final catastrophe of the civil wars; and in order to conciliate the minds of the people, which were agitated by the outcries, as well of the presbyterians, as the loyalists, against that act, he published early in 1649, "The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, proving that it is lawful, and hath been so held through all Ages, for any who have the Power, to call to Account a Tyrant or wicked King, and, after due Conviction, to depose and put him to death, if the ordinary Magistrate have neglected or denied to do it." This title fully expresses the extent of his reasoning on the subject; for by the clause "any who have the power," he plainly means to include the case of such a minority as then composed the parliament, taking upon themselves the perform-. ance of a national act. He soon after attempted to support the new order of things, by a pamphlet animadverting upon the revolt of the Scotch presbyterians settled at Belfast, from the parliament. To preserve the republican spirit of the nation, he also employed himself in a "History of England" from the earliest periods, of which he composed six books, but left the work unfinished. present he was stopt in his progress by his appointment to the Latin secretaryship to the council of state. His first service, however, was the composition of an English pamphlet, entitled, "Iconoclastes," intended to obviate the effects produced by the famous royal work "Icon Basilike," which appeared at this time. In addition to the charge of indecent and unfeeling censure of the unhappy monarch, which Milton's enemies have brought forward on this occasion, he has been accused of the dishonesty of interpolating the Icon Basilike with a prayer taken from Sidney's Arcadia, and then making it a subject of reproach. But besides that his character entirely discredits such an act of baseness, the authority for the charge is so despicable, that it may safely be regarded as a mere party calumny.

At

The learned Frenchman Saumaise or Salmasius having been hired by Charles II. while in Holland, to write a work in favour of the royal cause, which he entitled "Defensio Regia," Milton was employed to answer it, and he performed his task in 1651, by his celebrated "Defensio pro Populo Anglicano," in which he exercised all his powers of Latin rhetoric, as well to justify the republican party, as to confound and vilify the famous scholar

against whom he took up the pen. It cannot be denied that there are noble strains of the eloquence of freedom in this piece, though tainted with party virulence, and debased by such abuse of his antagonist as the controversies of men of letters at that time generally afforded. He acquired by it a high reputation both at home and abroad. He was visited on the occasion by all the foreign ambassadors then in London, was complimented by several eminent scholars on the continent, and received a present of a thousand pounds from the English government. His book went through several editions, and was generally read by literary enquirers of all parties. On the other hand, the work of Salmasius was condemned and suppressed by the states of Holland, in whose service he lived as a professor at Leyden; and he received various mortifications on its account. One source of triumph, indeed, arose to Milton's enemies, partly in consequence of this controversy. His intense application to study had for some years preceding brought on an affection of the eyes, which gradually impaired his sight, and before he wrote his "Defensio" he was warned by his physicians that such an exertion would probably terminate in total blindness. This opinion was not long after verified by an irremediable gutta serena which seized both his eyes, and subjected the remainder of his life to those privations which he has so feelingly described in some passages of his poems.

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His intellectual powers, however, suffered no diminution from this abridgment of the sensitive faculties, and he pursued without intermission both his official and his controversial employments. A book having been published at the Hague in 1652, entitled Regii sanguinis clamor ad cœlum adversus parricidas Anglicanos," the author of which was Peter du Moulin the younger; Milton replied to it in his "Defensio Secunda pro Populo Anglicano," 1654. In this piece there was much gross abuse of Alexander More, a French protestant minister of Scotch parentage, the editor (supposed by Milton to have been the author) of the work above-mentioned. There was likewise some high-flown panegyric upon Cromwell, who had now assumed the supreme power with the title of protector. Milton's attachment and subservience to this usurper is the part of his conduct which it is the most difficult to justify. When the wisest and most conscientious of the republicans had Lecome sensible of his arts, and had openly

opposed his ambitious projects, it might have been expected that the mind of Milton would neither have been blinded by his hypocrisy nor overawed by his power. If the general tenor of his character will exonerate him from the suspicion of interested motives on this occasion, it must be supposed that he was dazzled with the greatness of Cromwell's actions, and was convinced that his superiority alone could allay that contention of parties which threatened ruin to the cause that had proved victorious in the field. Milton was, besides, a zealous friend of religious liberty, for which he saw no refuge from the intolerance of the presbyterians, except in the moderation of the protector. It may be added, that the very passage in which he addresses Cromwell with the loftiest encomium, contains a free and noble exhortation that he should respect that public liberty, of which he considers him as the guardian. As to his continuing in the post of Latin secretary under the protectorate, it seems to require no more apology than the conduct of other eminent persons in civil and military stations, who have thought it a duty to serve their country professionally, by whomsoever the supreme power was administered. Milton's office chiefly regarded transactions with foreign nations, in which it is admitted that Cromwell was meritoriously attentive to the honour and interest of his own.

In 1652 Milton lost his wife, who left him three daughters. His infirmity rendering a help-mate necessary to his comfort, he married again after a short interval. His second wife, who was the daughter of a captain Woodcock, of Hackney, died in child-bed within a year, and appears to have been much regretted by her husband. Employment was his resource against the gloom of his condition; and after he had concluded his controversial warfare, he took up his suspended History of England, which, however, he brought down no lower than the conquest; and laid in materials for a Latin Thesaurus, intended as an improvement upon that of R. Stephanus. In the business of his office he had coadjutors; but the most important matters were still committed to him, and from his pen proceeded a Latin memorial of great strength and elegance, stating the reasons for the war which the protector declared against Spain. A remonstrance which he drew up concerning the persecution of the protestants in Savoy, strongly expressed his detestation of religious tyranny. After the

death of Cromwell, when the fluctuations of government threatened general anarchy, he was induced to give his advice on civil and ecclesiastical topics in some short publications, one of which was "A ready and easy Way to establish a Free Commonwealth; and the Excellence thereof, compared with the Inconveniences and Dangers of re-admitting Kingship." This appeared but a short time before the restoration; so zealous and sanguine was he to the very last with respect to his political system. It was in vain, however, to contend by pamphlets against the national inclination. The king returned in triumph; and Milton, discharged from his office, left the house in Petty France in which, during his public life, he had resided, and for a time lay concealed in the house of a friend. His name first occurs in the proceedings of the new government, in an address from the House of Commons to his Majesty, that he would issue his proclamation to call in Milton's Defences of the People and Iconoclastes, together with a book of Goodwyn's, and cause them to be burnt by the common hangman, and also that the authors should be prosecuted by the attorney-general. The books were accordingly burnt, but the authors were returned as having absconded. In the act of indemnity, which passed in August, Milton's name was not among those of the excepted persons. He appears, however, to have been for some time in custody of the serjeant at arms; but he was at length discharged, and attention was even paid to his complaint of the demand of excessive fees. For this lenity he was indebted to the exertions of several persons of influence, and particularly, it is said, to those of Davenant the poet, in return for a similar interposition of Milton's in his favour, when his life was endangered by his proceedings in the royal cause. (See Davenant, William.)

He now, in reduced circumstances and under the discountenance of power, removed to a private habitation near his former residence in the city; and in order to alleviate his forlorn condition, he desired his friend Dr. Paget to look out a third wife for him. He recommended a relation of his own, Elizabeth Minshull, of a good family in Cheshire, and the union took place in Milton's 53d or 54th year. That he was offered from the court, and refused, the post he had held under the former government, has been asserted, but with little probability, since neither his manners nor principles were accommodated to the new reign,

and he had too deeply offended to be more than forgiven. He was now to resume that poetical character which for many years had been sunk in that of the controversialist and politician; for his few compositions in verse during this period added nothing to his former fame. Centered within itself, and undisturbed by contentions and temporary topics, his powerful mind was left in repose to meditate upon the great ideas which had indistinctly risen to its view, and the result of its energies was Paradise Lost. Much discussion has taken place concerning the original conception of this grand performance; but whatever hint may have suggested the rude outline, it is certain that all the creative powers of a strong imagination, and all the accumulated stores of a life devoted to learning, were expended in its completion. Though at the time when he first formed the resolution of writing an epic poem, which was at an early period, he thought of some subject in the heroic times of English history; yet his religious turn, and assiduous study of the Hebrew scriptures, produced a final preference of a story derived from the sacred writings, and giving scope to the introduction of his theological system. He composed in blank verse, doubtless on account of the greater facility with which he could pour forth the strains that rushed into his mind with the force and rapidity of real inspiration. Of his process of composition, his. nephew Philips has given some account, observing that "he had the perusal of it from the very beginning, for some years, from time to time, in parcels of ten, twenty, or thirty verses. at a time, which, being written by whatever hand came next, might possibly want correction as to the orthography and pointing." He adds, from the information of the poet himself, that "his vein never happily flowed but from the autumnal equinox to the vernal, and that whatever he attempted at other times was never to his satisfaction:" a notion which Dr. Johnson treats with ridicule, though it would seem that some deference should be paid to Milton's affirmation of it as a matter of fact. The exact time occupied in the composition of Paradise Lost is not known ;. but it appears from the authority of Elwood, a quaker, who had been employed by him as a reader, that it was finished in 1665, when Milton, to avoid. the contagion of the plague in London, made a retreat to Chalfont in Buckinghamshire. It was first printed in 1667 in a small quarto, and divided into ten books; and his biographers