fale increas'd double the number every year. The Work is now generally known and esteem'd; and I having the honor to hear Your LORDSHIP say, that a fmaller edition of it would be grateful to the world, immediately resolv'd upon printing it in this volume, of which I most humbly beg Your acceptance, from, My LORD, : Your Lordship's ever obliged fervant. THE LIFE OF Mr. JOHN MILTON. FROM a family, and town of his name in Oxfordshire, our Author deriv'd his defcent; but He was born at London in the Year 608. The Publisher of his Works in Profe (on whose veracity some part of this narrative must entirely depend) dates his birth two years earlier than this: but contradicting himself afterwards in his own computation, I reduce it to the time that Monfieur Bayle hath assign'd; and for the fame Reason which prevail'd with him to assign it. His father, John Milton, by profession a scrivener, liv'd in a reputable manner on a competent estate, entirely his own acquisition; having been early disinherited by his parents for renouncing the communion of the Church of Rome, to which they were zealoufly devoted. By his wife Sarah Cafton he had likewife one daughter, nam'd Anna; and another fon, Christopher, whom he train'd to the practice of the Common Law; who in the Great Rebellion adher'd to the roval cause : and in the reign of King James II. by too easy a compliance with the doctrines of the Court, both religious and civil, he attain'd to the dignity of being made a Judge of the Common Pleas; of which he dy'd devested not long after the Revolution. But JOHN, the subject of the present essay, was the favorite of his father's hopes; who, to cultivate the great genius which early display'd itself, was at the expense of a domestic Tutor: whose care and capacity his Pupil hath gratefully celebrated in an excellent Latin Elegy; the fourth in the present collection.. At his initiaAn. Atat. 12. tion He is said to have apply'd himself to Letters with fuch indefatigable industry, that he rarely was prevail'd with to quit his studies before midnight: which not only made him frequently subject to severe pains in his head; but likewife occafion'd that weakness in his eyes, which terminated in a total privation |
