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Elwood the quaker (as we learn from the history of his life written by his own hand) was first introduced to read to him; for having wholly loft his fight, he kept always fome body or other to perform that office, and ufually the fon of fome gentleman of his acquaintance, whom he took in kindness, that he might at the fame time improve him in his learning. Elwood was recommended to him by Dr. Paget, and went to his houfe every afternoon except Sunday, and read to him fuch books in the Latin tongue, as Milton thought proper. And Milton told him, that if he would have the benefit of the Latin tongue, not only to read and understand Latin authors, but to converfe with foreigners either abroad or at home, he must learn the foreign pronunciation; and he instructed him how to read accordingly. And having a curious ear, he understood by my tone, fays Elwood, when I understood what I read, and when I did not; and he would ftop me, and examin me, and open the most difficult paffages to me. But it was not long after his third marriage, that he left Jewen Street, and removed to a house in the Artillery Walk leading to Bunhill Fields: and this was his laft ftage in this world; he continued longer in this houfe than he had done in any other, and lived here to his dying day: only when the plague began to rage in London in 1665, he removed to a fmall house at St. Giles Chalfont in Buckinghamshire, which Elwood had taken for him and his family; and there he remained during that dreadful calamity; but after the fickness was over, and the city was cleanfed and made fafely habitable again, he returned to his house in London,

His great work of Paradise Loft had principally engaged his thoughts for fome years paft, and was now completed. It is probable, that his first defign of writing an epic poem was owing to his converfa tions at Naples with the Marquis of Villa about Taffo and his famous poem of the delivery of Jerufalem; and in a copy of verfes prefented to that nobleman before he left Naples, he intimated his intention of fixing upon King Arthur for his hero. And in an eclogue, made foon after his return to England upon the death of his friend and schoolfellow Deodati, he proposed the same design and the fame fubject, and declared his ambition of writing fomething in his native language, which might render his name illuftrious in these ilands, though he should be obfcure and inglorious to the reft of the world. And in other parts of his works, after he had engaged in the controverfies of the times, he still promised to produce fome noble poem or other at a fitter season; but it doth not appear that he had then determined upon the fubject, and King Arthur had another fate, being reserved for the pen of Sir Richard Blackmore. The firft hint of Paradife Loft is faid to have been taken from an Italian tragedy, and it is certain that he first defigned it a tragedy himself, and there are feveral plans of it in the form of a tragedy ftill to be feen in the author's own manufcript preferved in the library of Trinity College Cambridge. And it is probable that he did not barely fketch out the plans, but alfo wrote fome parts of the drama itself. His nephew Philips informs us, that fome of the verfes at the beginning of Satan's fpeech, addressed to the fun

in the fourth book, were fhown to him and fome others as defigned for the beginning of the tragedy, feveral years before the poem was begun and many other paffages might be produced, which plainly appear to have been originally intended for the fcene, and are not so properly of the epic, as of the tragic ftrain. It was not till after he was difengaged from the Salmafian controverfy, which ended in 1655, that he began to mold the Paradife Loft in its prefent form; but after the Restoration, when he was difmiffed from public business, and freed from controverfy of every kind, he profecuted the work with clofer application. Mr. Philips relates a very remarkable circumftance in the compofure of this poem, which he fays he had reafon to remember, as it was told him by Milton himself, that his vein never happily flowed but from the autumnal equinox to the vernal, and that what he attempted at other times was not to his fatisfaction, tho' he courted his fancy never fo much. Mr. Toland imagins that Philips might be mistaken as to the time, because our author, in his Latin elegy, written in his twentieth year, upon the approach of the fpring, feemeth to fay juft the contrary, as if he could not make any verfes to his fatisfaction till the fpring begun and he fays farther that a judicious friend of Milton's informed him, that he could never compose well but in fpring and autumn. But Mr. Richardson cannot comprehend, that either of thefe accounts is exactly true, or that a man with fuch a work in his head can fufpend it for fix months together, or only for one; it may go on more flowly, but it muft go on: and this laying it

afide is contrary to that eagerness to finish what was begun, which he fays was his temper in his epiftle to Deodati dated Sept. 2. 1637. After all Mr. Philips, who had the Perufal of the poem from the beginning, by twenty or thirty verfes at a time, as it was compofed, and having not been shown any for a confiderable while as the fummer came on, inquired of the author the reason of it, could hardly be mistaken with regard to the Time: and it is eafy to conceive, that the poem might go on much more flowly in fummer than in other parts of the year; for notwithstanding all that poets may fay of the pleasures of that feafon, I imagin moft perfons find by experience, that they can compofe better at any other time, with more facility and with more fpirit, than during the heat and languor of fummer. Whenever the poem was wrote, it was finished in 1665, and as Elwood fays was fhown to him that fame year at St. Giles Chalfont, whither Milton had retired to avoid the plague, and it was lent to him to perufe it, and give his judgment of it: and confidering the difficulties which the author lay under, his uncafinefs on account of the public affairs and his own, his age and infirmities, his gout and blindnefs, his not being in circumftances to maintain an amanuenfis, but obliged to make ufe of any hand that came next to write his verfes as he made them, it is really wonderful, that he fhould have the fpirit to undertake fuch a work, and much more, that he fhould ever bring it to perfection. And after the poem was finished, ftill new difliculties retarded the publication of it. It was in danger of being fup preffed thro' the malice or ignorance of the licenfer,

who took exception at fome paffages, and particularly at that noble fimile, in the first book, of the fun in an eclipse, in which he fancied that he had discovered treafon. It was with difficulty too that the author could fell the copy; and he fold it at laft only for five pounds, but was to receive five pounds more after the sale of 1300 of the first impreffion, and five pounds more after the fale of as many of the second impreffion, and five more after the fale of as many of the third, and the number of each impreffion was not to exceed 1500. And what a poor confideration was this for such an ineftimable performance! and how much more do others get by the works of great authors, than the authors themfelves! This original contract with Samuel Simmons the printer is dated April 27. 1667, and is in the hands of Mr. Tonfon the bookfeller, as is likewise the manuscript of the first book copied fair for the prefs, with the imprimatur by Thomas Tomkyns chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury: fo that tho' Milton was forced to make use of different hands to write his verfes from time to time as he had occafion, yet we may fuppofe that the copy for the prefs was written all, or at leaft each book by the fame hand. The first edition in ten books was printed in a small quarto ; and before it could be difpofed of, had three or more different title pages of the years 1667, 1668, and 1669. The first fort was without the name of Simmons the printer, and began with the poem immediately following the title page, without any argument, or preface, or table of errata: to others was prefixed a short advertisement of the printer to

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