f

e

3

The mother of Milton is said by Wood, from Aubrey, to have been a Bradshaw; descended from a family of that name in Lancashire. Peck relates, that he was informed she was a Haughton of Haughton-tower in the same county. But Phillips, her grandson, whose authority it is most reasonable to admit, affirms, in his Life of Milton, that she was a Caston, of a genteel family derived originally from Wales. Milton himself has recorded, with becoming reference to the respectability of his descent, the great esteem in which she was held for her virtues, especially her charity.

h

i

His father was particularly distinguished for his musical abilities. He is said to have been a voluminous composer, and equal in science, if not in genius, to the best musicians of his age. Sir John Hawkins and Dr. Burney, in their Histories of Musick, have each selected a specimen of his skill. He has been mentioned also by Mr. Warton, as the author of A sixe-fold Politician; together with a sixe-fold precept of Policy. Lond. 1609. But Mr. Hayley agrees with Dr. Farmer and Mr. Reed

e Fasti Ox. vol. i. p. 262, &c. chiefly taken, as Mr. Warton has observed, from Aubrey's manuscript Life of Milton, preserved in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Memoirs of Milton, 1740, p. 1.

Life of Milton, p. v.

"Londini sum natus, genere honesto, patre viro integerrimo, matre probatissimâ, et eleemosynis per viciniam potissimùm notâ." Defens. Sec. vol. iii. p. 95. edit. fol. 1698.

i

Dr. Burney's Hist. of Musick, vol. iii. p. 134.

in assigning that work rather to John Melton, author of the Astrologaster, than to the father of our poet. Of his attachment to literature, however, the Latin verses of his son, addressed to him with no less elegance than gratitude, are an unequivocal proof. Perhaps it may again be confounding him with the author of the Astrologaster, in noticing the person who signs himself John Melton, citizen of London, at the close of a very indifferent Sonnet of fourteen lines, addressed to John Lane on his Guy of Warwick, which is preserved in the British Museum, and bears the date of licence for being printed in July 1617. This John Lane is the person whom Milton's nephew calls "a fine old queen Elizabeth gentleman, who was living within his remembrance," and of whose poems he gives a very flattering characThe Sonnet is entitled "In Poesis Laudem," and is not worth citing. But a little poem, to which the musick of the elder Milton's Madrigal is adapted, (whether the poetical as well as the musical composition be his or not,) is given 'below, on account of

ter.

Phillips's Theatrum Poetarum, 1675, p. 111.

1 See Madrigales, viz. The Triumphes of Oriana, to 5 and 6 voices, composed by diuers seuerall aucthors. Newly published by Thomas Morley, Batcheler of Musick, &c. 4to. Lond. 1601. "For 6. Voices. Mad. XVIII.

the circumstance which occasioned it, (that of flattering a maiden queen on the verge of seventy,) as a curiosity.

The care, with which Milton was educated, shows the " discernment of his father. The bloom of genius was fondly noticed, and wisely encouraged. He was so happy, bishop Newton says, as to share the advantages both of private and publick education. He was at first instructed, by private tuition, under " Thomas Young, whom Aubrey calls " a puritan in Essex who cutt his haire short;" who, having quitted

n

"The roses blushing sayd,

"O stay thou shepherd's mayd:

"And on a sodain all

66

They rose and heard hir call.

"Then sang those shepherds and nymphs of Diana,

Long live faire Oriana!"

m The Annual Register of 1762 very erroneously refers to Milton's poem Ad Patrem, in order to support the following mistaken assertion: "Ariosto often lamented, as Ovid and Petrarch did before him, and our own Milton since, that his father banished him from the Muses." Characters, Life of Ariosto, p. 23. Milton's verses to his father prove exactly the reverse.

" If Milton imbibed from this instructor, as Mr. Warton supposes, the principles of puritanism, it may be curious to remark that he never adopted from him the outward symbol of the sect. Milton preserved his "clustering locks" throughout the reign of the round-heads. Wood, describing the Seekers who came to preach at Oxford in 1647, affords a proper commentary on Young's cutting his hair short. "The generality of them had mortified countenances, puling voices, and eyes commonly, when in discourse, lifted up, with hands lying on their breasts. They mostly had short hair, which at this time was commonly called the Committee cut," &c. Fasti. Ox. vol. ii. p. 61.

his country on account of his religious opinions, became Chaplain to the English merchants at Hamburgh; but afterwards returned, and during the usurpation of Cromwell was master of Jesus College, Cambridge. Of the pupil's affection for his early tutor, his fourth elegy, and two Latin epistles, are publick testimonies. Mr. Hayley considers the portrait of Milton by Cornelius Jansen, drawn when he was only ten years old, at which age Aubrey affirms " he was a poet," as having been executed in order to operate as a powerful incentive to the future exertion of the infant author. This supposition is very probable: And, as the portrait was drawn by a painter then rising into fame, and whose price for a head was five broad pieces, the mark of encouragement was rendered more handsome and more conspicuous.

From the tuition of Mr. Young, Milton was removed to St. Paul's School, under the care of Alexander Gill, who at that time was the master; to whose son, who was then usher and afterwards master, and with whom Milton was a favourite scholar, are addressed, in friendship, three of the poet's Latin epistles. There is no register of ad

• Jansen's first works in England are said to be dated about 1618; the year, in which the young poet's portrait was drawn. See Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, Works, vol. iii. p. 149. edit. 1798.

As I found, upon inquiry of the Rev. Dr. Roberts, the late Head Master.

missions into St. Paul's School so far back as the beginning of the seventeenth century. But, as Milton's domestick preceptor quitted England in 1623, it is probable that he was then admitted into that seminary; at which time he was in his fifteenth year. He had already studied with uncommon avidity; but at the same time with such inattention to his health, seldom retiring from his books before midnight, that the source of his blindness may be traced to his early passion for letters. In his twelfth year, as he tells us, this literary devotion began; from which he was not to be deterred either by the natural debility of his eyes, or by his frequent head-aches. The union of genius and application in the same person was never more conspicuous.

In 1623 he produced his first poetical attempts, the Translations of the 114th and 136th Psalms, to which, as to some other juvenile productions, he

"Pater me puerulum humaniorum literarum studiis destinavit; quas ita avidè arripui, ut ab anno ætatis duodecimo vix unquam ante mediam noctem à lucubrationibus cubitum discederem ; quæ prima oculorum pernicies fuit, quorum ad naturalem debilitatem accesserant et crebri capitis dolores; quæ omnia cùm discendi impetum non retardarent, et in ludo literario, et sub aliis domi magistris erudiendum quotidiè curavit." Def. Sec. ut supr. Aubrey also relates, that "when Milton went to schoole, and when he was very younge, he studied very hard, and sate up very late, commonly til twelve or one o'clock; and his father ordered the maid to sitt up for him." MS. Ashmol. Mus. ut supr. His early reading was in poetical books. Humphry Lownes, a printer, living in the same street with his father, supplied him at least with Spenser and Sylvester's Du Bartas.