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this Committee for Compositions with Delinquents shall be imposed and sett to pay for the same, in order to the freedome and dischardge of my person and

estate.

(Signed)

"CHR. MILTON."

This declaration is followed by certificates that he took the requisite oath, and that he had resided in Exeter seven months before the surrender of it to Fairfax. The final mention of his case is, that it was reported 21 December, 1649, and that the fine (as already noticed) was 2007."

k

This brother of Milton was knighted by James the second. He had long resided in Ipswich, and is said to have fitted up a part of the mansion, which at one time belonged to the ancient family of Wingfield, for the celebration of the Roman Catholick worship; as he was professedly a papist. To a mansion in the village of Rushmere, (about two miles distant,) now called the White House, he then removed, and there died. He was buried in the church of St. Nicholas in the town of Ipswich. In

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k What follows relating to Sir Christopher Milton, has been obligingly communicated to me by a learned friend, now resident at Ipswich, the Rev. James Ford, Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford.

Parish Regist. of St. Nicholas, "1692. March 22, Sir Christopher Melton of Rushmore was buried in the church of this parish." In the Reg. of Baptisms in St. Nicholas' Parish also, the baptism of his daughter Mary, March 29, 1656, is entered.

the charter granted to this town, 36 Charles II. it may be added, he had been nominated and constituted the first and new deputy-recorder of it.

Anne, the sister of Milton, must have been elder than either of her brothers; for her birth is not to be found in the register already mentioned: She was probably the eldest child, and born before her father settled in Bread-street. Milton's Verses on her daughter, written in his seventeenth year, serve to corroborate this supposition. She was first married to Mr. Phillips, afterwards to Mr. Agar, a friend of her first husband, who succeeded him in the CrownOffice of the Court of Chancery. By her first husband she had two sons, Edward and John, whom Milton educated; by her second, two daughters. His brother, Christopher, had two daughters, Mary and Catherine; and a son, Thomas, who succeeded Mr. Agar in his office. Of Milton's children who survived him, and of his widow Elizabeth, the notes on the Nuncupative Will give a distinct, and, in some respects, a new account. The several branches of his family appear to be now extinct. The case of Deborah, the youngest, which Mr. Warton deplores with sensibility, was " first noticed in a very feeling manner also, in Mist's Weekly Journal, April 29, 1727, and commended her to part of the little patronage which she obtained. While it has been ob

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It is also printed in the European Magazine for 1787, p. 65.

served, that the Nuncupative Will of Milton presents indeed a melancholy picture of domestick connexions, and that his conduct towards his daughters has been feelingly defended even by an eminent female pen; it has not been noticed, that part of the charge brought against him, I mean his teaching his children to read and pronounce Greek and several other languages without understanding any but English, may be thought more strange and unaccountable, inasmuch as he appears to have been distinguished for the estimation in which he once held literary women; a circumstance which no biographer of Milton has hitherto recorded. Doctor Newton, indeed, facetiously tells us, that Milton used to say that one tongue was enough for a woman! But contemporary information will best illustrate this curious point in the history of the poet. "We believe," says the answerer to his Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, you count no woman to due conversation accessible, AS TO YOU, except she can speak Hebrew, Greek, Latine, and French, and dispute against the Canon law as well as you, or at least be able to hold discourse with you. But other gentlemen of good qualitie are content with meaner and fewer endowments, as you know well enough."-I now recur to the defence of Milton by the distinguished lady, who speaking of the modern revolutionary spirit in families, and elegantly enforcing the subordination of domestick manners, argues 66 that,

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" Answer to the Doct. and Disc. of Divorce, 1644, p. 16.

among the faults with which it has been too much the fashion of recent times to load the memory of the incomparable Milton, one of the charges brought against his private character (for with his political character we have here nothing to do) has been, that he was so severe a father as to have compelled his daughters, after he was blind, to read aloud to him, for his sole pleasure, Greek and Latin authors of which they did not understand a word. But this is in fact nothing more than an instance of the strict domestick regulations of the age in which Milton lived; and should not be brought forward as a proof of the severity of his individual temper. Nor indeed in any case should it ever be considered as a hardship for an affectionate child to amuse an afflicted parent, even though it should be attended with a heavier sacrifice of her own pleasure than in the present instance."

• Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education, by Mrs. Hannah More, vol. i. p. 147, 6th edit. 1799.

SECTION VII.

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The Nuncupative Will of Milton: with Notes by the late Rev. Thomas Warton, and other Observations.

❝b MEMORANDUM, that JOHN MILTON, late of the parish of St. Giles Cripplegate in the Countie of Middlesex Gentleman, deceased, at severall times before his death, and in particular, on or about the twentieth day of July, in the year of our Lord God 1674, being of perfect mind and memorie, declared his Will and intent as to the disposall of his estate after his death, in these words following, or of like effect: The portion due to me from Mr. Powell, my former wife's father, I leave to the unkind children I had by her, having received no parte of it: but my meaning is, they shall have no other benefit of my estate than the said portion, and what I have besides done for them; they having been very undutifull to me. All the residue of my estate I leave to [the] disposall of Elizabeth my loving wife. Which

First published by Mr. Warton, in his edit. of Milton's Smaller Poems, 1791. TODD.

b As propounded in the Prerogative Court. WARTON.

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