to give him the sacrament, and pronounce the absolution service!

His widow sold the copyright of "Paradise Lost," which had devolved upon her, to Simmons, for eight pounds. Her receipt is dated December 21st, 1680; and a general release from all further claim is dated April 29th, 1681.*

She spent her last days at Namptwich, in Cheshire, where she was a member of the Baptist church; and died about 1729.

The following are the brief directions which MILTON gave to his brother Christopher, respecting his will, about the 20th of July, 1674. "Brother, the portion due to me from Mr. Powell, my first wife's father, I leave to the unkind children I had by her; but I have received no part of it; and my will and meaning is, they have no other benefit from my estate than the said portion, and what I have besides done for them, they having been very undutiful to me; and all the residue of my estate I leave to the disposal of Elizabeth, my loving wife."

This will was contested by his daughters, whose

* Simmons covenanted to transfer the right to Brabazon Aylmer, for twenty-five pounds. Aylmer sold half of it to Jacob Tonson, August 17th, 1683, and the other moiety, March 24th, 1690, at a price considerably advanced; and twenty-eight pounds in thirteen years, was all that the poet and his widow obtained for this great work.

undutiful conduct it condemned: being deficient in form, it was set aside, and letters of administration were granted to the widow, who is said to have allotted a hundred pounds to each daughter.

Dr. Johnson has described MILTON as a cruel father, without any evidence.

"MILTON's youngest daughter," says Richardson, "spoke of her father with great tenderness: she said he was delightful company, the life of the conversation, and that on account of a flow of subject, and an unaffected cheerfulness and civility.'

Of the other daughters it is recorded, that Ann, the eldest, with a deformed person, married an architect, and died with her first infant in childbed. Mary, the second, died unmarried. Deborah married Mr. Clark, a weaver in Spitalfields: she died in 1727, aged seventy-six. As her family was numerous, and also poor, Addison made her a present, and Queen Caroline presented her with fifty guineas. In the year 1750, Comus was acted at one of the theatres, as a benefit for one of Mrs. Clark's daughters, Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, who had been found by Dr. Birch and Dr. Newton, two of the biographers of her illustrious grandfather, keeping a little chandler's shop in the city, poor, aged, and infirm. One hundred and thirty pounds were thus gained to her and

her family, a husband and seven children: these all died before their mother, and by her own death it is probable the line of MILTON became extinct.

The sister of MILTON, Anne, was married, with a considerable fortune, to Edward Phillips, who came from Shrewsbury, and rose in the crownoffice to be secondary: by him she had two sons, John and Edward, who were educated by the poet, and from whom is derived the only authentic account of his life and manners.

His brother, Christopher, "studied the law, and adhered," says Johnson, "as the law taught him, to the king's party, for which he was for a while persecuted; but having, by his brother's interest, obtained permission to live in quiet, he supported himself so honourably by chamber practice, that soon after the accession of King James II. he was knighted, and made a judge; but his constitution being too weak for business, he retired, before any disreputable compliances became necessary." It is wonderful Dr. Johnson had not considered that "the law taught him to adhere" to the popish king's party

too!!

The following letter, copied from the original in the British Museum, which has not, I believe, till now been printed, relates to Mrs. Deborah Clark:

"MR. GEORGE VERTUE TO MR. CHARLES

"MR. CHRISTIAN,

CHRISTIAN.

Pray inform my Lord Henley that I have on Thursday last seen the daughter of MILTON the poet. I carried with me two or three different prints of MILTON's picture, which she immediately knew to be like her father; and told me her mother-in-law, living in Cheshire, had two pictures of him, one when he was a school-boy, and the other when about twenty. She knows of no other picture of him, because she was several years in Ireland, both before and after his death. She was the youngest of MILTON'S daughters by his first wife, and was taught to read to her father several languages.

"Mr. Addison was desirous of seeing her once, and desired she would bring with her testimonials of her being MILTON's daughter. But as soon as she came into the room, he told her she needed none, her face having much of the likeness of the pictures he had seen of him.

"For my part, I find the features of her face very much like the prints. I shewed her the painting I have to engrave, which she believes not to be her father's picture, it being of a brown complexion, and black hair, and curled locks.

On the contrary, he was of a fair complexion, a little red in his cheeks, and light brown, lank hair.

"I desire you would acquaint Mr. Prior I was so unfortunate to wait on him on Thursday morning, but just after he was gone out of town. It was the intent to inquire of him, if he remembers a picture of MILTON in the late Lord Dorset's collection, as I am told there was; or if he can inform me how I shall inquire or know the truth of this affair. I should be much obliged to him, being very willing to have all certainty on that account, before I proceed to engrave the plate, that it may be the more satisfactory to the public as well as myself. The sooner you communicate this, the better, because I want to resolve, which I can't well do till I have an answer, which will much oblige

"Your friend to command,
"GEORGE VERTUE.

"Saturday, August 12th, 1721."

In the year 1793, by the munificence of Mr. Whitbread, father of the late Samuel Whitbread, Esq. M. P. an animated marble bust, the sculpture of Bacon, under which is a plain tablet, recording the dates of the poet's birth and of his decease, was erected in the middle aisle of St. Giles's church, Cripplegate, with the inscription-To the Author