politely allowed us to walk into the back room, with a low ceiling still preserving marks of age-probably a room in which Milton At the back of the house we noticed the inscription, "Sacred to Milton, Prince of Poets," and looked with intense interest on the overhanging cotton willow tree, which Bentham enclosed in his garden, and which is said to have been planted by the great Latin secretary himself. The garden formerly opened upon the park, in what is now called Bird-cage-walk. It was never a large house, and shows that the illustrious secretary of the foreign department did not then live in much splendour. His salary was only £280 a-year. Looking over this house, it is touching to remember that here his blindness became complete. A letter dated September 28, 1654, probably written in one of these very rooms, gives an account of the rise and progress of this sad malady. "It is now about ten years," he says, "since I first perceived my sight beginning to grow weak and dim. When I sat down, my eyes gave me considerable pain. If I looked at a candle, it was surrounded by an iris. In a little time a darkness covered the left side of the left eye, which was partially clouded some years before the other intercepted the view of all things in that direction. Objects in front seemed to dwindle in size whenever I closed my right eye; this eye too for three years gradually failing. A few months previous to my total blindness, while I was perfectly stationary, everything seemed to swim backward and forward; and now thick vapours appear to settle on my forehead and temples, which weigh down my lids with an oppressive sense of drowsiness, especially in the interval between dinner and the evening. I ought not to omit mentioning that before I wholly lost my sight, as soon as I lay down in bed, and turned upon either side, brilliant flashes of light used to issue from my closed eyes; and afterwards, upon the gradual failure of my powers of vision, colours proportionably dim and faint seemed to rush out with a degree of vehemence, and a kind of inward noise. These have now faded into uniform blackness, such as ensues on the extinction of a candle, or blackness varied only and intermingled with a dimmish grey. The constant darkness, however, in which I live day and night inclines more to a whitish than a blackish tinge; and the eye in turning itself round admits, as through a narrow chink, a very small portion of light." How very affecting is this detail, especially the allusion to the "narrow chink" which remained in the dark shutter folded over the windows of the eye, tą admit mementoes of the precious gift he had for ever lost. But his soul bows with Christian patience to the Divine behest : Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up, and steer The lustre of his dark grey eye did not fade after blindness had smitten it. His portrait brings him before us, with light brown hair parted in the middle and clustering on the shoulders, and a countenance which, till manhood was advanced, retained its youthful ruddy hue. The remembrance that his stature was of the middle height; that he was not at all corpulent, but muscular and compact; his gait erect and manly, bespeaking courage and dauntlessness; places in our sight the full-length shade of that illustrious personage. Then when we add to it the little anecdote, that he wore, as was the custom of the day, a rapier by his side, we seem to have the living man, walking in at his garden gate out of St. James's Park, leaning on the hand of a servant. The loss of sight was, in a measure, compensated by the exquisite acuteness of his hearing. He judged, as blind men are wont to do, of people's appearance by their voice. "His ears," says Richardson, "were now eyes to him." No doubt, in that home next Lord Scudamore's, Milton had his organ and bass viol, and would cheer the hours of his unintermitting darkness by music, for which he had a taste by nature. Milton's voice is said to have been sweet and harmonious, and he would frequently accompany the instruments on which he played. No longer able to guide the pen, he dictated in this same house some of his famous prose works, which, in the nineteenth century, are beginning to attract that notice and study too long denied them. His "Defence of the People of England" was probably written in Scotland-yard; but his "Second Defence," his "Treatise of Civil Power in Eccclesiastical Causes," his "Likeliest Means to remove Hirelings out of the Church," his "Present Means and Brief Delineation of a Free Commonwealth," and some smaller pieces, were all produced in the house we are speaking of. We may add, that in this same house he lost his second wife, to whom he was so tenderly attached. But it is time to turn eastward. Changes come, and Milton can no longer tarry near the palaces of old England. Too deeply implicated in the proceedings of the Commonwealth, he is forced to hide himself after the Restoration. And as we come near Bartholomew-close, looking out of Smithfield, we are not far from the place of his temporary concealment. Some friend guided and sheltered the blind man from the storm. Its fury past, or turned aside by the influence of some who venerated his genius and character, Milton goes to live in Holborn, near Red Lion-square, and then in Jewin-street. Probably, it was early after the Restoration, and while living in these abodes, that he was not only in darkness, but "with dangers compassed round," fearing assassination from some royalist hand, sleeping ill, and restlessly. In the latter place he marries his third wife; and there Ellwood, the Quaker, is introduced to him-the kind, patient Ellwood, who sits for hours reading Latin with a foreign accent, and sometimes little understanding what he reads, for the recreation of his now poor but illustrious friend. But highly honoured was that same Ellwood, when the great poet put into his hands a manuscript, asking his opinion of it--which proved to be the "Paradise Lost." That scene was a little cottage at Chalfont, in Buckinghamshire, where Milton had gone during the plague; but in Jewin-street, probably, the great poem was nearly brought to its completion. It was the work of years. Every former strain prepared for it. Prelusive touches had there been from boyhood of rich, sweet, solemn harmony; but in "Paradise Lost" came out the prolonged oratorio, swelling forth from the organ of his soul in notes of bird-like sweetness, in tones of deep-pealed thunder. The history of it is, probably, associated with most of the previous residences of Milton, but in Jewin-street it was nearly perfected, and in our mind wakens some echo of the poet's song whenever we walk along the pavement of that most unpoetic region. He leaves Jewin-street-for he was strangely changeful in his liking of a residence-and goes to live, we know not where, except that it was to lodge awhile in the house of Millington, the celebrated auctioneer, whom we greatly love and honour for the story told of his leading the bard by the hand when he walked about the streets. Two doors from the corner of Milton-street, running out of Forestreet, there is a shop kept by a confectioner, with over-hanging stories rising above it, evidently more than 200 years old. That, and the adjoining one, were originally united, and there, according to local tradition, we have another of Milton's numerous habitations. The house is now mean enough, and never could have been very much better; but that circumstance throws no doubt on the tradition, as the lot of our bard after the Restoration was poor and lowly. Then we come to his last abode in Artillery-walk, now Artilleryplace west, Bunhill-fields, in whose vicinity, for Milton's sake alone, we love to linger. While living here, he published both his "Paradise Lost"" and his "Paradise Regained," as also the "Samson Agonistes," and other works. But we are thinking now more of the man than the author. We see him sitting before his door in a grey coat of coarse cloth, in warm, sultry weather, to enjoy the fresh air; or, walking in with Dr. Wright, an ancient clergyman from Dorsetshire, we find him in a room up one pair of stairs, hung with rusty green, sitting in an elbow chair, clothed in black, and neat enough, pale, but not cadaverous, his hands and fingers gouty and covered with chalk stones. Were he free from the pain he feels, he tells us his blindness would be tolerable. Or we listen to him, as he talks with the Laureate Dryden, who admires the "Paradise Lost," and asks leave to put it into a drama in rhyme. Milton, with much civility, tells him, "he will give him leave to tag his verses." Milton's biographers enable us to trace his daily life. He rises early; has a chapter in the Hebrew Bible read to him; then meditates till seven; till twelve he listens to reading, in which he employs his daughters; then takes exercise, and sometimes swings in his little garden. After a frugal dinner, he enjoys some musical recreation; at six he welcomes friends; takes supper at eight; and then, having smoked a pipe, and drunk a glass of water, he retires to repose. That repose is sometimes broken by poetic musings, and he rouses up his daughter that he may dictate to her some lines before they are lost. Although neglected by the great among his countrymen, illustrious foreigners search out the man whose literary fame is heard through Europe; and many who came before the fire of London, ere they left our shores, found the house in Bread-street, with the sign of the Spread Eagle, for even then it was thought a privilege to enter Milton's birthplace. One Englishman of rank, however, is said to have visited him, but the visit was most unworthy in its motive. The Duke of York, as the story goes, expressed a wish to his brother Charles II. to see old Milton, of whom so much was |