MILTON, JOHN, an Engli h poet, was b. in Bread street, London, on Dec. 9, 1608. His father was of an ancient Catholic family, but was disinherited on becomhig Protestant. He followed the occupation of a scrivener, by which, according to Aubrey, " lie got a plentiful estate," and was a man of great musical accomplishment, being the composer, among other things, of the two well-known psalm-tunes Icortrick and York. From him his son derived his matchless ear, and that strict integrity of character for which he is as famous as for his verse.
Milton was carefully nurtured and educated. He was first placed under the care of a private tutor named Young, a Scotchman by birth and education; and at the age of 12, was sent to St. Paul's school, London, and afterwards to Christ's college, Cambridge. According to the university register, lie was admitted Feb. 12, 1624-25. He took his degree of M.A, ; and having relinquished the idea of following divinity or law, he left Cambridge in 1632, and went to live at.his father's house at Horton, in Buckinghamshire. There, in serenity of mind and passion, he lived five years, reading the Greek and Latin poets, and composing Comm, Lycidas, Arcades, L'Allegro, and R Penseroso. On th.e death of his mother in 1637, he went abroad, visiting the chief Italian cities, and making the acquaintance of Grotius and Galileo. While traveling, being made aware that clouds were gathering in the political atmosphere at home, he returned in 1639, and engaged himself with the tuition of his nephews—on which portion of Milton's life, Dr. Johnson could not help looking with " some degree of merriment." In 1641 he engaged in the controversies of the times, and in the course of that and the following year he issued the treatises Of Reformation, 77te Reason of Church Government urged against Prelacy, Prelatical Episcopacy,. and An. Apology for Smeetymnuas In 1643 lie married rather suddenly Mary, daughter of Richard Powell, an OxfortIshire royalist, but the union did not at first prove happy. His wife, who had been accustomed to "dance with the king's officers at home," found her husband's society too austere and philosophic for her gay tastes. After the severe honeymoon was over, she obtained permission to visit her relatives till Michaelmas; but when Michaelmas came, she refused to return. Stern and proud, Milton repudiated her at once; and the matrhnonial disagreement made the world the richer by four Treatises 076 Divorce. A reconciliation, however, took place, which, we have no reason to doubt, was both genuine and permanent. Mary Powell died in 1652-53, leaving him three daughters, Ann, Mary, and Deborah, of whose undutifulness and ingratitude we hav.e latterly many- complaints. In 1644 he produced his Tractate on Education and his Areopagitica—a flame of eloquence at which one may warm one's hands yet. After the execution of Charles, he was appointed Latin secre tary to the council of state, with a salmy of £290. In his new position his pen was as terrible as Cromwell's sword. In Eikonoklastes he made a savage but effective reply to the famous Eikort Basilike ; and in his Pro Papulo Anglican° Defensio he assailed his opponent, Claude de Saumaire, better known as Salmasius, with such a storm of elo quence and abuse that the latter, who died at Spa in 1653, is believed to have lost his life through chagrin. Milton at least flattered himself with having " killed his man."
His second wife, whom he married Nov. 12, 1656, was a daughter of capt. Wood cock of Hackney. She died in childbed in Feb., 1658, and her husband has enshrined her memory in an exquisitely pure and tender sonnet.
Unceasing study had affected his eyesight, and about 1654 Milton became totally blind. After the restoration, he retired from affairs; he was obnoxious to the reigning power, and it is said that he was once in custody of the sergeant-at-arms. On the pub lication of the aet of oblivion, he married his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, and shortly after removed to a house in Artillery walk, when lie was busy with Paradzse Lost. This great poem was originally planned a.s a mystery; then some idea of treating it as a drama haunted the author's mind; finally, however, he resolved to write an epic poem on the Fall of Man. The poem was published in 1667. He received five pounds from his publisher, and a promise of other five pounds when 1300 copies should have been sold. In 1670 he published his History of England. Next year he printed Para dise Regained and Samson Agonistes. He died on Sunday, .Nov. 8, 1674, aud was buried next his father, in the chancel of St. Giles, at Cripplegate. Ile left property to the value of 21500.
Milton was, above all English poets, stately and grandiose. He arrived early at the knowledge of his powers, and did not scruple, in one of his prose tracts, to inform his reaAlers that he proposed to write a poem which would be considered one of the glories of his country. Drawn away for a time by the heats of controversy and by official tasks, he never forgot his pledge, and redeemed it at last in old age, blindness, and neglect. In comparison, other poets are like sailing-ships, at the mercy of the winds of passion and circumstance; he resembled the ocean-steamer, which, by dint of internal energy, can pierce right through the hurricane. Never, perhaps, was a mind more richly furnished. His careless "largess" is greater than the fortunes of other men. FIis Comus is the very morning-light of poetry; while in his great epic there is a massiveness of thought, a sublimity of imagery, a pomp of sound—as of rolling organs and the out bursting of cathedral choirs—which can be found nowhere else. His great passages echo in the mind as if loath to die. Of all great writers, he is perhaps the one for whom we are conscious of the least personal affection, and this arises from a certain hauteur and severity which awes—which repels some natures; yet he infects his reader with his own seriousness. See Pattison's short life (1879); Stern's Milton u. seine Zeit (1878); aud Masson's Life and Times of Milton, 6 vols. (1858-80).