removed from Jewin-street to a houfe in Artillery Walk, leading to Bunhill-fields. On his arrival at Chalfont he found that Ellwood, in confequence of a perfecution of the quakers, was confined in the gaol of Aylesbury. But, being foon releafed, this affectionate friend made a vifit to him, to welcome him into the country. "After fome common difcourfes," fays Ellwood," had paffed between us, he called for a manufcript of his, which, being brought, he delivered to me, bidding me take it home with me, and read it at my leifure, and when I had fo done, return it to him with my judgement thereupon. When I came home, and set myself to read it, I found it was that excellent poem, which he entitled Paradife Loft." From this account it appears that Paradife Loft was complete in 1665,

Next year, when the city was cleanfed, and the danger of infection ceased, he returned to Bunhillfields, and defigned the publication of his great poem. Some biographers have fuppofed that he began to mould the Paradise Loft into an epick form, foon after he was difengaged from the controverfy with Salmafius. Aubrey fays, that he began the work about two years before the Reftoration. However, confidering the difficulties, as Dr. Newton well remarks, "under which the author lay, his uneasiness on account of the publick affairs and his own, his age and infirmities, his not being in circumftances to maintain an amanuenfis, but obliged to make use of any hand that came next to write his verses as he made them, it is really wonderful that he should have the spirit to undertake fuch a work, and much more

that he should ever bring it to perfection." Yet his

tuneful voice was

"unchang'd

"To hoarfe or mute, though fallen on evil days,
"On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues;
"In darkness, and with dangers compafs'd round,
"And folitude."-

To Milton indeed the days might now feem evil. But
to fo pathetick a complaint cold must be the heart of
him who can liften without compaffion. It reminds
us of the mufical but melancholy ftrains, addreffed
by his favourite Taffo in a Sonnet to Stiglian, whom
he falutes as advancing on the road to Helicon:
"Ivi prende mia cetra ad un cipreffo :

"Salutala in mio nome, e dalle avvifo,

"Ch' io fon da gli anni e da fortuna oppresso.”

The laft of Milton's familiar, Letters in Latin, addreffed to Peter Heimbach, an accomplished German, who is ftyled counfellor to the elector of Brandenburgh, (and who is fuppofed, by an expreffion in a former epiftle from Milton to him, to have refided with the poet, when he vifited England, in the character of a difciple,) relates his confideration on his prefent circumstances, and his reflection on the days that were gone, in a most interesting manner, With the tranflation of this letter by his most affectionate and fpirited biographer, Mr. Hayley, the reader will be gratified.

"If among fo many funerals of my couutrymen, in a year fo full of peftilence and forrow, you were induced, as

Even at Chalfont, whither he had retired from the danger of infection, infection had appeared. For in the Register of the

you say, by rumour to believe that I also was fnatched away, it is not furprifing; and if fuch a rumour prevailed among thofe of your nation, as it feems to have done, because they were folicitous for my health, it is not unpleafing, for I must esteem it as a proof of their benevolence towards me. But by the graciousness of God, who had prepared for me a safe retreat in the country, I am ftill alive and well; and I truft not utterly an unprofitable fervant, whatever duty in life there yet remains for me to fulfil. That you remember me, after fo long an interval in our correspondence, gratifies me exceedingly, though, by the politeness of your expreffion, you seem to afford me room to fufpect, that you have rather forgotten me, fince, as you fay, you admire in me fo many dif ferent virtues wedded together. From fo many weddings I fhould affuredly dread a family too numerous, were it not certain that, in narrow circumftances and under feverity of fortune, virtues are moft excellently reared, and are moft flourishing. Yet one of these faid virtues has not very handfomely rewarded me for entertaining her; for that which you call my political virtue, and which I should rather with you to call my devotion to my country, (enchanting me with her captivating name,) almoft, if I may fay fo, expatriated me. Other virtues, however, join their voices to affure me, that wherever we profper in rectitude there is our country. In ending my letter, let me obtain from you this favour, that if you find any parts of it incorrectly written, and without stops, you will impute it to the boy who writes for me, who is utterly ignorant of Latin, and to whom I am forced (wretchedly enough) to repeat every fingle fyllable that I dictate. I ftill rejoice that your merit as an accomplished man, whom I knew as a youth of the higheft expectation, has advanced you fo far in the honourable favour of your prince. For your profperity in every other point you have

parish, under the year 1665, two perfons are recorded, as I have been obligingly informed by letter from the refident clergyman, to have died of the fickness; [fo the Plague was denominated ;] one of whom is called a stranger, and died at the Manor House.

both my wishes and my hopes. Farewell. London, Auguft 15, 1666."

After the poem had been made ready for publication, it is faid to have been in danger of being fuppreffed by the licenser, who imagined that, in the nobleTM fimile of the fun in an eclipfe, he had dif covered treason. The licenfer's hesitation is a striking example of Lord Lyttleton's acute remark, that ""the politicks of Milton at that time brought his poetry into difgrace; for it is a rule with the English; they fee no good in a man whofe politicks they diflike."

Licensed, however, the poem was; and Milton fold his copy, April 27, 1667, to Samuel Simmons, for an immediate payment of five pounds. But the agreement with the bookfeller entitled him to a conditional payment of five pounds more when thirteen hundred copies should be fold of the first edition; of the like fum after the fame number of the fecond edition; and of another five pounds after the fame fale of the third. The number of each edition was not to exceed fifteen hundred copies. It first appeared in 1667, in ten books. In the hiftory of Paradife Loft, Dr. Johnson has observed that a relation of minute circumftances will rather gratify than fatigue. Countenanced by fuch authority, I

m B. i. 594, &c.

n Dialogues of the Dead. Dial, xiv.

• Mr. Malone obferves, that the poem was entered in the Stationers' Book by Samuel Symons, Aug. 20. 1669. See the Life of Dryden, 1800, vol. i. part i. p. 114. The title-pages of 1667 and 1668, however, bear in front" Licensed and Entered according to Order." I have feen feveral copies with the titlepage of 1669, in which this notification is omitted.

proceed to state that the poem, in a fmall quarto form, and plainly but neatly bound, was advertised at the price of three fhillings. The titles were varied, in order to circulate the edition, in 1667, 1668, and 1669. Of these these there were no lefs than five. In two years the fale gave the poet a right to his second payment, for which the receipt was figned April 26, 1669. The fecond edition was not given till 1674; it was printed in fmall octavo; and, by a judicious divifion of the seventh and tenth, contained twelve books. He lived not to receive the payment ftipulated for this impreffion. The third edition was published in 1678; and his widow, to whom the copy was then to devolve, agreed with Simmons, the printer, to receive eight pounds for her right, according to her receipt dated December 21, 1680. Simmons had already covenanted to transfer the right, for twenty-five pounds, to Brabazon Aylmer, the bookfeller; and Aylmer fold to Jacob Tonfon half, August 17, 1683, and the other half, March 24, 1690, at a price confiderably advanced.

Of the first edition it has been obferved by Dr. Johnson, that "the call for books was not in Milton's age what it is at prefent;-the nation had been fatisfied from 1623 to 1664, that is, forty-one years, with only two editions of the works of Shakspeare, which probably did not together make one thoufand copies. The fale of thirteen hundred copies in two years, in oppofition to so much recent enmity, and to a style

P In Clavel's Catalogue of all the books printed in England, fince the fire of London, in 1666 to the end of 1672. Fol. Lond. 1673.

See the lift of Editions at the end of the Life.