FROM THE COURT PROCEEDINGS RELATIVE TO MILTON'S WILL. That on, or about the twentieth day of July, 1674, the day certain he now remembreth not, this deponent being a practicer in the Law, and a Bencher in the Inner Temple, but living in vacations at Ipswich, did usually at the end of the Term visit John Milton, his this deponent's brother the Testator articulate, deceased, before his going home; and so at the end of Midsummer Term last past, he this deponent went to visit his said brother, and then found him in his chamber within his own house, situated on Bunhill within the parish of Saint Giles, Cripplegate, London. And at that time, he the said Testator, being not well, (and this deponent being then going into the country,) in a serious manner, with an intent, (as he believes,) that what he then spoke should be his will, if he died before his this deponent's coming the next time to London, declared his will in these very words as near as this deponent can now call to mind. Viz. "Brother, the portion due to me from Mr. Powell, my former 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 shall have no other benefit of 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."-Testimony of Christopher Milton.

9 Milton's nuncupative or verbal will leaving all his property to his wife was contested by his daughters, Mary, Anne, and Deborah. The quotations are from the sworn testimony of Milton's brother and his servant, who appeared as witnesses for the widow. See Todd (1809 edition), vol. I, pp. 165 ff. Though the will was held invalid on technical grounds there can be little doubt of the reliability of the evidence.

That this deponent was servant unto Mr. John Milton, the testator in this cause, deceased, for about a year before his death, who died upon a Sunday the fifteenth of November 10 last at night, and saith that on a day happening in the month of July last, the time more certainly she remembereth not, this deponent being then in the deceased's lodging chamber, he the said deceased, and the party producent in this cause his wife, being then also in the said chamber at dinner together, and the said Elizabeth Milton the party producent having provided something for the deceased's dinner which he very well liked, he the said deceased then spoke to his said wife these or the like words as near as this deponent can remember, viz. "God have mercy Betty, I see thou wilt perform according to thy promise in providing me such dishes as I think fit whilst I live, and when I die thou knowest that I have left thee all," there being nobody present in the said chamber with the said deceased and his wife but this deponent. And the said testator at that time was of perfect mind and memory, and talked and discoursed sensibly and well, but was then indisposed in his body by reason of the distemper of the gout, which he had then upon him. Further this deponent saith, that she hath several times heard the said deceased, since the time above deposed of, declare and say, that he had made provision for his children in his life-time, and had spent the greatest part of his estate in providing for them, and that he was resolved he would do no more for them living or dying.

That this respondent hath heard the deceased declare his displeasure against the parties ministrant his children, 10 Error for November 8.

and particularly the deceased declared to this respondent that, a little before he was married to Elizabeth Milton his now relict, a former maid servant of his told Mary one of the deceased's daughters and one of the ministrants, that she heard the deceased was to be married, to which the said Mary replied to the said maid servant, that that was no news to hear of his wedding, but if she could hear of his death that was something; and further told this respondent, that all his said children did combine together and counsel his maid servant to cheat him the deceased in her marketings, and that his said children had made away some of his books and would have sold the rest of his books to the dunghill women.-Testimony of Elizabeth Fisher.

CHAPTER II

THE PROSE WORKS

Twas not without reason that David Masson in his

great biography of Milton felt compelled to narrate, beside the events of the poet's life, practically the whole political ecclesiastical and literary history of his times. Milton's career was not a private one and a full understanding of his character and activity involves the entire series of historical events and changes from the beginnings of the great rebellion to the death of the Puritan movement in the Restoration. There are also the religious, cultural, and scholarly aspects of his age to take account of, for Milton, more perhaps than any other English literary man, received into himself the full intellectual inheritance of his own day. The best way to envisage Milton as a public figure, interpreting and moulding great events and being profoundly influenced by them in turn, the best way, also, to arrive at a comprehension of his wide ranging intellectual activity, to follow his developing thought and ideals, to witness the play of his character in action, is to make a careful study of his voluminous prose works. It seems desirable, therefore, in this chapter to take a practically complete chronological survey of these writings, with a fuller statement than that given by Milton and his early biographers of the occasion and purport of each one.

Milton said that in writing prose he had the use, as it were, only of his left hand. But that left was a powerful one, whether in Latin or in English, and whenever he deals with matters of more than transitory significance (and it is characteristic of him to interpret particular issues at hand in accordance with large and enduring principles) his writings constitute a vital and permanent contribution to literature and thought. Many passages have in them all the intensity of Milton's personality. The temperamental and passionate qualities which belonged to him as a poet, while they often prevent him from taking a calm and judicious view of his subject, fire his eloquence and make his work a personal record of the highest interest. It is, of course, true that much of Milton's controversial writing has lost its appeal. We are no longer patient with the endless haggling over Scriptural and other authority which constitutes a large part of almost every seventeenth century pamphlet, nor do we share the savage joy of Milton's contemporaries as he heaps upon his opponents the language of ridicule and abuse. Yet even here we feel his power, and if we are to have a complete picture of the man in his environment we must envisage him in the fierceness of the open conflict to which his sense of duty drove him, as well as in the calm of study and contemplation which he affirms that he preferred.

ACADEMIC EXERCISES AND FAMILIAR LETTERS (1625–1666)

Milton's various rhetorical exercises, written in Latin for delivery on stated occasions in the college or university as a regular requirement of academic discipline, were preserved by him and published along with his per