MILTON'S WIDOW.
(Vol. viii., pp. 452. 544. &c.)
Your correspondents Mr. Marsh and Mr. Hughes are entitled to an apology from me for having so long delayed noticing their comments on my communication on the above subject in Vol. viii, p. 134., which comments have failed in convincing me that I have fallen into the error they attribute to me, because it is manifest Richard Minshull of Chester, son of Richard of Wistaston, the writer of the letter of May 3rd, 1656, set forth in the Rev. Mr. Hunter's Milton Pamphlet, pp. 37. and 38., could only have been fifteen years old when that letter was written, he having, as Mr. Hughes states, been born in 1641, so that he must have been only three years the junior of his supposed niece, Mrs. Milton, then Miss Minshull, born in 1638, according to Mr. Marsh's account of her baptism; and furthermore he, Richard, son of the writer of the said letter, must be fairly presumed to have been married at the date of such letter, which he (the Father) thus commences: "My love and best respects to you and my daughter [meaning no doubt his daughter-in-law], tendered with trust of your health." Very unlikely language for a parent to address to his son, a boy of fifteen, on so important a subject as a family pedigree. If this youthful Richard Minshull really was Mrs. Milton's uncle, his brother Randle Minshull, her father, must have been very many years older than him, which was not very probable.
I noticed in a recent Number of your pages, with great satisfaction, a communication from Cranmer, who has avowed himself to be your correspondent Mr. Arthur Paget, for which, in common with Mr. Hughes and others, I feel very thankful to him, notwithstanding it falls short of connecting Mrs. Milton with Richard Minshull of Wistaston, the Holme correspondent of 1656.
That historians have been much misled in assuming that Mrs. Milton was a daughter of Sir Edward Minshull of Stoke, cannot, I think, be questioned; although it may be very fairly asked whether there were not other respectable Minshull families living in the neighbourhood of Wistaston, of which Mrs. Milton might have been a member, and yet allied to the Paget and Goldsmith families.
Garlichithe.
Mr. Hughes is quite right, both in his facts, so far as they go, and in the inference he draws from them in confirmation of the now well ascertained identity of Milton's widow with the daughter of Randle Mynshull of Wistaston. His observations derive additional force from the fact, that two generations of Minshull of Wistaston married ladies of the name of Goldsmith. Thomas Minshull, the great-grandfather of Milton's widow, married —— Goldsmith of Nantwich, as his son Richard informed Randal Holmes, in a letter among the Harl. MSS., noticed by Mr. Hunter, and as pointed out by Mr. Hughes; but the writer of that letter also married a lady of the same name, Elizabeth, daughter of Nicholas Goldsmith, of Bosworth, in the county of Leicester. The fact is worth noticing, though no very accurate estimate can be formed of the precise degree of relationship to be inferred from the title of "cousin" a couple of centuries ago. My authority is the Cheshire visitation of 1663-4. Several other MS. pedigrees are in existence; in some of which the lady's name is stated as Ellen, instead of Elizabeth, and her father's as Richard instead of Nicholas. Thomas Minshull of Manchester, the uncle of Milton's widow, deserves perhaps a passing word of notice, as having embalmed the mortal remains of Humphrey Chetham.
J. F. M.
Warrington.
Our elegant poet Fenton, having written a Life of Milton, and no doubt often visited his place of nativity (Shelton, in the Staffordshire Potteries), he surely must have known something respecting Milton's third wife's family, who lived only a few miles from thence; and if the Fenton papers have, as is probable, been preserved by his family, some of whom I am informed still live in the neighbourhood of Shelton, it is not unlikely they will throw some light on the family of the poet's widow.
Newington.