In War we long for Peace; Peace endeth wars,
Music makes jocund Peace to know no jars.
Your most obedient servant,
R. Deering.
VII. JOHN MILTON
1553—1646-7
To many the name of John Milton will hardly suggest a musical composer. And yet I am able to include this name—the name of the father of the poet—among the band of "Good Musicians" whose careers and works I am considering. I have always felt greatly interested in him and desired to find out all I could of his personal history, and particularly of his musical education, for undoubtedly in the elder Milton we have a really accomplished musician. We are told he educated his distinguished son in music, and that he had an organ in his house.
Dr Burney gives a very good and concise account of him, upon which I cannot improve and from which I venture to quote. (Burney, Vol. III, p. 134):
"We come now to John Milton, the father of our great poet, who though a scrivener by profession, was a voluminous composer, and equal in science, if not genius, to the best musicians of his age: in conjunction and on a level with whom, his name and works appeared in numerous musical publications of the time, particularly in those of old Wilbye; in the Triumphs of Oriana published by Morley; in Ravenscroft's Psalms; in the Lamentations published by Sir William Leighton; and in MS. collections, still in the possession of the curious.
Mr Warton, in his Notes upon Milton's Poems on Several Occasions, tells us, from the MS. Life of the Poet by Aubrey, the antiquary, in the Mus. Ashm. Oxon, that Milton's father, though a "scrivener," was not apprenticed to that trade, having been bred a scholar and of Christ Church, Oxford; and that he took to trade in consequence of being disinherited.