[Footnote 46: A different account of the means by which Milton secured himself, is given by an historian lately brought to light: "Milton, Latin secretary to Cromwell, distinguished by his writings in favour of the rights and liberties of the people, pretended to be dead, and had a publick funeral procession. The king applauded his policy in escaping the punishment of death, by a seasonable show of dying." Cunningham's History of Great Britain, vol. i. p. 14. R.]
[Footnote 47: Gildon, in his continuation of Langbaine's account of the dramatick poets, 8vo. 1693, says, that he had been told that Milton, after the restoration, kept a school at or near Greenwich. The publication of an Accidence at that period gives some countenance to this tradition. MALONE]
[Footnote 48: It is scarcely necessary to inform the reader, that this relation of Voltaire's was perfectly true, as far as relates to the existence of the play which he speaks of, namely, the Adamo of Andreini; but it is still a question whether Milton ever saw it. J.B.]
[Footnote 49: This opinion is, with great learning and ingenuity, refuted in a book now very little known, an Apology or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God in the Government of the World, by Dr. George Hakewill, London, folio, 1635. The first who ventured to propagate it in this country was Dr. Gabriel Goodman, bishop of Gloucester, a man of a versatile temper, and the author of a book entitled, the Fall of Man, or the Corruption of Nature proved by Natural Reason. Lond. 1616, and 1624. quarto. He was plundered in the usurpation, turned Roman catholick, and died in obscurity. See Athen, Oxon. vol. i. p. 727. H.]
[Footnote 50:
—Unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years damp my intended wing.
Par. Lost. b. ix. l. 44.]
[Footnote 51: Johnson has, in many places of his Rambler and Idler, ridiculed the notion of a dependance of our mental powers on the variations of atmosphere. In Boswell's life, however, there are some recorded instances of his own subjection to this common infirmity. We cannot refrain from denouncing, as unfeeling and ungenerous, Johnson's sarcasms at Milton's distempered imagination, when old age, disease, and darkness had come upon him. Dr. Symons runs into the diametrically opposite extreme. ED.]
[Footnote 52: "Statura fateor non sum procera: seel quae mediocri tamen quam parvae propior sit: sed quid si parva, qua et summi saepe tum pace tum bello viri fuere, quanquam parva cur dicitur, quae ad virtutem satis magna est." Defensio Secunda. ED.]
[Footnote 53: Both these persons were living at Holloway, about the year 1734, and, at that time, possessed such a degree of health and strength, as enabled them, on Sundays and prayer-days, to walk a mile up a steep hill to Highgate chapel. One of them was ninety-two at the time of her death. Their parentage was known to few, and their names were corrupted into Melton. By the crown-office, mentioned in the two last paragraphs, we are to understand the crown-office of the court of Chancery. H.]
[Footnote 54: Printed in the first volume of this collection.]
[Footnote 55: With the exception of Comus, in which, Dr. J. afterwards says, may very plainly be discovered the dawn or twilight of Paradise Lost. C.]