Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/38

 but the order was cancelled, Milton having no doubt refused to accept it. He had taunted Salmasius (in error apparently) for having received one hundred jacobuses from Charles II, and could not condescend to take a reward for himself. He finally lost his eyesight by the work. It had been failing for some years, and he persisted, in spite of a physician's warnings, in finishing his book (Def. Secunda) at the expense of his eyes. In a famous sonnet he congratulates himself on his resolution. His eyes, he says, were not injured to ‘outward view.' The disease was by himself attributed either to cataract or amaurosis (Paradise Lost, iii. 25), but is said to have been more probably glaucoma (the fullest account is given in Milton's letter to Leonard Philaras or Villeré, 28 Sept. 1654). Salmasius replied in a ‘Responsio,’ but he died at Spa on 6 Sept. 1653, and his book was not published till 1660. Meanwhile other attacks had been made upon Milton. An anonymous pamphlet by John Rowland (Phillips erroneously ascribed it to Bramhall), ‘Pro Rege et Populo Anglicano’ (1651), was answered by Milton's nephew, John Phillips, and the answer—which, according to Edward Phillips, was corrected by their uncle has been published in Milton's works. the younger [q. v.], son of a famous French Calvinist, attacked Milton with gross personal abuse in his ‘Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad cœlum' (March 1652) (, v. 217-224. For Du Moulin's account see Gent. Mag. 1773, pp. 369-70,and his Parerga, 1670; also, Fasti, ii. 195). This was edited and provided with a dedicatory epistle by Alexander Morus (or More), son of a Scottish principal of a French protestant college. Milton supposed the true author to be the nominal editor, whom he had perhaps met at Geneva, where More was professor of Greek. He had now become a professor at Middleburg. There were scandals as to More's relations to women, especially to a maid of Salmasius. Milton was ordered by the council to reply to the ‘Clamor,’ and his answer, the ‘Defensio Secunda,’ appeared in May 1654. It was full of savage abuse of Morus, whom Milton declared to be the author, and to be guilty of all the immorality imputed to him. It fortunately contains also one of the most interesting of Milton's autobiographical passages, and an apostrophe to Cromwell and other leaders of the Commonwealth, which illustrates his political sentiments. The ‘Defensio Secunda’ was republished by Ulac, the publisher of the ‘Clamor,’ in October 1654, with ‘Fides Publica,’ a reply by Morus, which was afterwards completed by a ‘Supplementum’ in 1655. Morus denied the author-ship, and Milton in his final reply, ‘Pro se Defensio’( August 1655), to which is subjoined a ‘Responsio’ to Morus's ‘Supplementum,’ reduces his charge to the statement that, in any case, Morus was responsible for editing the book. He had received sufficient testimony from various quarters to convince him that Morus was not really the author, had he been convincible (, iv. 627-34). He continued to maintain his other charges, but happily this was the end of a controversy which had degenerated into mere personalities.

Milton, upon becoming Latin secretary to the council, had been allowed chambers in Whitehall. At the end of 1651 they had been given to others, and he had moved to another ‘pretty garden-house’ in Petty France, Westminster. It afterwards became No. 19 York Street, belonged to Bentham, was occupied successively by James Mill and Hazlitt, and finally demolished in 1877. Here he lived until the Restoration. Milton was helped in his duties, made difficult on account of his blindness, successively by a Mr. Weckherlin, by [q. v.], and finally by Andrew Marvell. He continued to serve throughout the Protectorate, though in later years, after Thurloe became secretary and kept the minutes in a less explicit form, his services are less traceable. His inability to discharge his duties fully was probably taken into account in an order made in 1655, by which (among other reductions, however) his salary is reduced to 150l. a year, though this sum was to be paid for his life. The amount appears to have been finally fixed at 200l. ib. v. 177, 180-3). He could not regularly attend the council, but despatches requiring dignified language were sent to him for translation. The most famous of these were the letters (dated chiefly 25 May 1655) which Cromwell wrote to various powers to protest against the atrocious persecution of the Vaudois. The letters were restrained in language by diplomatic necessities; but Milton expressed his own feeling in the famous sonnet.

On 12 Nov. 1656 he married Catharine Woodcock, of whom nothing more is known than can be inferred from his sonnet after her death. She gave birth to a daughter 19 Oct. 1657. The mother and child both died in the following February (ib. v. 376, 382). A memorial window to her, erected at the cost of Mr. G. W. Childs of Philadelphia, in St. Margaret's, Westminster, was unveiled on 13 Feb. 1888, when Matthew Arnold gave an address, published in his ‘Essays on Criticism’ (2nd ser. 1888', pp. 56-69). Milton had a small circle of friends. Lady Ranelagh is mentioned by Phillips, and there