Milton - PR3550 D77 1777 M2

43o TH7. LIFE or MILTON. was ere&ed to him at that time, and this was written in 1698: and. Mr. Fenton's account was firft publifhed, I think, in 1725 ; fo that not above twenty-feven years intervened from the one account to the other ; and confequently the fexton, who it is laid had been poffeffed of his office about forty years, vault have been millaken, and the monument mutt have been defigned for fume other perfon, and not for Milton. A monument indeed has been erected to his memory in Wel[mintier Abbey by Auditor Benfon in the year 1737 ; but the belt monument of him is his writings. In his youth he was efteemed extremely handfome, fo that while he was a student at Cambridge, he was called the Lady of Chrift's College. He had a very fine fkin and frelh complexion ; his hair was of a light brown, and parted on the foretop hung down in curls waving upon his fhoulders ; his features were exact and regular ; his voice agreeable and mufical; his habit clean and neat; his de- portment erect and manly. He was middle-fized and well propor- tioned, neither tall nor fhort, neither too lean nor too corpulent, ftrong and active in his younger years, and tho' atilielecl with frequent head -akes, blindnefs, and gout, was yet a comely and well-looking ;loan to the lath His eyes were of a light blue color, and from the firft are raid to have been none of the brighteft ; but after he loft the fight of them, (which happened about the 43d year of his age) they hill appeared without fpot or bletnifh, and at firft view and at a little (Hance it was not eafy to know that he was blind. Mr. Richardfon had an account of him from an ancient clergyman in Dorfetfhire, Dr. Wright, who found him in a mall houfe, which had (he thinks) but one room on a floor ; in that, up one pair of {lairs, which was hung with a rufly green, he law John Milton fitting in an elbow chair, with black clothes, and neat enough, pale but not cadaverous, his hands and fingers gouty, and with chalk ftones ; among other elif- courfc he expreffed hirnfelf to this purpofe, that was he free from the pain of the gout, his blindnefs would be tolerable. But there is the lefs need to be particularin the defcription of his perfon, as the -;c1cf- pf his face and countenance is pretty well known from the numerous

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