THE LIF'E or MILT 45 N. 409 houfe, he had not been fettled long before his firft wife died in childz bed ; and his condition requiring fome care and attendance, he was eafily induced after a proper interval of time to marry a fecond, who was Catherine daughter of Captain Woodcock of Hackney : and flie too died in childbed within a year after their marriage, and her childi who was a daughter, died in a Month after her ; and her hufband as done honor to her memory in one of his fonnets. Two or three years before this fecond marriage he had totally loft his fight. And his enemies triumphed in his blindnefs, and imput- ed it as a judgment upon him for writing againft the King : but his fight had been decaying feveral years before, thro' his dole appli- Cation to Rudy, and the frequent head-akes to which he had been fubje& from his childhood, and his continual tampering with phyfic; which perhaps was more pernicious than all the reit : and he himfelf has informed us in his fecond Defenfe, that when he was appointed by authority to write his Defenfe of the people against Saltnaflus, he had almoft loft the fight of one eye, and the phyficians declared to him, that if he undertook that work, he would alfo lofe the fight of the other : but he was nothing difcouragedi and chofe rather to lofe both his eyes than defert what he thought his duty. It was the fight of his left eye that he loll firft : and at the claire of his friend Leon- ard Philaris the Duke of Parma's minifter at Paris he fent him a particular account of his cafe, and of the manner of his growing blind, for him to confult Thevenot the phyfician, who was reckoned famous in cafes of the eyes. The letter is the fifteenth of his fami, liar epiftles, is dated Septemb. 28, 1654 : and is thus tranflated by Mra Richardfon. " Since you advife me not to fling away all hopes ofrecovering rely fight, for that you have a friend at Paris, Thevenot the phyficiani " particularly famous for the eyes, whom you offer to confult in my " behalf if you receive from me an account by which he may judge " of the caufes and fymptoms of my difeafe, I will do what you ad- " vile me to, that I may not feern to refufe any affiftance that " offer'el, perhaps fromGod. P P P a 1
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=