ing is
uncertain. Elizabeth, the youngest child of Deborah, married Mr.
Thomas Foster, a weaver, and lives now in Hog-lane, Shoreditch, for
whom Comus, as we have already observed, was performed at Drury-Lane,
and produced her a great benefit. She has had seven children, three
sons and four daughters, who are all now dead. This Mrs. Foster is a
plain decent looking Woman. Mr. John Ward, fellow of the Royal
Society, and professor of rhetoric in Gresham-College, London, saw the
above Mrs. Clark, Milton's daughter at the house of one of her
relations not long before her death, when she informed me, says that
gentleman, 'That she and her sisters used to read to their father in
eight languages, which by practice they were capable of doing with
great readiness, and accuracy, tho' they understood no language but
English, and their father used often to say in their hearing, one
tongue was enough for a woman. None of them were ever sent to school,
but all taught at home by a mistress kept for that purpose. Isaiah,
Homer, and Ovid's Metamorphoses were books which they were often
called to read to their father; and at my desire she repeated a great
number of verses from the beginning of both these poets with great
readiness. I knew who she was upon the first sight of her, by the
similitude of her countenance with her father's picture. And upon my
telling her so, she informed me, that Mr. Addison told her the same
thing, on her going to wait on him; for he, upon hearing she was
living sent for her, and desired if she had any papers of her
father's, she would bring them with her, as an evidence of her being
Milton's daughter; but immediately on her being introduced to him, he
said, Madam, you need no other voucher; your face is a sufficient
testimonial whose daughter you are; and he then made her a handsome
present of a purse of guineas, with a promise of procuring for her an
annual provision for life; but he dying soon after, she lost the
benefit of his generous design. She appeared to be a woman of good
sense, and genteel behaviour, and to bear the inconveniencies of a low
fortune with decency and prudence.'

Her late Majesty Queen Caroline sent her fifty pounds, and she
received presents of money from several gentlemen not long before her
death. Milton had a brother, Mr. Christopher Milton who was knighted
and made one of the barons of the Exchequer in King James II's reign,
but he does not appear to have been a man of any abili