, he was not only deprived of
his place, but also lost 2000 l. which he had for security, put into
the Excise office.

In the fire of London, his house in Bread-street was burnt, before
which accident foreigners have gone out of devotion, says Wood, to see
the house and chamber where he was born. Some time before he died, he
sold the greatest part of his library, as his heirs were not qualified
to make a proper use of it, and as he thought he could dispose of it
to greater advantage, than they could after his death. He died (says
Dr. Newton) by one means or other worth 1500 l. besides his houshold
goods, which was no incompetent subsistence for him, who was as great
a philosopher as a poet.

Milton seems not to have been very happy in his marriages. His first
wife offended him by her elopement; the second, whose love, sweetness,
and delicacy he celebrates, lived not a twelvemonth with him; and his
third was said to be a woman of a most violent spirit, and a severe
step-mother to his children.

'She died, says Dr. Newton, very old, about twenty years ago, at
Nantwich in Cheshire, and from the accounts of those who had seen her,
I have learned that she confirmed several things related before; and
particularly that her husband used to compose his poetry chiefly in
the winter, and on his waking on a morning would make her write down
sometimes twenty or thirty verses: Being asked whether he did not
often read Homer and Virgil, she understood it as an imputation upon
him for stealing from these authors, and answered with eagerness, that
he stole from no body but the muse that inspired him; and being asked
by a lady present who the muse was, she answered, it was God's grace
and holy spirit, that visited him nightly. She was likewise asked,
whom he approved most of our English poets, and answered, Spenser,
Shakespear, and Cowley; and being asked what he thought of Dryden, she
said Dryden used sometimes to visit him, but he thought him no poet,
but a good rhimist.'

The reader will be pleased to observe, that this censure of Milton's
was before Dryden had made any great appearance in poetry, or composed
those immortal works of genius, which have raised eternal monuments to
him, and carried his name to every country where poetry and taste are
known. Some have thought that Dryden's genius was even superior to
Milton's: That the latter chiefly shines in but one kind of poetry;
his thoughts are sublime, and his language noble;