monwealth his first wife,
the mother of his three children, had died; on which he sought solace
and companionship in a union with Catherine Woodcock, who survived her
marriage but twelve months; and being left free once more, he, in the
year of grace 1661, entered into the bonds of holy matrimony for a third
time, with Elizabeth Minshul, a lady of excellent family and shrewish
temper, who rendered his daughters miserable in their father's lifetime,
and defrauded them after his death.

In order to support his family he continued to keep a school, and
likewise employed himself in writing "Paradise Lost" the composition of
which he had begun five years previously. From his youth upwards he
had been ambitious to furnish the world with some important work; and
prevision of resulting fame had given him strength and fortitude in
periods of difficulty and depression. And now the time had arrived for
realization of his dream, though stricken by blindness, harassed by an
unquiet wife, and threatened by poverty, he laboured sore for fame. The
more fully to enjoy quiet necessary to his mental condition, he removed
to a house in Artillery Walk, Bunhill Fields. His life was one of
simplicity. He rose as early as four o'clock in summer and five in
winter, and being "smit with the love of sacred song," had a chapter of
the Bible read to him; studied until twelve, dined frugally at one, and
afterwards held discourse with such friends as came to visit him.

One of these was Thomas Elwood, a quaker much esteemed amongst good
men, who, in order that he might enjoy the advantages of the poet's
conversation, read Latin to him every afternoon save Sunday. The whilst
his voice rose and fell in regular monotony, the blind man drank his
words with thirsty ears; and so acute were the senses remaining to him,
that when Elwood read what he did not understand, Milton perceived it by
the inflection of his voice, and stopped him to explain the passage. In
fair weather the poet wandered abroad, enjoying the fragrance of sweet
pasture land, and the warmth of glad sunlight he might not behold. And
anon, seated in a high-backed chair without his door, his straight pale
face full of repose and dignity, his light brown hair falling in curls
upon his shoulders, his large grey eyes, "clear to outward view of
blemish or of spot," fixed on vacancy, his figure clad in coarse
cloth--he received those who sought his society.

In their absence the poet spent soli