ensity of his
study. The Restoration found him of all living men the most hateful to
the Royalists, for it was his "Defence of the English People" which had
justified throughout Europe the execution of the king. Parliament
ordered his book to be burnt by the common hangman; he was for a time
imprisoned; and even when released he had to live amidst threats of
assassination from fanatical Cavaliers. To the ruin of his cause were
added personal misfortunes in the bankruptcy of the scrivener who held
the bulk of his property, and in the Fire of London which deprived him
of much of what was left. As age drew on he found himself reduced to
comparative poverty and driven to sell his library for subsistence.
Even among the Sectaries who shared his political opinions Milton stood
in religious opinion alone, for he had gradually severed himself from
every accepted form of faith, had embraced Arianism, and had ceased to
attend at any place of worship.

[Sidenote: His Life.]

Nor was his home a happy one. The grace and geniality of his youth
disappeared in the drudgery of a schoolmaster's life and amongst the
invectives of controversy. In age his temper became stern and exacting.
His daughters, who were forced to read to their blind father in
languages which they could not understand, revolted against their
bondage. But solitude and misfortune only brought into bolder relief
Milton's inner greatness. There was a grand simplicity in the life of
his later years. He listened every morning to a chapter of the Hebrew
Bible, and after musing in silence for a while pursued his studies till
mid-day. Then he took exercise for an hour, played for another hour on
the organ or viol, and renewed his studies. The evening was spent in
converse with visitors and friends. For, lonely and unpopular as Milton
was, there was one thing about him which made his house in Bunhill
Fields a place of pilgrimage to the wits of the Restoration. He was the
last of the Elizabethans. He had possibly seen Shakspere, as on his
visits to London after his retirement to Stratford the playwright
passed along Bread Street to his wit combats at the Mermaid. He had been
the contemporary of Webster and Massinger, of Herrick and Crashaw. His
"Comus" and "Arcades" had rivalled the masques of Ben Jonson. It was
with a reverence drawn from thoughts like these that men looked on the
blind poet as he sate, clad in black, in his chamber hung with rusty
green tapestry, his fair