country. On the contrary, as we learn from his Second Defence, he sustained great loffes during the civil-war, and was not at all favoured in the impofition of taxes, but fometimes paid beyond his due proportion: and, upon the turn of affairs, he was not only deprived of his place, but alfo loft two thoufand pounds which he had for fecurity put into the Excife-office. In the fire of London, his house in Breadftreet was burned; "before which accident, foreigners have gone, out of devotion," fays Wood," to fee the house and chamber where he was born." Some time before he died, he fold the greatest part of his library, as his heirs were not qualified to make a proper ufe of it, and as he thought he could difpofe of it to greater advantage than they could after his death. "He died," fays Dr. Newton, "by one means or other, worth one thousand five hundred pounds, befides his houfhold-goods, which was no incompetent fubfiftence for him who was as great a philofopher as a poet." Milton feems not to have been very happy in his marriages. His firft wife offended him by her elopement: the fecond, whofe love, fweetnefs, and delicacy he celebrates, lived not a twelvemonth with him; and his third was faid to be a woman of a moft violent fpirit, and a fevere ftep-mother to his children. "She died," fays Dr. Newton, " very old, at Nantwich, in Cheshire; and, from the ac counts counts of those who had seen her, I have learned that the confirmed feveral things related before; and, particularly, that her huf band used to compofe his poetry chiefly in the winter; and, on his waking on a morning, would make her write down twenty or thirty verses. Being asked, Whether he did not often read Homer and Virgil, the understood it as an imputation upon him for ftealing from thefe authors and anfwered, with eagerness, that he ftole from nobody but the mufe that infpired him and being afked by a lady prefent who the mufe was, the answered, It was God's grace and holy fpirit that vifited him nightly.' She was likewife asked, whom he approved most of our English poets; and anfwered, Spenfer, Shakespear, and Cowley:' and being asked, what he thought of Dryden; the faid, Dryden used sometimes to vifit him; but he thought him no poet, but a good rhimeft." The reader will be pleafed to obferve, that this cenfure of Milton's was before Dryden had made any great appearance in poetry, or compofed thofe 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 fuperior to Milton's; that the latter chiefly fhines but in one kind of poetry; his thoughts are fublime, and his language noble; but in what kind of writing has not Dryden been diftinguished? "He every thing excellent," fays Con greve; " and he has attempted nothing in which he has not fo fucceeded as to be entitled to the first reputation from it." Is it to be fuppofed, that Milton was governed by fo mean a principle as envy, in his thus cenfuring Dryden? it is more natural to imagine, that, as he was himself no friend to rhime; and finding Dryden in his early age peculiarly happy in the faculty of rhiming, without having thrown out any thoughts which were in themselves diftinguifhedly great, Milton might, without the imputation of ill-nature, characterise Dryden, as we have already Leen. THE THE LIFE OF JAMES USHER. T HIS great perfon, whofe life we now recite, was born in the city of Dubin, the metropolis of Ireland, upon the fourteenth day of January, anno domini 1580. His father, Mr. Arnold Ufher, one of the fix clerks of chancery (and of good repute for his prudence and integrity) was of the ancient family . of the Ufhers, alias Nevils, whofe ancestor (ufher to king John) coming over with him into Ireland, and fettling there, changed the name of his family into that of his office (as was ufual in that age) his defcendants having fince branched into several families about Dublin, and for divers ages bore the most confiderable offices in and about that city. His mother was Margaret, daughter of James Stanihurft, who was of confiderable note in her time, being chofen fpeaker of the honourable houfe of commons in three parliaments; and was recorder of the city of Dublin, and one of the mafters of chancery; and, that which ought always to be mentioned to his honour, he was the first mover, in the laft of the three parliaments, of queen Elizabeth, for the founding and endowing of a college and |