F

MILTON.

ROM a family and town of his name in Oxfordshire our Author derived his descent; but he was born at London in the year 1608. The publisher * of his works in prose (on whose veracity some part of this narrative must entirely depend) dates his birth two years earlier than this: but contradicting himself afterwards in his own computation, I reduce it to the time that Monfieur Bayle hath assigned; and for the same reason which prevailed with him to assign it. His father John Milton, by profession a scrivener, lived in a reputable manner on a competent estate, entirely his own acquifition, having been early disinherited by his parents for renouncing the communion of the church of Rome, to which they were zealously devoted. By his wife Sarah Caston he had likewife one daughter, named Anna, and another fon, Christopher, whom he trained to the practice of the common law, who in the great rebellion adhered to the royal cause; and in the reign of King James II. by too eafy a compliance with the doctrines of the court, both religious and civil, he attained to the dignity of being made a judge of the common pleas; of which he died divested not long after the Revolution.

But John, the fubject of the present Essay, was the favourite of his father's hopes, who, to cultivate the

Mr. TOLAND.