412 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"* S. V. 126., Mat 22. 



amination of the nature and dates of the coins, we are 

 inclined to think that it was a " pix " or vessel for con- 

 taining the consecrated itost on the altar of a Roman 

 Catholic Church or Cathedral. Its shape suggests no 

 other purpose, the inscriptions and the disposition of the 

 coins signify an ecclesiastical use, and there are several 

 "pixes" in existence of nearly similar shape. It also 

 seems to have belonged to some church in the Archie- 

 piscopal See of Treves. 



" The present owner obtained it from a German peasant 

 who has settled in the backwoods of Wisconsin, but how 

 such a valuable curiosity found its way to that place is a 

 qqestion yet to be settled." 



J. H.A. B. 



MILTON S ^UIjnNESS. 



In referring to a Life of Milton by the Rev. 

 B. A. Wilmott, which appears to have been com- 

 piled from sources within the reach of the most 

 ordinary inquirer, and to the letter addressed by 

 the poet to his friend Leonard Philaras, which is 

 to be found translated, in extenso, in Todd's well- 

 known edition of the poet's Works, your vigilant 

 correspondent, Mr. Hopper, has thrown no new 

 light on the question of the date of Milton's 

 blindness. I look forward, however, with con- 

 siderable interest to his further investigation of 

 the Hartlib correspondence which he has had the 

 good fortune to discover, and which he will, no 

 doubt, turn to account. The first letter which 

 he quotes from the Rev. Mr. Durie to Samuel 

 Hartlib, dated November 18, 1654, refers to 

 Milton and his blindness ; but contains nothing 

 which indicates that the calamity might not have 

 overtaken him two or three years before : whilst 

 the writer's omission to allude to it in the commu- 

 nication of June, 1652, affords no ground for the 

 presumption that it might not have existed at 

 that date. 



Todd is of opinion that the poet became " utterly 

 blind twp or three years before his second mar- 

 riage;" having "lost the use of his left eye in 



1651, and, according to his biographers, that of 

 the other eye in 1654." The reason he assigns for 

 referring it to an earlier period is the following 

 passage in a letter in Thurloe's State Papers from 

 the Hague, dated June 20, 1653 : " Vous avez en 

 Angleterre un avevgle nomme Milton qui a le re- 

 nom d'avoir bien escrit." If the inference which 

 he deduces from this sentence be correct, the con- 

 summation of the poet's affliction must have oc- 

 curred more than " two or three years " before his 

 second marriage ; as that did not take place until 

 November, 1656. Sir Egerton Brydges (a care- 

 ful and intelligent investigator), from whom Mr. 

 Wilmott appears to have adopted the conclusion 

 referred to by Mr. Hopper, declares that, in 



1652, the poet's "eyesight was entirely lost," but 

 produces no evidence in support of the assertion. 

 His guess would seem, however, to have been 

 pretty ne^ the mark; and is scarcely discoun- 



tenanced by the letter introducing Marvell to 

 Bradshaw, of Feb. 1562, in which Milton describes 

 himself as unfit to attend at conferences with am- 

 bassadors by reason of his condition ! If this 

 letter should turn out to be a holograph, which 

 seems highly improbable, the condition to which it 

 refers could not have been that of utter blindness. 



It is true that in the interesting autobiogra- 

 phical letter addressed by Milton to the author of 

 Clamor Regii Sanguinis, published by Sir Egerton 

 Brydges, and referred to by Mr. Hopper, he says 

 of his eyes, that " so little do they betray any ex- 

 ternal appearance of injury, that they are as 

 unclouded and bright as the eyes of those who 

 most distinctly see." But he might have been en- 

 tirely blind notwithstanding ; for I have heard of 

 several instances of persons so circumstanced who 

 carried no external marks of their deprivation in 

 their countenances. He describes hirqself ip the 

 same letter as wore than forty years of age, and 

 as he was born in 1608, it would have been writ- 

 ten about 1649-50 ; when it may be assumed that 

 he had lost the sight of one eye at that time at 

 the least. 



Could we fix thp precise date of his second 

 Sonnet to Cyriac Skinner, the problem might be 

 easily solved ; for he tells us in that poem that he 

 had been blind ybr three years : — 



" Cyriac, this three years day these eyes though clear 

 To outward view, of blemish or of sppt, 

 Bereft of light their seeing have forgot, 

 Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear 

 Of sun, or moon, or star," &c. 



The Sonnet " On his Blindness," No.xix-, would 

 seem to fix the date of his calamity at an earlier 

 period than that suggested by Sir Egerton Brydges, 

 or indeed by any of his biographers : — 



" When I consider hpw my light is spent. 

 Ere half my days," 8fc. 



If total blindness did not overtake him until 

 1654, he would at that date have attained the age 

 of forty-six years ; much more than half the 

 allotted term of human existence. This Sonnet, 

 therefore, appears to me to warrant the belief that 

 the poet's total blindness could not have taken 

 place later than 1652, at the very latest. As a 

 sample of the sort of correctness that may be 

 looked for in such editions of "standard" authors 

 as are hurried through the press in monthly 

 livraisons, I may notice the fact, that in Sir Egei> 

 ton Brydges's edition of Milton the poet is made 

 to marry his second wife in 1658, and bury her in 

 16571 This absurd blunder could hardly have 

 been that of the editor, who resided at the time 

 at Geneva ; but arose, in all probability, from the 

 foolish haste with which the book was driven 

 through the press. A more modern editor of a 

 cheap "standard" work makes Sheridan write his 

 School for Scandal at six years of age ! Of what 

 use for purposes of reference, or indeed for any 



