JOHN MILTON 39 
number*to mark it, but the sign of an eagle with out- 
stretched wings, the family crest of the Miltons. 
It was here, at the Spread Eagle, that the scrivener’s 
eldest son, John Milton, the poet, was born on the oth 
of December, 1608. The house, which was afterward 
burned in the Great Fire of 1666, stood in the very 
heart of London, which was then a city with scarcely 
200,000 inhabitants and had not quite lost the rural 
look and quality. The house stood not only within 
the sound of Bow bells, but in the very shadow of the 
belfry where they were hung, and hard by was the 
Mermaid Tavern, whither one can fancy that Shake- 
speare, resorting on his last visit to London in 1614, 
may well have passed by the scrivener’s door and 
smiled upon the beautiful boy of six with his delicate 
rosy cheeks and wealth of auburn curls. Throughout 
life, Milton’s personal beauty attracted attention; the 
great soul was enshrined in a worthy tabernacle. 
Several portraits of him, painted at different ages, are 
still preserved. We can imagine the honest pride 
with which the father took him, when ten years old, 
to sit to Cornelius Jansen. The charming picture, 
which has often been engraved, lights up for us the 
story of the poet’s childhood. It shows us a grave 
but sweet and happy face, of which the prevailing 
character, as Professor Masson has well said, is “a 
lovable seriousness.” Under it the first engraver in- 
scribed these lines from “ Paradise Regained ” : — 
‘When I was yet a child, no childish play 
To me was pleasing ; all my mind was set 
Serious to learn and know, and thence to do, 
What might be public good: myself I thought 
Born to that end, born to promote all truth 
And righteous things.” 
