64 JOHN MILTON 
and Hebrew letters, and had to read aloud by the hour 
from books of which they understood not a word. 
Dorothy always spoke of him with warm affection, but 
Mary was once heard to wish he was dead. 
The Puritan poet felt that he had fallen on evil days. 
He could not see, as we do, that the good in Cromwell’s 
work was really permanent, and that the impulse given 
by Puritanism was never to die. In the vile reign of 
Charles II., it must have seemed as if all virtue were 
dethroned and the sons of Belial let loose upon the 
earth. There is a tone of sadness, though not of 
sourness, about Milton’s last years. He was never 
sullen or fretful. Macaulay is right in speaking of his 
“majestic patience.” But I do not see what Macaulay 
could have been thinking of when he wrote of Milton 
as “retiring to his hovel to die.” He had lost heavily 
by investing money in Commonwealth securities, which 
the Stuart government naturally refused to redeem. 
His condition thenceforth, says Masson, was not one 
of poverty but of “frugal gentility.” The house in 
which he lived for twelve years and in which he died 
was by no means a hovel, and on the income from his 
property, such as it was, he maintained his family. Part 
of the furniture of the house was a good organ, and on 
it the blind man would play by the hour together, while 
the verses of “ Paradise Lost” were taking shape in his 
mind. That great poem, with its successors, “ Paradise 
Regained” and “Samson Agonistes,” were written in 
that house; and thither came visitors from all parts 
of Europe, as toa sacred shrine. He who had so long 
been known as scholar and charming poet lived long 
enough to find men ranking him among the foremost 
poets of all time. His latter days were molested by 
