was even then attended by his “man” who
read to him out of the Hebrew Bible. Such erudition
in a serving-man almost surpasses credibility:
the English Bible probably sufficed both. It
is easier to believe that some one read to him or
wrote for him from seven till dinner time: if,
however, “the writing was nearly as much as the
reading,” much that Milton dictated must have
been lost. His recreations were walking in his
garden, never wanting to any of his residences, where
he would continue for three or four hours at a time;
swinging in a chair when weather prevented open-air
exercise; and music, that blissful resource of blindness.
His instrument was usually the organ, the counterpart
of the stately harmony of his own verse. To these
relaxations must be added the society of faithful
friends, among whom Andrew Marvell, Dr. Paget, and
Cyriack Skinner are particularly named. Nor did
Edward Phillips neglect his uncle, finding him, as
Aubrey implies, “most familiar and free in his
conversation to those to whom most sour in his way
of education.” Milton had made him “a
songster,” and we can imagine the “sober,
silent, and most harmless person” (Evelyn) opening
his lips to accompany his uncle’s music.
Of Milton’s manner Aubrey says, “Extreme
pleasant in his conversation, and at dinner, supper,
etc., but satirical.” Visitors usually
came from six till eight, if at all, and the day concluded
with a light supper, sometimes of olives, which we
may well imagine fraught for him with Tuscan memories,
a pipe, and a glass of water. This picture of
plain living and high thinking is confirmed by the
testimony of the Quaker Thomas Ellwood, who for a
short time read to him, and who describes the kindness
of his demeanour, and the pains he took to teach the
foreign method of pronouncing Latin. Even more;
“having a curious ear, he understood by my tone
when I understood what I read and when I did not,
and accordingly would stop me, examine me, and open
the most difficult passages to me.” Milton
must have felt a special tenderness for the Quakers,
whose religious opinions, divested of the shell of
eccentricity which the vulgar have always mistaken
for the kernel, had become substantially his own.
He had outgrown Independency as formerly Presbyterianism.
His blindness served to excuse his absence from public
worship; to which, so long at least as Clarendon’s
intolerance prevailed in the councils of Charles the
Second, might be added the difficulty of finding edification
in the pulpit, had he needed it. But these reasons,
though not imaginary, were not those which really actuated
him. He had ceased to value rites and forms of
any kind, and, had his religious views been known,
he would have been “equalled in fate” with
his contemporary Spinoza. Yet he was writing
a book which orthodox Protestantism has accepted as
but a little lower than the Scriptures.