treasures were collected. And the poems entitled Comus, L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, and Lycidas, all written at this time, were such as alone, had he never performed any thing else, would have transmitted his fame to the latest posterity.

In 1638, he set out on his travels; and having passed through France, he went over most part of Italy, being wonderfully admired for his admirable talents by men of genius in every place, many of whom wrote verses in his praise. One of the most remarkable of these was the following distich, by Salvaggi, at Rome:

Græcia Mæonidem, jactet sibi Roma Maronem :
Anglia Miltonum, jactat utrique parem.

Of which, Mr. Dryden's celebrated epigram, constantly prefixed to Para

dise Lost, is little more than a transla

tion.

Three poets in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn:
The first in majesty of thought surpass'd,
The next in gracefulness, in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go;
To make a third she join'd the former two.

Towards the close of 1639, he returned to England, which he found on the brink of a civil war. In the commotions that followed, Milton had an active share; but his political life we shall pass over, and barely mention that at the restoration of the king he was included in the general amnesty. When the plague broke out in 1665, he retired to a small house at St. Giles's Chalfont, in Buckinghamshire, where he completed his Paradise Lost, the copy of which was sold to the book

seller for fifteen pounds. He had lost his eye-sight some years before by a gutta-serena, occasioned by night studies and frequent head-aches. This brilliant ornament of English literature died at his house in Bunhill-fields, in November 1674, and was interred in the chancel of St. Giles's church, Cripplegate. In 1737, a monument was erected to his memory in Westminster abbey, by William Benson, Esq., one of the auditors of the imprest; but his lasting monument is his works, particularly the immortal poem of PARADISE LOST, unrivalled by any human production of ancient or modern time.

ANNE BAYNARD.

ANNE, only daughter of Dr. Edward Baynard, a gentleman of respectable

and ancient family, and fellow of the College of Physicians in London, was born at Preston in Lancashire in 1672. Her mother was the daughter of Robert Rawlinson, Esq. of Corke in the same county. Dr. Baynard, perceiv ing in his daughter the promise of superior talents, assisted their development by a liberal education. The rapid progress and improvement made by Anne in different branches of science and learning, did credit to the judgement of her father, and justified the promise of her early years. She died prematurely, in the twenty-fifth year of her age, June 12, 1697. The following particulars of her character and endowments are extracted from the introduction to her funeral sermon, preached by John Prude, M. A., at the parish church of Barnes.

By this gentleman we are informed, that she was well acquainted with philosophy, with astronomy, mathematics, and physics; that she was "not only conversant with these sciences, but a mistress of them, and that to such a degree as few of her sex had ever attained;" that she was familiar with the writings of the ancients in their original languages. "At the age of twenty-three," says he," she had the knowledge of a profound philosopher," In metaphysical learning, we are also told, "she was a nervous and subtle disputant." She took great pains to perfect herself in the Greek language, that she might have the pleasure of reading in their native purity the works of St. Chrysostom. Her compositions

in the Latin, which were various, were written in a pure and elegant style,