y, or necessary Visits; never suffering
intreaties of that which either was his Duty, or in his power to
perform. The quickness of his apprehension helped by a Good Nature,
presently suggested unto him (without putting them to the trouble of
an _innuendo_) what their severall Affairs required, in which he would
spare no paynes: insomuch that it was a piece of Absolute Prudence
to rely upon his Advice and Assistance. In a word, to his Superiours
he was Dutifully respectfull without Ceremony or Officiousnesse;
to his equalls he was Discreetly respectful, without neglect or
unsociableness; and to his Inferiours, (whom indeed he judged
Christianly none to be) civilly respectfull without Pride or Disdain.

But all these so eminent vertues, and so sublimed in him, were but
as foyles to those excellent gifts wherewith God had endued his
intellectuals. He had a Memory of that vast comprehensiveness, that he
is deservedly known for the first inventer of that Noble Art, whereof
having left behind him no Rules, or directions, save, onely what fell
from him in discours, no further account can be given, but a relation
of some very rare experiments of it made by him.

He undertook once in passing to and fro from _Templebar_ to the
furthest Conduit in _Cheapside_, at his return again to tell every
Signe as they stood in order on both sides of the way, repeating them
either backward or forward, as they should chuse, which he exactly
did, not missing or misplacing one, to the admiration of those that
heard him.

The like also would he doe in words of different Languages, and of
hard and difficult prolation, to any number whatsoever: but that which
was most strange, and very rare in him, was his way of writing, which
something like the _Chineses_, was from the top of the page to the
bottom: the manner thus. He would write near the Margin the first
words of every Line down to the Foot of the Paper, then would he
begining at the head againe, fill up every one of these Lines, which
without any interlineations or spaces but with the full and equal
length, would so adjust the sense and matter, and so aptly Connex and
Conjoyn the ends and beginnings of the said Lines, that he could
not do it better, as he hath said, if he had writ all out in a
Continuation.

57.

JOHN MILTON.

_Born 1608. Died 1674._

Notes by JOHN AUBREY.

He was of middle stature,[1] he had light abroun[2] hayre, his
complexion exceeding[3] faire. he was