he Greek, the Latin, the Italian,
Spanish and French," none of which languages they understood. Nor did
he show any desire that they should; saying grimly that one tongue was
enough for a woman. History and fiction are alike full of the
tragedies that result from the blindness of extraordinary minds to
ordinary duties; and Milton's case is one of the saddest. The
daughters cheated him and made away with {77} his books; he spoke of
them gravely and repeatedly as his "unkind children"; one of them is
even reported, on very good evidence, to have said, at his third
marriage in 1663, that "that was no news to hear of his wedding but, if
she could hear of his death, that was something." At last it was
thought better that he and they should part; and they were put out, at
considerable expense to their father, to learn embroidery work and
other "curious and ingenious manufactures" for their living. It is
pleasant to hear that the youngest, Deborah, who was visited by Addison
not long before he died, and received fifty guineas from Queen
Caroline, was "in a transport" of delight when shown a portrait of her
father, crying out "'Tis my father, 'tis my dear father, I see him;
'tis him; 'tis the very man! here, here!" as she pointed to some of the
features. So one likes to be told, on her authority, that he was
delightful company and "the life of the conversation, full of
unaffected cheerfulness and civility" when he had his little parties of
friends. And to us, if not to her, it is a pleasant story that she
could still repeat many lines from Homer, Euripides and Ovid, though
she said she did not understand Greek or Latin. The wife of a
Spitalfields weaver must at last have felt {78} some pride in these
survivals of her childish drudgery, proof audible to all men, if to her
unintelligible, that she was the daughter of Mr. Milton, the great
scholar and poet.

No more need to be said of sorrow or failure. The rest is a serene and
productive old age. _Paradise Lost_ was published in 1667, _Paradise
Regained_ and _Samson_ in 1671. Besides these there was, in 1673, a
new edition of his earlier poems reprinted, with additions from that of
1645; and many publications of prose works mostly written in earlier
years but never printed, such as his _History of Britain_, and little
books on Education, Logic and Grammar. He kept up his strenuous life
of study and composition apparently to the end. He is said to have got
up at four