“Teach the Erring Soul” 1669–1674“I Was to Do My Part from Heav’n Assign’d”
On June 28, 1669, publication of Milton’s Accedence Commenc’t Grammar, mostly
written in the mid-1640s, was announced.^1 During the 1660s Lily’s grammar was
reissued in several editions and revised versions, still bearing the royal authorization
as the only prescribed grammar for schools, though several Ramist grammars were
also available, organized on different principles. Milton’s preface, evidently added
at this juncture, declares that his new departures and his intent will be clear to the
discerning reader:
Account might be now givn what addition or alteration from other Grammars hath
been here made, and for what reason. But he who would be short in teaching, must
not be long in Prefacing: The Book it self follows, and will declare sufficiently to
them who can discern. (CPW VIII, 86)In this ambiguous challenge Milton hints at subversive elements in his grammar.
When he first prepared the text for his own students, he deleted from Lily many
items that reinforce structures of royal and ecclesiastical authority and added many
new examples from Cicero, from texts dealing with the struggle for justice, social
reform, liberty, and civil rights against oppressive power.^2 He now directs his pub-
lished text to “the elder sort especially” who wish to learn Latin with little teaching
and their own industry. As they do so, Milton can hope that the voice of the
republican Cicero might have some effect on them, countering the royalist ideol-
ogy Lily’s grammar insinuates.
In late December, 1669 Milton would have learned of the death of his nephew,
Christopher’s son John.^3 Others well known to him also died that year: Luke
Robinson, his acquaintance at Christ’s and in the Council of State; Richard Pory,
his school and college acquaintance; his old enemy William Prynne; and the diplo-
mat Lieuwe van Aitzema, his friend and correspondent from his days as Latin Sec-
retary. Such news, and his worsening gout, likely prompted thoughts of his own
mortality, leading him to dispose of some books. His enemies jeered that he was
reduced to that course by poverty, a charge his biographer John Toland countered
with a more genteel explanation: “he contracted his Library, both because his Heirs
he left could not make a right use of it, and that he thought he might sell it more to
their advantage than they could be able to do themselves” (EL 192–3). Milton
probably did want to realize some money from such books as he would no longer
need, since he could no longer engage in controversy. The sale evidently occurred
sometime in 1670, at which time Milton resided temporarily with one Millington,
an antique bookseller in Little Britain (EL 203, 275), probably to select and help
price items from his very considerable library. Jonathan Richardson heard that Milton
sometimes took walks with Millington leading him by the hand, that he dressed in
cold weather in a grey camblet coat rather like those worn by Quakers, and that he