“With Dangers Compast Round” 1660–1665[They] were Condemn’d to the performance of Reading, and exactly pronouncing of
all the Languages of whatever Book he should at one time or other think fit to peruse... All which sorts of Books to be confined to Read, without understanding one
word, must needs be a Tryal of Patience, almost beyond endurance. (EL 77)
Their resentments apparently broke out in open rebellion in 1662, as they tried to
get money from their blind father by stealing from the household expenses and by
the despicable act of selling his books. During the probate hearings on Milton’s oral
will, Milton’s last maidservant, Elizabeth Fisher, recounted a story she had heard
Milton tell about his daughter Mary’s response to gossip about Milton’s intent to
remarry:
The said Mary replyed to the said Maidservant that that was noe News to heare of his
wedding but if shee could heare of his death that was something, – and [Milton]
further told this Respondent that all his said Children did combine together and
counsell his Maidservant to cheat him the decedent in hir Markettings, and that his
said children had made away some of his bookes and would have solde the rest of his
bookes to the Dunghill women.^46The comment suggests that Milton saw himself in 1662 as a vulnerable Lear-figure,
persecuted by his daughters where it hurt most. Edward Phillips’s comment and the
selling of the books suggest that money was a flashpoint. Phillips points to Milton’s
“constant Frugality; which enabl’d him... to bear with patience, and no discom-
posure of his way of living, the great losses which befell him in his Fortunes” (EL
31). With the loss of his savings and no prospect of future employment, Milton
doubtless felt that he had to husband his resources very carefully so as to be able to
live and pay for the services a blind man and blind author must have. But his
daughters, understandably enough, felt themselves deprived of youthful pleasures,
comforts, and prospects for marriage. Milton did not admit, or perhaps realize, his
share of responsibility for his domestic situation: even with all his troubles he could
have done more to show affection and care for his daughters. But he believed
himself, and may have been, more sinned against than sinning.
We can assume, though records are scanty, that old friends and associates contin-
ued to visit: Edward Phillips, Cyriack Skinner, Andrew Marvell, Lady Ranelagh,
and Dr Nathan Paget of Coleman Street, who was both friend and personal physi-
cian (EL 75). Jeremy Picard probably still served sometimes as a trusted amanuensis.
Milton likely had some contact with his former pupil Richard Jones, now back in
England and a member of the Royal Society, as well as with his fellow republican
polemicist, Marchamont Nedham. Twenty-year-old Samuel Parker was often with
him: he had been educated as a Puritan but subsequently conformed and later be-
came Bishop of Oxford. In 1673 Parker included a gratuitous attack on Milton in a
satire directed at Marvell, who responded by remarking that he had often observed
Parker at Jewin Street, where he “frequented J. M. incessently and haunted his