“With Dangers Compast Round” 1660–1665union began as a marriage of convenience on both sides, Milton and Elizabeth seem
to have developed considerable affection and tenderness for each other. But Milton’s
daughters keenly resented his marriage, both because the new stepmother sought to
control them and because they feared (as indeed happened) that she would displace
them as heir to Milton’s depleted estate.
Soon after the marriage, Edward Phillips notes, Milton moved his family “to a
House in the Artillery-walk leading to Bunhill Fields” (EL 75), which was to be his
London residence for the rest of his life. It was only a few streets north of the Jewin
Street house and still in St Giles Cripplegate parish. It was comparatively small,
having only four rooms with fireplaces and some smaller rooms not so provided,
but it had a large garden.^55 William Faithorne’s 1658 map shows a row of houses
along Artillery Walk (one of them would be Milton’s) facing the wall that encloses
the ground where the London Artillery Company exercised; Bunhill Fields is a
large open area nearby with a picturesque row of windmills along one ridge (plate
13).^56 Milton could not enjoy that view, but he could take pleasure, as he always
had, in his own garden and in long walks with some attendant. Family members
reported that “in warm sunny weather he used to sit at the door of his house” to
receive visits from persons of distinction.^57
After his marriage and move to Bunhill, Milton’s life settled into the orderly
pattern his early biographers describe. Cyriack Skinner comments that Milton
“rendred his Studies and various Works more easy & pleasant by allotting them thir
several portions of the day:” he rose early and dictated verses to an amanuensis; he
spent evenings reading “choice Poets,” and read the Bible and the best commenta-
tors often, especially on Sundays (EL 33). John Aubrey learned from family mem-
bers and visitors that Milton usually rose at four or five in the morning; that he liked
first to have the Hebrew Bible read to him and then to contemplate; that he would
have “his man” return at seven to read to and write for him until dinner; that after
dinner he liked to walk three or four hours at a time; and that he went to bed about
nine (EL 6). However, Phillips claimed, and Milton’s widow confirmed, that he
worked on Paradise Lost chiefly during the winter months: “his Vein never happily
flow’d, but from the Autumnal Equinoctial to the Vernal,” and that his efforts to
write poetry at other times were “never to his satisfaction” (EL 73). Given Milton’s
lifelong fear that a cold climate might hamper high poetic accomplishment the
Muse’s behavior in this regard probably surprised him.^58 This left half of every year
for other projects, including De Doctrina Christiana, which is discussed on pages
415–41.
Aubrey also heard that Milton took pleasure in conversation and repartee, at
meals and at other times – sometimes, he hints, at others’ expense: “Extreme pleas-
ant in his conversation, & at dinner, supper &c: but Satyricall.” He learned from
Dryden that Milton “pronounced the letter R very hard,” which he took to be “a
certaine signe of a Satyricall Witt.” From Milton’s former students, probably, he
learned that Milton readily adjusted his manner as he changed roles, from school-