“Teach the Erring Soul” 1669–1674Milton’s daughters challenged Milton’s will, and the court determined that the
conditions for a nuncupative will were not fully met, since Milton was not on his
deathbed when he spoke it. Accordingly, instead of leaving the whole of Milton’s
estate to Elizabeth (about £1,000) they gave her one-third as widow and one-third
as administrator, with the other third to be shared among the daughters, £100
each.
Edward Phillips writes that he paid his uncle “frequent visits to the last.” On one
late visit he may have given Milton great pleasure by reading to him the entries
pertaining to him in Theatrum Poetarum, Phillips’s brief catalogue of ancient and
modern poets licensed for printing on September 14, 1674. In the preface he al-
ludes, without the title, to a recently published English heroic poem proving that
“the use of Measure alone without any Rime at all, would give far more ample
Scope and liberty, both in Style and fancy then can possibly be observ’d in Rime.”^154
His entry for “Milton” reads,
John Milton, the Author (not to mention his other Works, both in Latin and English,
both in strict and solute Oration, by which his Fame is sufficiently known to all the
learned of Europe), of two Heroic Poems and a Tragedy, namely Paradice lost, Paradice
Regain’d, and Sampson Agonistes, in which how far he both reviv’d the Majesty and
true Decorum of Heroic Poesy and Tragedy, it will better become a person less
related then my self, to deliver his judgement.^155Cyriack Skinner describes Milton’s peaceful death as if he had been in attendance
or at any rate had a detailed account from some who were: “Hee dy’d in a fitt of the
Gout, but with so little pain or Emotion, that the time of his expiring was not
perceiv’d by those in the room” (EL 33). The death was probably from renal failure
associated with his gout; the records leave unclear whether he died on November 9
or November 10, 1674. He was buried in St Giles Cripplegate on November 12.
Skinner thought it especially fitting that, like the patriarchs and kings of Israel, “he
was gather’d to his people; for hee happen’d to bee bury’d in Cripplegate where
about thirty yeer before hee had by chance also interrd his Father” (EL 34).^156
Phillips, who surely attended the funeral, writes that “He... had a very decent
interment according to his Quality, in the Church of St Giles Cripplegate, being
attended from His House to the Church by several Gentlemen then in Town, his
principal wellwishers and admirers” (EL 76). His place of rest is now marked by a
small stone near the altar rail, engraved simply, “Near this spot was buried John
Milton. Author of Paradise Lost. Born 1608. Died 1674” (plate 18).