Others of these casual readers
were Samuel Barrow, body physician to Charles II., and Cyriac Skinner,
of whom mention has been already made (above, p. 132).
To a blind man, left with three little girls, of whom the youngest was
only eight at the Restoration, marriage seemed equally necessary for
their sake as for his own. Milton consulted his judicious friend and
medical adviser, Dr. Paget, who recommended to him Elizabeth Minshull,
of a family of respectable position near Nantwich, in Cheshire. She
was some distant relation of Paget, who must have felt the terrible
responsibility of undertaking to recommend. She justified his
selection. The marriage took place in February 1663, and during the
remaining eleven years of his life, the poet was surrounded by the
thoughtful attentions of an active and capable woman. There is
but scanty evidence as to what she was like, either in person or
character. Aubrey, who knew her, says she was "a gent. (genteel?)
person, (of) a peaceful and agreeable humour." Newton, Bishop of
Bristol, who wrote in 1749, had heard that she was "a woman of a most
violent spirit, and a hard mother-in-law to his children.
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