But it was not, I think, as a mere shifting of
mental posture that Milton undertook to rewrite Robert Stephens; it
was as part of his language training. Only by diligent practice and
incessant exercise of attention and care, could Milton have educated
his susceptibility to the specific power of words, to the nicety which
he attained beyond any other of our poets. Part of this education is
recorded in the seemingly withered leaves of his Latin Thesaurus,
though the larger part must have been achieved, not by a reflective
and critical collection of examples, but by a vital and impassioned
reading.
Milton's complaint was what the profession of that day called gout.
"He would be very cheerful even in his gout fits, and sing," says
Aubrey. This gout returned again and again, and by these repeated
attacks wore out his resisting power. He died of the "gout struck in"
on Sunday, 8th November, 1674, and was buried, near his father, in the
chancel of St. Giles's, Cripplegate. The funeral was attended, Toland
says, "by all his learned and great friends in London, not without a
friendly concourse of the vulgar.
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