Milton, we can see, wanted some money for sudden and urgent occasions, and his friend Cyriack advanced it.

Cyriack and others had, doubtless, been already about him for some days, imploring him to hide himself, and devising the means; and that very night, or the next, as we are to fancy, he is conveyed furtively out of his house in Petty France to some obscure but suitable shelter.

The three children he has parted with, the eldest not yet fourteen years old, the second not twelve, and the third just eight, are left under what tendence there may be, hardly knowing what has happened, but uncertain whether they shall ever again see their strange blind father.

All is dark, and we may drop the curtain.[1] [Footnote 1: Sotheby's _Ramblings in Elucidation of Milton's Autograph_, p.

129, and plate after p.124.The document mentioned was purchased in Aug.