His mother survived him thirty-eight years, passing out in Eighteen Hundred Thirty-four.  Burns left four sons, each of whom was often pointed out as the son of his father—­but none of them was.

This is all I think of, at present, concerning Robert Burns.

For further facts I must refer the Gentle Reader to the “Encyclopedia Britannica,” a compilation that I cheerfully recommend, it having been vouched for to me by a dear friend, a clergyman of East Aurora, who, the past year, perused the entire work, from A to Z, reading five hours a day:  and therefore is competent to speak.

JOHN MILTON

          Thus with the year
    Seasons return; but not to me returns
    Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
    Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer’s rose,
    Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
    But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
    Surrounds me; from the cheerful ways of men
    Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
    Presented with a universal blank
    Of Nature’s works, to me expunged and rased,
    And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. 
    So much the rather thou, Celestial Light,
    Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
    Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence
    Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
    Of things invisible to mortal sight.
                                      —­Paradise Lost:  Book III

[Illustration:  John Milton]

Shakespeare and Milton lived at the same time, though the difference in their ages was such that we may not speak of them as contemporaries.  John Milton was eight years old when William Shakespeare died.  The Miltons lived in Bread Street, and out of the back garret-window of their house could catch a glimpse of the Globe Theater.

The father of John Milton might have known Shakespeare—­might have dined with him at the “Mermaid,” played skittles with him on Hampstead Heath, fished with him from the same boat in the river at Richmond; and then John Milton, the lawyer, might have discreetly schemed for passes to the “Globe” and gone with his boy John, Junior, to see “As You Like It” played, with the Master himself in the role of old Adam.

Bread Street was just off Cheapside, where the Mermaid Tavern stood, and where Beaumont, Fletcher, Ben Jonson and other roysterers often lingered and made the midnight echo with their mirth.  In all probability, John Milton, Senior, father of John Milton, Junior, knew Shakespeare well.  But the Miltons owned their home; were rich, influential, eminently respectable; attended Saint Giles’ Church, and really didn’t care to cultivate the society of play-actors who kept bad hours, slept in the theater, and had meal-tickets at half a dozen taverns.

There were six children born into the Milton family, three of whom died in infancy.  Of the survivors, the eldest was Anne, the second John, the third Christopher.