Notes on Hammersmith, 1632-1635

Abstract For 255 years students of Milton spoke with confidence of what came to be called the ‘Horton Period ‘. Then, in 1949, the publication of four Chancery Town Depositions, discovered in the Public Record Office by Charles Bernau (LR, r. 276-7, 284-7, 292-3; see note 68, below), made it clear that from 14 September 1632 to 8 January 1635-perhaps earlier, perhaps later-the Milton home was not at Horton but at Hammersmith in Middlesex. The single early biographer who had mentioned Horton, Edward Phillips, was four years old in January 1635, and evidently he had no recollection of any Hammersmith residence. We do not yet know when, or why, the Miltons moved to Hammersmith, nor do we know when, or why, they left this suburb of London to move even further into the country, to Horton. Following up Warton ‘s conjecture (1785 ed., p. 437), Harris F. Fletcher has argued, on flimsy evidence (e.g., Elegia I 50), that the family had a summer home outside the city as early as 1623 or 1625 (JEGP, LI [1952), 154-9, and Intellectual Development of Milton, I [1956), 405-14); but, if so, the place may not have been Hammersmith, and, in any case, Milton senior did not retire until sometime after September 1631. If the Seventh Profusion was composed in 1632, young John would seem to have spent the summer of 1631 in the country, somewhere (LR, I. 241). Doubtless the Miltons found a rural retreat during the plague years of 1625 and 1630, but we know nothing at all about it. For an interesting hypothesis, see Rose Clavering and John T. Shawcross, ‘Anne Milton and the Milton Residences ‘, JEGP, ux (1960), 680-90.