will extend. Neither do I think it shame to covenant with any knowing reader, that for some few years yet I may go on trust with him toward the payment of what I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth or the vapours of wine, like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist; or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite; nor to be obtained by the invocation of dame Memory and her syren daughters; but by devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases: to this must be added industrious and select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs; till which in some measure be compassed at mine own peril and cost, I refuse not to sustain this expectation from as many as are not loath to hazard so much credulity upon the best pledges that I can give them. Although it nothing content me to have disclosed thus much beforehand, but that I trust hereby to make it manifest with what small willingness I endure to interrupt the pursuit of no less hopes than these, and leave a calm and pleasing solitariness, fed with cheerful and confident thoughts, to embark in a troubled sea of noises and hoarse disputes, put from beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studies."

But with this sublime declaration of ambitious aspirations, are mingled a fierceness of hatred, and a bitterness of invective against the church, which even at this distant period awaken sensations of horror. He denounces prelacy as a monster under whose iniquity and tyrannical duncery no free and splendid wit can flourish; and concludes with an earnest prayer, that such a dead sea of

subversion may be brought upon it, as to prevent its ever more rising in the land to affect the holy reformed church, and the elect people of God!

Mr. Bowles expresses his belief that the efforts of Hall and Usher would have preserved the church, if Milton had not brought the energy and bitterness of his pen to the controversy. But Milton may be absolved from so heavy an accusation; that his violent and reckless outpourings of wrath and hatred tended to inflame the already excited feelings of the people, cannot be denied; but he only fanned the flame; he did not light it. The time of the visitation of the church was come, and she fell beneath the reiterated assaults of her infuriate opponents. But she fell, only to rise again with renovated youth and lustre. She flourished like the palm-tree by pressure"; she grew glorious by opposition; she waxed mighty by persecution; her strength was made perfect in weakness; her truth was demonstrated by objections; and even the dead sea of subversion, though it defaced the beauty of the vineyard, left a more fruitful soil behind its retiring

waters.

His father, who had resided with his son Christopher at Reading until the capture of that town, in the April of 1643, by the earl of Essex, now came to live with the poet. Philips says, "The old gentleman lived wholly retired in his rest and devotion, without the least trouble imaginable." In the same year, at Whitsuntide, without acquainting any one with his intention, Milton married Mary Powell, the daughter of a gentleman of great respectability in the county of Oxford. The rapidity of this alliance has occasioned several conjectures, and Hayley suggested the probability of a childish intimacy having * Jeremy Taylor.

subsisted between the parties. The documents recovered from the State Paper Office sufficiently prove the poet's connexion with the Powell family so far back as 1627, while he was a student at Cambridge*. That one whose political hostility to the church had been so openly avowed should have been welcomed by a zealous royalist, can only be accounted for by the supposition of former intercourse, and, perhaps, the circumstance of pecuniary obligation. After an absence of a month, he returned to London, accompanied by his bride. But whatever visions of conjugal felicity he may have indulged in, were doomed to be of short duration. The lady had been with him only four weeks when her relations, it is supposed at her own desire, requested her company for the remainder of the summer. Their wishes were complied with, upon a promise of her return at Michaelmas, but when the appointed period arrived, the lady's objection to the seclusion of St. Bride's Churchyard seems to have increased. The austerity of the poet's abode differed widely indeed from the mirthful scenes in which she had been brought up. Aubrey says that no company came to her, and that she often heard her nephews cry and be beaten. If this be true, her preference of the festive gaieties of her father's house, then enlivened by the followers of the king, who had taken up his quarters in Oxford, will excite no surprise. Repeated letters from her indignant husband were unnoticed, and a messenger expressly despatched to urge her return, is said to have been dismissed with contempt. Milton was not likely to submit to such a violation of the conjugal vow. He immediately determined to repudiate his wife on the plea of disobedience, and, to support and enforce the justice of his proceeding, he published, in 1643,

* See Todd's Life, second edition, p. 80.

without his name, The Doctrine and Discipline of Di→ vorce; in the following year he added his Tetrachordon, or Exposition of the places in Scripture especially treating of Marriage; and a tract called Colasterion, in answer to an anonymous pamphlet. In a preface to the former treatise he vindicates himself to the parliament with great care, earnestness, and ingenuity. Dr. Symmons thinks that he makes out a strong case, and fights with arguments not easily to be repelled. That he brought to the task very copious stores of learning, and an intimate acquaintance with the Scriptures, every reader of these treatises will acknowledge; but a case is not in reality strong, because it cannot always be confuted. It is difficult to overthrow a sophism, not on account of its inherent strength, but because it eludes the grasp.

dreams who can grapple ?

With theoretic

But with whatever respect a modern critic may be disposed to regard the doctrines of the poet, in his own day they were received with ridicule, and treated with neglect. They were, indeed, adopted by a few persons, who obtained the appellation of Divorcers, or Miltonists, but who were very far from possessing sufficient respectability or influence, as Symmons would incline us to believe, to attest the power of his pen, or give consequence to his pleading for divorce. That Milton was offended at the reception of his labours, may be seen from the sonnets he wrote on the occasion. Through the interference of the assembly of Presbyterian divines, who forgot his former services in their displeasure at what they considered an invasion of ecclesiastical privileges, he was summoned before the House of Lords, who, says Wood, "whether approving his doctrine, or not favouring his accusers, did soon dismiss him." If, however, he failed to convince others, he at least suc

ceeded in satisfying himself; and without any delay, availed himself of his imaginary release from a former union, to pay his addresses to the beautiful and accomplished daughter of Dr. Davis. Fortunately for her own happiness, and, we may believe, for the poet's also, the lady's scruples were not removed, either by the books or the persuasions of her suitor.

The intelligence of Milton's intention to form a new alliance conspired with the declining fortunes of the Royalists to render his wife's relations desirous of effecting a reconciliation. He was at that time in the habit of making an occasional visit to a relative named Blackburne, residing in St. Martin's Lane, and during one of these visits he was surprised to behold his wife suddenly approach from an inner room, and, throwing herself upon her knees, entreat his forgiveness. The meeting, which had been previously concerted, perhaps by mutual friends, terminated happily. "His own generous nature," observes Philips, 66 more inclinable to reconciliation than to perseverance in anger or revenge, and partly the strong intercession of friends on both sides, soon brought him to an act of oblivion and a firm league of peace :

Soon his heart relented

Towards her his life so late, and sole delight,
Now at his feet submissive in distress.

With Milton to forgive an injury was to forget it; to his wife he appears ever after to have shown affectionate attention, and when the triumph of the Republicans compelled her father to compound for his estate at a ruinous expense, he sheltered the entire family beneath his roof, where they remained until 1647. He had before the reconciliation engaged a new and larger residence in Barbican, and until it was ready for his reception his wife