remained "at the Widow Webber's house in St. Clement's Churchyard."

Mr. Mitford has pointed out from Milton's own works the probable cause of this early disagreement. The indignant poet, with evident reference to himself, speaks of a "mute and spiritless mate," an "image of earth and phlegm," of one "to all the more estimable and superior purposes of matrimony useless and almost lifeless," &c. A little wind can blast an infant blossom. This dissension happened after an intercourse of one brief month; at a season, above all, jealous and busy, inquisitive and careful, and apt to take alarm at every unkind word *. Milton regarded a wife as the “ co-partner of a sweet gladsome society," and he was likely to look for poetical graces which a visionary bride could only realize. The writer who replied to his Doctrine of Divorce, accused him of despising the company of any woman who could not "speak Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French," and dispute against the canon law as well as himself.

Meanwhile his studies proceeded without any intermission. In 1644 appeared his Tractate on Education, and the Areopagitica, or Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, the most eloquent and highly-wrought prose production of his pen; and which, in the opinion of Sir James Mackintosh, entitled him to be considered the first defender in Europe of free and unfettered conscience. The book on education was composed to gratify his friend Hartlib, who had himself "erected a little academy for the gentry," and whom Cowley proposed as the model of the professors at his imaginary college. He speaks of it as the "burnishings of many studious and contemplative years spent in the search of religious and civil knowledge." Jeremy Taylor on Marriage, Eph. i. 32, 33.

*

The system he proposed, like that of his contemporary Cowley, is a beautiful dream, fading before the calm eye of thoughtful experience. His idea of the objects of learning is sublime. He considered it to consist in repairing the ruin of our first parents by requiring to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, and to be like him, as we may the nearest, by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith, constitutes the highest perfection. The course of education was to resemble as closely as possible, "the ancient and famous schools of Pythagoras, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and others," from whose venerable walls so many illustrious men had gone forth. The details of his plan are developed with great minuteness. As in the ancient Palæstra, the exercise of the body is only made secondary to the cultivation of the mind. A knowledge of the weapon, how to guard, to strike safely with edge or point, is united to the study of the Politics of Aristotle and the philosophy of Lucretius; and skill in the various "locks and grips of wrestling" is deemed a necessary adjunct to the poetry of Virgil and the wisdom of Socrates. In the intervals of exertion solemn music was to be introduced, and the exhausted spirits of the youthful students were to be refreshed by strains of melody and devotion. Even the ordinary recreations were to partake of the stately Grecian character, and " gorgeous tragedy," was to present

Thebes, or Pelops' line,

Or the tale of Troy divine. -Il Penseroso.

Thus, beneath the influence of the poet's system, would a change have been gradually wrought in our habits and institutions. Instead of the Royal Dane, and the "gentle lady married to the Moor," we should have listened to the

complaints of Prometheus, and wept with the forlorn Antigone; our commonwealth would have been visited by the "unsphered spirit" of Plato, and a new Athens would speedily have arisen on the banks of the Thames.

Whether Milton received any remuneration from his pupils has furnished a frequent subject of dispute. It seems unlikely that he would have engaged in so uncongenial an occupation without some pecuniary motive. From his father he derived little assistance, and he says that his life had not been "unexpensive in learning and voyaging about.” Yet he everywhere expresses his contempt for those who convert their knowledge into a source of profit; and in the Areopagitica, he numbers. himself among the "free and ingenuous sort of such as evidently were born for study, and love learning for itself, and not for lucre, or any other end but the service of God and truth, and perhaps that lasting fame and perpetuity of praise, which God and good men have consented shall be the reward of those whose published labours advance the good of mankind.”

In the following year he prepared for publication his Early Latin and English Poems; in this collection the L'Allegro and Il Penseroso were printed for the first time. In the sweet vein of moral feeling and picturesque description running through them, we discover the still affectionate follower of Spenser. He has grouped the most beautiful features of country life; and whoever may walk the smooth shaven green, or the field-path after him, in the hope of gleaning any new image, will find himself reduced to the alternative of expanding Milton's pictures, or resting content with the portraiture of minuter objects. Warton has quoted a passage from the introduction to Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, which he thinks may

have suggested the subject to Milton. The resemblance in measure and style is curious and interesting; and a recollection of a beautiful song in Beaumont and Fletcher has also been observed. Fletcher's vein of picturesque fancy recommended him to the heart of Milton, and Warton expresses a natural feeling of surprise that he omitted to associate him with Jonson's "learned sock;" and the "wood-notes wild" of Shakspeare. Boileau, in his Art of Poetry, has not noticed the Apologue, or Fontaine. None of Milton's minor productions have received such unanimous applause. Johnson pronounced them two noble efforts of imagination, and Warton considered them the first descriptive poems in the language. The same elegant critic, whose hand seems to revive every old picture he touches, has alluded to the melancholy change which in later years came upon the poet's imagination, when the rich light of the storied windows was overclouded, and the "pealing organ," and the full-voiced quire, were unheard in the cold and benumbing severities of puritanism. An equally tender and pastoral tone of colouring pervades his elegy upon Mr. King, a fellow of Christ's College, who was drowned in the passage from Chester to Ireland, in the August of 1637. Milton's tribute of affection, under the title of Lycidas, appeared in a small volume of elegies, with which the university honoured the memory of her son. Dr. Johnson always wrote and spoke of this poem with great severity, and he told Miss Seward that he would hang a dog that read Lycidas twice. What, then," asked the lady, "must become of me, who can say it by heart?" "Die in a surfeit of bad taste," was the reply. Milton, at the date of this composition, had left Cambridge about five years, and during that interval it is not likely that his intimacy with his friend

was very often renewed. But the charm of the Elegy does' not arise from the affliction of the writer. Cowper has commended with kindred sympathy the vividness of the descriptions, the sweetness of the numbers, and the fine spirit of antiquity that animates the whole. Perhaps the objection so violently urged by Johnson against the allegory, may be obviated by the suggestion of Dr. Newton, that the original destination of Milton and his companion for holy orders, imparts a force and beauty to the pastoral allusions.

In 1647, his wife's relations having returned to their own homes, Milton removed to a smaller house in High Holborn, opening backwards into Lincoln's Inn Fields, and his abode, says Philips, looked again like a home of the Muses; but his pupils increased slowly. The conjecture of his nephew, that an idea was entertained of making the poet an adjutant-general in the army of Sir William Waller, could hardly have been founded on any authority. The political opinions of Waller were alone sufficient to discourage such a proposition; and highly as the genius of Milton may have been estimated by the republican leaders, they would have hesitated to intrust a command to one, whose military skill extended not. beyond the science of Frontinus. In February, 1648-9, with a view, he affirms, of tranquillizing the public mind, he produced the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, in which he attacks his old friends the Presbyterians, and maintains the right of the people to punish their rulers for acts of tyranny and injustice.

His private studies were now resumed, and he had commenced his History of England, when, without any solicitation or interest, he was appointed Latin Secretary by the Council of the State, who had determined to conduct their correspondence with foreign nations in that

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