"and generous labours, preferving the body's "health and hardiness, to render lightfome, "clear, and not lumpifh obedience to the mind."

Had the profe works of Milton no merit but that of occafionally affording us little sketches of his fentiments, his manners, and occupations, they would on this account be highly valuable to every reader, whom a paffionate admiration of the poet has induced to wifh for all poffible acquaintance with the man. To gratify fuch readers, I felect very copiously from his various works those paffages that difplay, in the ftrongest point of view, his moral and domeftic character. It is my firm belief, that as this is more known, it will become more and more an object of affection and applaufe; yet I am far from furveying it with that blind idolatry, which fees no defect, or with that indifcreet partiality, which labors to hide the failing it difcovers; a biographer must have ill understood the nature of Milton, who could fuppofe it poffible to gratify his spirit by homage fo unworthy; for my own part, I am perfuaded his attachment to truth was as fincere and fervent as that of the honeft Montaigne, who fays, "I would come again " with all my heart from the other world to give 66 any one the lie, who fhould report me other "than I was, though he did it to honor me."

I fhall not therefore attempt to deny or to excuse the fatiguing 'heavinefs or the coarse afperity of his ecclefiaftical difputes. The fincereft

friends of Milton may here agree with Johnson, who fpeaks of his controverfial merriment as disgusting; but when the critic adds, fuch is his malignity, that" Hell grows darker at his frown," they must abhor this base misapplication, I had almost said, this profanation, of Miltonic verse.

In a controverfial treatife that gave rife to fuch an imputation, we fhould expect to find the polemic favagely thirfting for the blood of his adverfaries it is juft the reverse. Milton's antagonist had, indeed, fuggefted to the public, with infernal malignity, that he was a mifcreant, "who ought, in the name of Chrift, to be "ftoned to death." This antagonist, as Milton fuppofed, was a fon of bifhop Hall," and fcrupled not to write thus outrageoufly against one, who to use the milder words of our author ) "in all his writing fpake not that any man's "fkin fhould be rased.

"The ftyle of his piece," fays Johnson, in fpeaking of this apology," is rough, and fuch, perhaps, is that of his antagonist." The different degrees of roughnefs that the two writers displayed give a fingular effect to this obfervation of the critic, who confounds the coarfe and intemperate vehemence of the one with the outrageous barbarity of the other. Milton fometimes wrote with the unguarded and ungraceful asperity of a man in wrath, but let equity add, that when he did fo, he was exafperated by

foes, who exerted against him all the perfecuting ferocity of a fiend.

The incidents of his life were calculated to put his temper and his fortitude to the most arduous trials, and in the feverest of these he will be found conftant and exemplary in the exercise of gentle and beneficent virtue. From the thorns of controverfy he was plunged into the ftill fharper thorns of connubial diffenfion. During the Whitfuntide of the year 1643, at the age of thirty-five, he married Mary, the daughter of Richard Powell, a gentleman who refided at Foreft Hill, near Shotover, in Oxfordshire. This ill-starr'd union might arise from an infantine acquaintance, as the grandfather of Milton had probably lived very near the feat of the Powells. What led to the connexion we can only conjecture, but we know it was unhappy, as the lady, after living only a few weeks with her husband in London, deserted him, under the decent pretence of paffing the fummer months on a visit to her father, with whom the indulgent poet gave her permiffion to remain till Michaelmas during the interval he was engaged in kind attention to his father, whom he now established under his own roof. The old man had been fettled at Reading, with his younger fon Chriftopher, a lawyer and a royalift, but thought it expedient to quit that place on its being taken by Effex, the parliamentary general, and found a comfortable

afylum

asylum for the refidue of his long life in the filial piety and tender protection of the poet.

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At the time appointed, Milton folicited the return of his wife; fhe did not condefcend even to answer his letter he repeated his request by a messenger, who, to the best of my remembrance (fays Philips) reported, that he was difmiffed with fome fort of contempt. This proceeding, in all probability (continues the biographer, whofe fituation made him the best judge of occurrences fo extraordinary) was grounded " upon no other caufe but this namely, that the family, being generally ad"dicted to the cavalier party, as they called it, "and fome of them poffibly engaged in the king's fervice, who by this time had his head

quarters at Oxford, was in fome prospect of "fuccefs, they began to repent them of having "matched the eldest daughter of the family to "a perfon fo contrary to them in opinion, and "thought it would be a blot in their efcutcheon "whenever that Court came to flourish again; "however, it fo incenfed our author, that he thought it would be dishonorable ever to re"ceive her again after fuch a repulfe.

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Milton had too tender and too elevated à spirit not to feel this affront with double poignancy, as it affected both his happiness and his dignity; but it was one of his noble characteriftics to find his mental powers rather invigorated than enfeebled by injury and affliction; he

thought it the prerogative of wisdom to find remedies against every evil, however unexpected, by which vice or infirmity can embitter life. In reflecting on his immediate domeftic trouble, he conceived the generous defign of making it fubfervient to the public good. He found that in difcordant marriage there is mifery, for which he thought there exifted a very eafy remedy, and perfectly confiftent both with reafon and religion with these ideas he published, in 1644, the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. He addreffes the work to the Parliament, with great fpirit and eloquence, and after afferting the purity of his precepts, and the beneficence of his defign, he says, with patriotic exultation," let "not England forget her precedence of teaching "nations how to live."

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Sanguine as Milton was in the hope of promoting the virtue and happiness of private life by this publication, the Prefbyterian clergy notwithstanding their past obligations to the author, endeavoured to perfecute him for the novelty and freedom of his fentiments." The afsembly of divines fitting at Westminster, impa"tient," fays Antony Wood, " of having the

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clergy's jurifdiction, as they reckoned it, in"vaded, did, inftead of anfwering or difproving "what those books had afferted, caufe him to "he fummoned before the House of Lords; but "that house, whether approving the doctrine, "or not favouring his accufers, did foon difmifs ❝ him.",