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in that country; for his family, now growing numerous, required a mistress at the head of it, and his father was coming to live with him; which he did, and continued with him in tranquillity and devotion to his dying day. Mrs. Milton had not cohabited with her husband above a month, before she was earneftly folicited by her relations to come and spend the remaining part of the fummer with them in the country. If it was not at her inftigation that her friends made this requeft, yet at least it was agreeable to her inclination; and the obtained her husband's confent, upon a promise of returning at Michaelmas. In the mean while his ftudies went on very vigorously; and his chief diverfion, after the bufinefs of the day, was now and then in an evening to vifit the Lady Margaret Lee, daughter of the Earl of Marlborough, Lord High Treafurer of England, and Prefident of the Privy Council to King James I. This Lady, being a woman of excellent wit and understanding, had a particular honour for our author, and took great delight in his conversation; as likewife did her husband Capt. Hobfon, a very accomplished gentleman. And what a regard Milton again had for her, he has left upon record in a fonnet to her praife, extant among his other poems.

Michaelinas was now come, but he heard nothing of his wife's return. He wrote to her, but received no answer. He wrote again letter after letter, but received no answer to any of them. He then dispatched a meffenger with a letter defiring her to return; but the pofitively refufed, and difmiffed the meffengers with contempt. Whether it was, that fhe had con-ceived any diflike to her husband's perfon or humour; or whether he could not conform to his retired and philofophical manner of life, having been accustomed to a house of much gaiety and company; or whether being of a family ftrongly attached to the royal caufe, fhe could not bear her husband's republican principles; or whether he was overperfuaded by her relations, who poffibly might repent of having matched the eldest daughter of the family to a man fo diftin

guifhed

guifhed for taking the contrary party, the King's head-quarters being in their neighbourhood at Oxford, and his Majelty having now fome fairer profpect of fuccefs; whether any or all of there were the reafons of this extraordinary behaviour; however it was, it fo highly incensed her husband, that he thought it would be difhonourable ever to receive her again after fuch a repulfe, and he determined to repudiate her, as fhe had in effect repudiated him, and to confider her no longer as his wife. To fortify this his refolution, and at the fame time to juftify it to the world, he wrote The doctrine and discipline of divorce; wherein he endeavours to prove, that indifpofition, unfitnefs, or contrariety of mind, proceeding from any unchangeable caufe in nature, hindering and ever likely to hinder the main benefits of conjugal fociety, which are folace and peace, are greater reafons of divorce than adultery or natural frigidity, especially if there be no children, and there be mutual confent for feparation. He published it at firft without his name; but the ftyle easily betrayed the author; and afterwards a fecond edition, much augmented, with his name. This book he dedicated to the parliament of England, with the affembly of divines, that as they were then confulting about the general reformation of the kingdom, they might alfo take this particular cafe of domestic liberty into their confideration. And then, as it was objected that his doctrine was a novel notion, and a paradox that no body had ever afferted before, he endeavoured to confirm his own opinion by the authority of others, and publifhed, in 1644,. The judgment of Martin Bucer, &c. And as it was still objected, that his doctrine could not be reconciled to Scripture, he published in 1645 his Tetrachordon; or, Expofitions upon the four chief places in Scripture, which treat of marriage, or nullities in marriage. At the first appearing of the doctrine and difcipline of divorce,. the clergy raised a heavy outcry against it, and daily. folicited the parliament to pafs fome cenfure upon it. At last one of them, in a ferinon preached before the Lords and Commons, on a day of humiliation, in Au

guft

guft 1644, roundly told them, that there was a book abroad which deserved to be burnt; and that among their other fins they ought to repent, that they had not yet branded it with some mark of their displeafure. Mr. Wood informs us, that upon Milton's publishing his three books of divorce, the affembly of divines, then fitting at Westminster, took special notice of them; and notwithstanding his former fervices in writing against the Bishops, caufed him to be fummoned before the houfe of Lords: But that houfe, whether approving his doctrine, or not favouring his accufers, foon difmiffed him. He was attacked alfo from the prefs, in a pamphlet, intitled, Divorce at pleafure; and in another, intitled, An anfwer to the doctrine and difcipline of divorce, which was licensed and recommended by Mr. Jofeph Caryl, a famous Prefbyterian divine, and author of a voluminous.commentary on the book of Job. Milton, in his Colafterion, or Reply, published in 1645, expoftulates fmartly with the licenser, as well as handles very roughly the nameless author. These provocations, I fuppofe, contributed not a little to make him fuch an enemy to the Presbyterians, to whom he had before diftinguished himself a friend. He compofed likewife two fonnets on the reception his book of divorce met with, but the latter is much the better of the two. Mr. Wood fays, that after the King's restoration, when the fubject of divorce was under confideration with the Lords, upon account of John Lord Ros or Roos's. feparation from his wife Anne Pierpoint, eldest daughter to Henry Marquis of Dorchester, he was confulted by an eminent member of that house, and about the fame time by a chief officer of state, as being the prime perfon who was knowing in that affair.

But while he was fo clofely engaged in this contro verfy of divorce, he nevertheless attended to other things. About this time he published his letter of education to Mr. Samuel Hartlib, who wrote fome things about husbandry, and was a man of confiderable learning. This letter, which has been usually printed at the end of his poems, is, as I may fay, the theory

theory of his own practice; and by the rules which he has laid down for education, we fee in fome measure the method that he pursued in educating his own pupils. In 1644 he published his Areopagitica; or, Speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing to the parliament of England. It was written at the defire of feveral learned men, and is perhaps the best vindication that has been published at any time or in any language, of that liberty which is the bafis and fupport of all other liberties, the liberty of the prefs. But it had not the defired effect: For the Prefbyterians were as fond of exercifing the licenfing power, when they got it into their own hands, as they had been clamorous before in inveighing against it, while it was in the hands of the Prelates. And Mr. Toland is mistaken in saying, “ that "fuch was the effect of this piece, that the following 446 year Mabol a licenser offered reasons against licen. fing; and, at his own request, was discharged that "office." For neither was the licenfer's name Mabol, but Gilbert Mabbot; neither was he discharged from his office till May 1649, about five years after. wards; though probably he might be fwayed by Milton's arguments, as every ingenious perfon muft, whe perufes and confiders them. In 1645 was published a collection of his poems, Latin and English; and if he had left no other monuments of his poetical genius behind him, these would have been fufficient to have rendered his name immortal.

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But without doubt his doctrine of divorce, and the maintenance of it, principally engaged his thoughts at this period; and whether others were convinced or not by his arguments, he was certainly convinced himfelf that he was in the right; and as a proof of it he determined to marry again, and made his addresses to a young lady of great wit and beauty, one of the daughters of Dr. Davis. But intelligence of this coming to his wife, and the then declining state of the King's caufe, and confequently of the circumftances of Juftice Powell's family, caused them to fet all en gines at work to restore the wife again to her husband. His friends too, for different reafons, feem to have

be en

been as defircus of bringing about a reconciliation as her's; and this method of effecting it was concerted between them. He had a relation, one Blackborough, living in the lane of St. Martin's Le Grand, whom he often vifited; and one day when he was vifiting there, it was contrived that the wife fhould be ready in another room. Accordingly, as he was thinking of nothing lefs, he was furprised to fee her, whom he had expected never to have feen any more, falling down upon her knees at his feet, and imploring his forgivenefs with tears *. At first he fhowed fome figns of averfion, but he continued not long inexora ble; his wife's intreaties, and the interceffion of friends on both fides, foon wrought upon his generous nature, and procured a happy reconciliation, with an act of oblivion of all that was paft. But he did not take his wife home, till he had got a house he hađ hired in Barbican fitted up for his family, his house in Alderfgate-ftreet not being large enough. The part that Milton acted in this whole affair, showed plainly, that he had a spirit capable of the strongest refentment, but yet more inclinable to pity and forgiveness. And neither in this was any injury done to the other lady whom he was courting; for the is faid to have been always averse from the motion, not daring, I fuppofe, to venture in marriage with a mas

*It is not3to be doubted (ays Mr. Fenton in his account of our author's life) but an interview of that nature, fo little expected, muft wonderfully affect him: And perhaps the impreffions it made on his imagination, contributed much to the painting of that pathetic scene in Paradife Loft, in which Eve addreffed herielf to Adam for pardon and peace. At the interceffion of his friends who were pretent, after a short reluctance he generoufly facrificed all his refentment to

her tears.

Soon his heart relented

Towards her, his life fo late and fole delight,

Now at his feet fubmiffive in diftrefs. P. L. x. 940.

Mr Thyer thinks there is little room to doubt but that the particular beauties of this charming fcene are owing to an interview of the fame nature which he had with his own wife, and that he is only here ceAcribing thofe generous ard tender festin.eats, which he then felt and experienced.

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