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was irksome to her." The statement about the beating of the nephews is not mentioned by Philips, who was one of them, and is perhaps only a picturesque fancy on the part of the narrator, who was addicted to such things; but both agree in the cause of her dissatisfaction; and Philips informs us that after "she had for a month or thereabout led a philosophical life," she obtained permission to visit her relatives, on condition of returning at Michaelmas. Michaelmas came, but no Mrs. Milton. Her husband wrote several times, but received no answer. A special messenger was sent, who, according to Philips, was dismissed with some sort of contempt." Milton at last resolved to divorce her; and, to prepare the public mind for the course he was about to pursue, published, in 1644, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce (the first edition is anonymous; the second, of the same year, bears his name), and The Judgement of Martin Bucer touching Divorce, with a preface and postcript. It was followed, in 1645, by the Tetrachordon, in which he examines the four chief places in Scripture which treat of marriage or nullities in marriage; and Colasterion [Koλaorýptov, chastisement], a fierce retaliation upon an anonymous assailant of his Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. The Westminster Assembly took alarm at the audacity of the heretic, and had him summoned before the House of Lords;* from which, however, he was honourably dismissed. He even made some proselytes to his opinions, who were nicknamed Miltonists; but the violent opposition he encountered was the beginning of his estrangement from the Presbyterian party. The controversy also produced two angry sonnets (1645), in which he jeers at the Scotch divines, and designates his opponents "owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs." But alongside of this disagreeable and unedifying work there went on something far nobler. At the request of his friend Samuel Hartlib, he published, in 1644, his treatise Of Education,- -a beautiful picture of an ideal academy, a spacious house and ground about it," which should combine the school and the university, where study, and music, and sports should all be generously intermingled; and The Areopagitica, a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicenc'd Printing,—the most magnificent and valuable of all his prose compositions, and the first great vindication of the principle of toleration in the English language. The eulogy which Macaulay bestows on his prose generally, that "it abounds in passages compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance," is at least not extravagant here.

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Next year (1645) he published the first collected edition of his English and Latin poems; but the times were not favourable to the Muses, and there is no evidence that the publication created any stir. Meanwhile Milton was carrying his views on matrimony into practice, by paying his addresses to a Miss Davies, 66 a very handsome and witty gentlewoman."+ Whether or not the news reached his wife's ears, and made her jealous, or the fast falling fortunes of the Royalists had brought down the pride of the Powells, a reconciliation took place. One day, when the deserted husband was visiting a relation of his, named Blackborough, his wife suddenly entered from an adjoining room, and throwing herself on her knees before him, besought his forgiveness; which he with some reluctance accorded. + Philips.

* Wood.

The number of his pupils now increasing, he took another residence in the Barbican, and on the surrender of Oxford to the troops of the Parliament in June 1646, generously received the whole family of the Powells into his house, where they remained till after the New Year. "After their departure," says Philips, "the house looked again like a house of the Muses.' Milton's first child, Anne, was born on the 29th of July 1646; and thus the presence of his wife's mother at the time may after all have been a convenience, if not exactly a pleasure. In March 1647 his father died, having lived long enough to see at least the dawn of his son's reputation, and to read with parental delight those grateful eulogiums which the filial affection and reverence of his son had prompted him to express both in prose and verse. Towards the close of the year, as his pupils had rather fallen off, he removed to a smaller house in Holborn, opening backwards into Lincoln's Inn Fields, where his second child, Mary, was born, 25th October 1648. At this period, his studies seem to have lain chiefly in the sphere of the national history -the first four books of his History of England having been written before 1649. But otherwise his pen had rest for a time. There was no more need for "Apologies " and " Animadversions." The triumph of the Puritans in the Civil War was complete, and Milton could pursue his learned labours in peace, and even venture to revolve anew in his mind the many themes that he considered fit for epic or dramatic treatment.* The execution of King Charles I., 30th January 1649, startled Europe, however, and recalled Milton to public life. It was an act of tremendous audacity. Even to this day many people shake their heads with an affectation of dismay when the subject is mentioned. The Presbyterians, whose influence in the army and in councils of the state had waned in consequence of the superior boldness, determination, and sincerity of the Independents, raised a great outcry against "the deed of blood." Milton was indignant at what he considered their hypocrisy, and had doubtless not forgotten their behaviour to himself in the divorce controversy. A month after the royal execution appeared an apology for the deed, entitled The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates; in which he endeavours to show "that it is lawfull, and hath been held so through all ages, for any who have the power to call to account a tyrant or wicked king, and after due conviction to depose and put him to death; if the ordinary magistrate have neglected or denied to doe it and that they who of late so much blame deposing, are the men that did it themselves." The Puritan leaders were delighted with his promptitude and zeal, and on the 15th of March he was appointed Secretary of Foreign Tongues,-an office whose ordinary and extraordinary duties alike proved laborious. Latin was the language in which the new Commonwealth resolved to conduct its foreign correspondence; and it had not only obtained the services of the first Latinist of his age, but of a Republican as thorough and uncompromising as Harrison, or Bradshaw himself. On the very day of his appointment he was commissioned to draw up a reply to the EÍKÓN BAZIAIKH, or the Portrature of his Sacred Majesty in his Solitudes and Sufferings; and in the course of the year published his EIKONOKAAΣTHΣ (“Imagebreaker"), in which he sternly recounts the misdeeds of the King's public life,

* See Introduction to Notes on Paradise Lost.

and thus sought to break the pathetic spell which his unfortunate end had cast over the sympathies of Europe. But more arduous work was before him. Claude de Saumaise (better known as Salmasius), a famous professor in the University of Leyden, and reputed the most erudite, if not the ablest scholar of his day, was employed by Charles II. (then living in Holland) to write a defence of his father. The work was published in 1649, under the title of Defensio Regia pro Carolo I. ad Carolum II., and obtained considerable notice both on account of the subject and the renown of the author. On the 8th of January 1650 Milton was ordered by the Council of State to prepare a reply. A year elapsed before he was ready, owing, as he tells us in the preface, to his bodily weakness and continual interruptions by other duties; but in January 1651, the Defensio pro Populo Anglicano contra Claudii Anonymi alias Salmasii Defensionem Regiam appeared. It made a profound impression both in England and on the Continent. Soon after its publication the author received the congratulations of all the foreign ministers in London, and of numerous foreign scholars ;* and, somewhat later, the thanks of the English Commonwealth. In spite of its gross personalities it will ever rank as one of Milton's greatest prose works. A heroic love of liberty breathes through every page. All history is ransacked for proofs that kings are responsible to the people; and the servile doctrine of Salmasius, that they are accountable only to God for their acts, is shattered with logic, and shamed with ridicule. The first attempt at a reply was an Apologia pro Rege et Populo Anglicano (1651), which Milton erroneously attributed to Bishop Bramhall. Its real author was a clergyman named Rowland. Milton's younger nephew, John Philips, was allowed the pleasure of continuing the controversy. Other attacks followed, but no notice was taken of them.

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On his appointment as Latin Secretary, Milton removed with his family to an official residence in Scotland-yard; where, on the 6th of March 1650, a son was born to him, who soon after died. In 1651 he removed to a pretty garden-house" in Petty France, in Westminster, next door to the Lord Scudamore's, opening into St. James's Park, where he remained till the Restoration. Here a fourth child, Deborah, was born, 2nd May 1652; on which occasion Milton became a widower.

In 1652 a work was published at the Hague which, though shameful in itself, has, in a certain sense, some claim upon our gratitude. It was entitled Regii Sanguinis Clamor ad Cælum adversus Parricidas Anglicanos. The author was Peter du Moulin, a Frenchman by birth, but settled in England, and afterwards prebendary of Canterbury. Not venturing to publish the manuscript himself, he had transmitted it to Salmasius, who gave it to a Scotchman, Alexander Moore (Latinized Morus), son of the Principal of the Protestant College of Castres in Languedoc, and a popular French preacher, by whom it was committed to the press. It was dedicated to Charles II.; but no name appeared on the title-page except that of the printer, Adrian Ulac. Its most notable characteristic was a vile and mendacious sketch of Milton's career. Morus (unfortunately for himself) was one of those persons who live in glass houses, and cannot afford to throw stones. Milton seized the occa* Defensio Secunda, vol. ii., p. 341.

sion, and in his Defensio Secunda pro Populo Anglicano (1654) he mercilessly exposed the frailties of his opponent's private character, and at the same time gave to the world that invaluable outline of his own history from which we have repeatedly quoted. Morus returned to the charge in his Fides Publica, contra Calumnias Joannis Miltoni, Hague, 1654; which Milton answered in his Autoris pro se Defensio contra Alexandrum Morum, Ecclesiasten (1655). A Responsio of the latter to a Supplementum of the former closed the controversy.

Some time before this Milton had become blind. From his youth he had been afflicted with a weakness of vision, and as early as 1644 he had felt his sight beginning to decay. While writing his first Defensio, physicians had warned him to desist. One eye was already useless, and the other was gradually failing. In a letter to his friend Leonard Philaras, an Athenian, and ambassador to the Duke of Parma at Paris, dated 28th September 1654, he gives a minute account of the calamity that had befallen him. As it was now impossible for him to entirely discharge the duties of his public situation, an assistant was provided in the person of Andrew Marvell, whom he had recommended to President Bradshaw as early as 1653. The chief point in his domestic history, from this date to the Restoration, is his marriage, on the 12th of November 1656, to Catherine, daughter of Captain Woodcock of Hackney. Her death, February 1658, is commemorated by the beautiful sonnet, beginning, "Methought I saw my late espoused Saint." But now that God had in his providence partly withdrawn him from public life, he apparently resumed with increased ardour his literary activity. His History of England was continued; the materials for a Latin Dictionary and a Body of Divinity were amassed; and, above all, the composition of Paradise Lost was begun.* But his blindness had not robbed him of his interest in public affairs. When the great Protector died (September 3, 1658), he strove hard to infuse fresh life into the expiring Puritanism by his pamphlet on The Likeliest Means to Remove Hirelings out of the Church, and by A Letter concerning the Ruptures of the Commonwealth. The Present Means and Brief Delineation of a Free Commonwealth was addressed to Monk in 1659; and was followed, in February 1660, by a final effort against monarchy in his Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, also addressed to the same astute individual, who had not yet quite made up his mind what he should do. Milton's latest word on the subject was a reply to a Royalist sermon preached by Dr. Matthew Griffith in Mercers' Hall, 25th March 1660; but in May the King was back to Whitehall, and the reign of Puritanism was over in England. It might be true, as Milton had said, that "nothing is more pleasing to God, or more agreeable to reason, than that the highest mind should have the sovereign power;" but the highest mind was gone from earth, and the wise thoughts that had inspired Cromwell were twisted into impracticable crotchets by small bodies of visionary and discordant fanatics. The nation was weary of a morose despotism, and welcomed the Restoration with giddy joy. Nothing was left for the blind sage but to withdraw into the inner sanctuary of his nature, where the new order of things could not come ; where "the barbarous dissonance" of the times, "the sound of riot and ill-manag'd merriment, the Aubrey says it was begun two years before the coming-in of the King.

*

rudeness and swill'd insolence of late wassailers," would be unheard, and where he might enjoy absolute freedom.

Personally Milton did not suffer much from the Restoration. At first, however, he was most likely in considerable danger, and sought an asylum in the house of a friend who lived in Bartholomew Close, near West Smithfield. But Dr. Johnson is of opinion that no very diligent search was made for him; and it is certain that he had several influential friends among the moderate Royalists. Monk's cousin (Secretary Morrice), Sir Thomas Clarges Andrew Marvell, and Sir William Davenant are specially mentioned as persons who exerted themselves on his behalf. Although his EIKONOKAÁZTHΣ and Defensio pro Populo Anglicano were burned by the common hangman on the 27th of August 1660, and the Attorney-General was formally ordered to prosecute him, it does not appear that any steps were taken to bring him to trial. Three days later the Act of Indemnity was passed, and Milton's name does not occur in the list of exceptions. It is therefore curious and somewhat puzzling to subsequently find him under arrest; for there is an order of the House of Commons, dated 15th December 1660, "that Mr. Milton, now in custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms attending this House, be forthwith released, paying his fees." It is even said that he was offered employment under the new Government-a thing in the last degree improbable.

Milton now took a house in Holborn, near Red Lion Street; but soon removed to Jewin Street, near Aldersgate, where, about 1664, he married his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull—a Cheshire lady of good family, recommended to him by his friend Dr. Paget, to whom she was related. As his two elder daughters by the first wife were now grown up, it has been thought strange that he did not consider them capable of managing his domestic affairs; but it appears, from the depositions made in connection with the will of the poet, that he had repeatedly complained of their "unkind" and "undutiful" conduct; * that they wished for his death, and "did combine together and counsel his maid-servant to cheat him in her marketings; that they had made away with some of his books, and would have sold the rest to the dunghill women."+ If these allegations be true, it is clear that he required a protector in his blind and helpless old age. The new wife proved a good, affectionate nurse. Aubrey, who knew her personally, says she was of a peaceful and agreeable humour." "God have mercy, Betty," he said on one occasion, "I see thou wilt performe according to thy promise in providing mee such dishes as I think fitt whilst I live, and when I dye thou knowest that I have left thee all." Philips reports less favourably, affirming that "she persecuted his children in his lifetime, and cheated them at his death;" but it is conjectured that Philips had adopted the prejudices of his cousins. That Anne and Mary Milton should have felt life tedious and irksome in their father's house is not to be wondered at. He had taught them to read without understanding all the languages he himself knew; and to be forced, as they habitually were, to utter for hours consecutive words which conveyed no meaning to their ears, could not but be, as Johnson says, a trial of patience almost beyond endurance"-more particularly to girls who inherited from their mother a decided aversion to literature See Todd's Milton, vol. i., pp. 160-89. + Ibid. Ibid., vol. i., p. 180.

*

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