We shall, when we arrive at the proper place, give a sketch of his opinions on the subject, and the arguments by which he supported them.

But his whole time was not devoted to this subject. In 1644 he gave to the light, at the request of his friend Mr. Samuel Hartlib, a tractate on Education; and in this year also he addressed to the Parliament his Areopagitica, a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing, the noblest and most useful of his prose works. In 1645 he published a volume of poems; and as it contains the sonnets to A virtuous Young Lady and to The Lady Margaret Ley, they had been of course written by this time. In this same year he composed the two sonnets on the ill-success of his efforts in the cause of matrimonial liberty, and one to his friend Henry Lawes, on the publishing of his Airs. To this period perhaps we may assign also that to his friend Lawrence, and the first of those to Cyriac Skinner.

As to Milton's mode of life at this period we have little information. His literary labours and his pupils must have engrossed the far greater portion of his time. He had a select circle of friends whom he used to visit. Among these we find particular mention of Lady Margaret Ley, to whom, as we have seen, he addressed one of his sonnets. Still he may have found his domestic life irksome for want of a suitable companion; so, regarding his union with Miss Powell as terminated by her obstinate desertion of him, he began to look out for some more suitable person with whom he might renew the nuptial tie. The lady on whom he fixed his choice, and to whom he actually paid his addresses, was the daughter of a Dr. Davis. She was, as we are assured, both beautiful and accomplished, but of the full meaning of

these words we have no means of judging, as they are in themselves indefinite; and at the present day we know that in newspaper parlance all brides of the better classes are lovely and accomplished, as it were, by patent. As little can we determine how these addresses were received by Miss Davis and her friends, but we should suppose not very favourably; for however they might be convinced of the soundness of the suitor's views on the subject of divorce, still, as the law then stood, and there seemed to be little chance of its being altered,—the issue of such a marriage would be held to be illegitimate. Add to this, that the lady would in all probability have been quite excluded from the society of her own sex-a thing few virtuous women can patiently endure. Accordingly, as Phillips tells us, she was "averse, as 'tis said, to this motion.'

The experiment however was not to be made. On the 13th of June, 1645, the fatal battle of Naseby was fought, and the Royal affairs went rapidly to ruin. The Powell family, it is probable, soon saw that it would be their interest to have a friend on the side now triumphant, and deemed it a matter of prudence to endeavour to effect a reconciliation between Milton and his wife. The lady herself probably had heard of his addresses to Miss Davis, and her jealousy was excited; for there are women who can do very well without the society of a lover or a husband, but who cannot endure the idea of its being enjoyed by another. Milton's own friends also, it is probable, thought it would be far better and more becoming, that he should be reconciled to his lawful wedded wife, than engaged in a union with another which the law would not recognize. Accordingly when one day he was paying a visit at the house of one of his

relations, named Blackborough, in the lane of St. Martin's-le-Grand, his wife, who had been stationed for the purpose in an inner room, came forth, and throwing herself on her knees before him, implored his forgiveness. At first, calling to mind her heartless and insulting abandonment of him, he refused to grant it; but finally, moved probably by her tears, for though we are not told so, as a woman she must have called them to her aid,*—and by the recollection of former love and endearments, and by the entreaties and remonstrances of mutual friends, his heart at length relented, and he took her once more to his bosom.† His forgiveness, we have no doubt, was complete and absolute, as suited his noble nature; but that, to use the language of our friend the Rev. Mr. Mitford, “his marriage, though clouded over in its rise, and portending storms and sorrows, ended in the smiles of renewed affection, in conjugal endearments, and continued love," we are rather inclined to doubt. Mrs. Milton could not change her natural disposition, and that, we know, was not by any means adapted to that of her husband; and from some passages of his subsequent poetry we might be led to infer, that his married state was very far from being one of unalloyed felicity.‡

Milton, who seems to have been fond of changing his residences, or who perhaps found his present house too small for the augmented number of his pupils, § had just

* Richardson tells us she did shed tears; and Wood, that she pleaded “that her mother had been the chief promoter of her forwardness.”

There can be hardly a doubt that, as has often been observed, he had this scene in his mind when composing Paradise Lost, x. 937, seq. See Note E. at the end of this Part. § Wood says, " that after the publication of his work on Education, the Earl of Barrymore was sent to him by his aunt Lady Ranelagh, and he also had Sir Thomas Gardiner, of Essex." Lady Ranelagh also placed her own son Richard Jones under him. Four of his Latin

at this time taken a house in Barbican; and as this was not yet ready, instead of taking his wife home to her former abode, he placed her for the present in the house of a friend.*

Among the documents in the State-Paper Office is a Protection, signed T. Fairfax, and bearing date the 27th of June, 1646, granted to Mr. R. Powell, of Forest Hill, "who was in the city and garrison of Oxford at the surrender thereof," empowering him "without let or interruption to pass the guards, with his servants, horses, arms, goods, and all other necessaries; and to repair unto London or elsewhere upon his necessary occasions;

.. and to have full liberty at any time within six months, to go to any port, and to transport himself, with his servants, goods, and, necessaries, beyond seas.' The use Mr. Powell made of this protection was to remove, with his wife and his large family of children, to London, where they were all received into the house of his generous son-in-law. It was probably soon after their arrival that Milton's first child, a daughter named Anne, was born, on the 29th of July. His wife's family appear to have remained with him for some months, for her father died at his house, in or about the following New-Year's Day;† soon after which probably his widow and children, their affairs being settled in some measure, may have returned to Forest Hill. After their departure, the house, says Phillips, "looked again like a house of the Muses.'

letters are addressed to this young man. Phillips tells us that "the accession of scholars was not great."

* This, Phillips informs us, was "the Widow Webber's house, in St. Clement's Churchyard, whose second daughter had been married to the other brother many years before."

See Note F. at the end of this Part.

In the beginning of the following year, January 23, 1646-7, Milton wrote his last Latin poem, the irregular ode sent to John Rouse, the Keeper of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, in a copy of his poems. It was in the course of this year also that his venerable father paid the debt of nature. Toward the end of the year,* Milton, as the number of his family, and probably also that of his pupils, was reduced,-finding his house in Barbican to be larger than he required, left it and went to reside in a smaller house in Holborn, which opened backwards into Lincoln's Inn Fields. Here his second child, also a daughter, and named Mary after her mother, was born, on the 25th of October, 1648.

Phillips says, "he is much mistaken, if there was not about this time a design of making him an adjutantgeneral in Sir William Waller's army. But the newmodeling of the army proved an obstruction to the design." Of the correctness of this statement some of the biographers doubt, because Waller was a Presbyterian ; and as Milton had broken with that party, he could not serve under him with honour. There is however a much simpler answer. Waller had not and could not have any command at the time; for the New Model and the Self-denying Ordinance had taken place early in 1645; so that if any such offer was made to Milton, which is not very likely, it must have been before that year.

Milton seems to have been now employed on his History of England, as the four first books of it were written before the year 1649. His only effort in poetry was a version of nine of the Psalms, executed in 1648.

When the Independent and military faction had

* Phillips says, "not long after the march of Fairfax and Cromwell through the City," which was on the 7th of August, 1647.