pain. These polemical tracts of our author, though perhaps some of the least valuable of his works, are so illumined with knowledge and with fancy, and open to us such occasional glimpses of a great and sublime mind, that they must always be regarded as afford ing an ample compensation for any harshness of manner with which they may sometimes offend.

We have now conducted our author to a period of his history, when an event took place, which, by its immediate and its remote result, was destined to interrupt the even tenor of his domestic life, and to afflict his heart to the latest moment of his existence. "About Whitsuntide," (1643) says his nephew," he took a journey into the country, no body about him certainly knowing the reason, or that it was more than a journey of recreation. After a month's stay, home he returns a married man, who set out a bachelor; his wife being Mary, the eldest daughter of Mr. Richard Powell, then a justice of the peace, of Forest-Hill near Shotover in Oxfordshire."

Milton's matrimonial choice seems, in this instance, to have been the suggestion of

Philips, p. 19.

fancy alone, and its consequences were those which might have been expected from a connexion so evidently imprudent. Strongly attached with all her family to the royalist party, and accustomed to the affluent hospitality of her father's house, " where there was," as Aubrey mentions," a great deal of company, and merriment, and dancing," the wife of Milton, would not probably find much gratification in the frugal establishment, the retired and studious habits, or the political conversation of her literary and republican husband. In the event, the effect followed regularly and immediately from its cause. After a month's experience of her new life, to the full taste of which the departure of her friends, who had been present at the nuptial festivities, had only just resigned her, the lady sighed for the gaieties which she had left; and, obtaining permission by the earnest request of her relations for a short absence, she revisited Forest-Hill.

About this time some new pupils, whom Milton had consented to admit under his care, were received into his family; and his father, who had lately lived with his younger son in Reading, till the taking of that town in the April of the present year (1643) by the earl of Essex, now came to form a part of

the establishment in Aldersgate-street. In this asylum the respectable old man resided till 1647, when he closed a long and useful life in the embraces of a son, by whose eminence his early cares were fully justified, and by whose piety they were as affectionately requited.

In the list of Milton's friends, at this period, we find the names of the lady Margaret Ley and of captain Dobson her husband, who seem to have entertained a high value for our author, and by him to have been equally esteemed. The lady was the daughter of sir James Ley, who, rising at the bar, was advanced by James I. to the title of earl of Marlborough, and to the important office of High Treasurer. She was celebrated by her contemporaries for her talents and her learning; and from Milton she received the com-. pliment of a sonnet, not adequate perhaps to the occasion, and certainly not comparable in poetic merit to that which he had written, in the preceding year, when by the King's near approach the city had been threatened with an assault.

As the time, limited for the return of his wife, was now passed, he thought it neces

• The King advanced as far as Brentford, in his approach to the city, on the 13th of Nov. 1642.

P

sary to write to her on the subject of her engagement. When no answer was made to this and to some subsequent letters, he determined on sending a messenger to ForestHill. But the crisis was unpropitious to his views and to the reputation of his new allies. The prosperous fortunes of the King, whose forces had defeated those of the Parliament under Fairfax in the north and under Waller' in the west, had extraordinarily elated the spirits of his party; and had occasioned the Powells to repent of their republican connexion, by which their feeling was hurt and their interests might eventually be injured. They lost no time, therefore, to atone for their imprudence by breaking the offensive alliance, and by affronting its object. The husband's messenger was dismissed with contempt, and his resentment, irritated by these repeated wounds on his sensibility, was openly set at defiance.

The measure upon which, under these circumstances, he resolved, was that of repudiating a wife, who by her desertion of him had disappointed the nuptial contract of all its objects, and had left with him nothing belonging to matrimony but its chain. To

P At Atherston Moor.

At Lansdown.

justify such a proceeding to the world, and at the same time perhaps to conciliate for it the countenance of the legislature, he published in 1644 two editions, (one anonymously and one with his name,) of “The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce." This treatise, which was inscribed to the Parliament, was soon followed by "The judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce:" by "Tetrachordon," and "Colasterion." The two last of these tracts were written in 1645; the latter of them as a reply to an antagonist without a name, and the former as an exposition of the four passages in the sacred writings, which are supposed more immediately to respect the permanency of the marriage-obligation.

By these writings the fury of the Presbyterian Clergy was instantly kindled; and, unmindful of the recent and great services, which they had experienced from the au

Gen. i. 27, 28.

Deut. xxiv. 1, 2. Matt. v. 32, 31. 1 Cor. vii. 13 to 16.

Herbert Palmer, a member of the Assembly of Divines, in a Sermon preached before the Parliament, blames the legisla ture for suffering " a wicked book deserving to be burnt, whose author had been so impudent as to set his name to it, and de dicate it to themselves, to be abroad without censure." [Todd's Life of Milton.] I have seen this sermon, preserved in the curious library of James Bindley, Esq.