mas came, but not his wife: he wrote to her, and received no answer: he wrote again and again with increasing anxiety; but got no answer. At last he despatched a messenger with a peremptory order for her return: this order was met with a determined and contemptuous refusal. Milton was never the man to brook indignity or ill-treatment. This was too grievous a wrong to be endured: he therefore resolved to repudiate her for ever, and emancipate himself. In order to justify this course, he published successively, in 1644 and 1645, "The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce;" "The Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce; -"Tetrachordon," or exposition of the four chief passages in Scripture which treat of marriage or nullities of marriage,—Gen. i. 27, 28, (with ii. 18, 23, 24;) Deut. xxiv. 1, 2; Mat. v. 31, 32, (with xix. 3—11;) 1 Cor. vii. 10—16; and "Colasterion" (or the torture); being a bitter reply to some attacks made on his former treatises: the design of all which was to prove, that "indisposition, unfitness, or contrariety of mind, proceeding from any unchangeable cause in nature, hindering and ever likely to hinder the main benefits of conjugal society, which are solace and peace, are greater reasons for divorce than adultery or natural frigidity, especially if there be no children, and there be mutual consent for separation." At this time he also published his letter on education to Mr. Samuel Hartlib; and his "Areopagitica," or speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing, addressed to the parliament of England, which is considered one of the most eloquent, vigorous, and argumentative of all his prose compositions, and the most powerful vindication of the liberty of the press on record. This doctrine of divorce raised up for him some advocates, but more enemies. The Presbyterians took up the subject with particular animosity, and had him summoned before the Lords; but he was speedily discharged. This caused a lasting rupture between him and his former allies the Presbyterians. There have been various reasons alleged for Mrs. Milton's separation from her husband, and much inconclusive argument wasted on each of them; some maintain, that because Powell was a zealous royalist, (while Milton was a zealous, and more effective and distinguished, anti-royalist,) because the king's head-quarters were at that time near Oxford, and the royal cause had fairer prospects of success, the wife's family wishing to make a merit of breaking off all connexion with him, influenced her decision; others, that she herself sincerely disliked his religious and political principles, and therefore refused to cohabit with him: others, that being a joyous, lively girl, used to much so, ciety and freedom in her father's house, she could not endure the gloom and solitude of Milton's: others (from the discovery some years ago of documents, by which it appears that Milton's fadier lent Powell 500/., a large sum at that time, for the poet's use, which Powell was then unable to pay) imagine, that without feeling any affection for Milton, she consented to the marriage to please her fa

ther, and quitted him to please herself. Perhaps the true cause may be found in a combination of all these—that the marriage was one of family interest on her side—that she felt dissatisfied with the seclusion of his mode of life (she is represented as then very young and heedless, whereas Milton, who from his youth was grave and reserved, was now thirty-five years old, and centered his chief happiness in his books), and that her dissatisfaction was embittered by political causes. But whatever may have been the cause, Milton pursued his resolution in earnest; for he commenced putting his doctrine into practice by paying his addresses to one of the daughters of Dr. Davis, a lady of great wit and beauty. This having come to the knowledge of the Powells, whose fortunes now began to sink with the declining cause of the king, and his own friends too, for many reasons, being opposed to his second marriage, it was determined by both parties to contrive a reconciliation; which was thus effected. He used to visit a relation of the name of Blackborough, residing in St. Martin's-le-Grand Lane. One day while sitting conversing with some particular friends who met him there as if by accident, his wife, to his amazement, unexpectedly fell on her knees at his feet, imploring his forgiveness with tears. He seemed bewildered, and at first showed signs of aversion; but her apparent penitence, her earnest entreaties, and the intercession of his friends, soon worked upon his generous nature, and procured a happy and lasting reconciliation. It has been said that he had this scene in view when he so pathetically described the reconciliation of Adam and Eve. (P. L. x. 910 and 940.) His pupils becoming now more numerous, and his father having before this (when the Royalists were masters of Reading, where he had been living with his younger son) come to reside with him, he took a larger house in Barbican. Soon after, the affairs of Powell being entirely ruined by the discomfiture of the royal party, he generously took him and his numerous family to reside with him, until, through his interest with the ascendant party, their affairs were improved. In 1646, July 29th, his eldest child, Anne, was born.

CHAPTER IV.

Justifies the King's Execution—Appointed Foreign Secretary of Stale—his Work "Defensio Populi"—his Account of his Blindness—Cromwell's Government.

His father died 1647, in his house in Barbican, at an advanced age. This event afflicted him deeply. Milton was a man of the warmest affections, most sensitive of kindness, and most alive to the calls of gratitude and duty; and if ever there was a father who had claims on a son for all these, Milton's father was that man, laying aside the ties of nature. His fortune, and his life, seemed to have

been devoted to the advancement and comfort of his son; and the son in his works has often affectionately acknowledged the debt. After this time, the number of his pupils was reduced to a few, (I suppose because he had not cheerfulness or energy enough to pursue the usual course of instruction with many,) and he removed to a small house in High Holborn, which opened backwards into Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he remained privately, still immersed in indefatigable study, till the king's trial and death. The Presbyterians, die old enemies of royalty, raised an outcry against the enormity and illegality of the act. This shook Milton's grief away for a time, and made him act again his old encounters; and he speedily published, in the beginning of 1649, his treatise on the "Tenure of Kings and Magistrates," for the purpose, as he says, of "satisfying and composing the minds of the people," and to show that, as the king violated his duty, the act was justifiable, and that the Presbyterians, having first been the most inveterate enemies of the royal prerogative, and of Charles, were now inconsistent in denouncing an act which they encouraged. "The king's person is sacred," said the Presbyterians. "No," said Milton, "because he turned tyrant, and the people have judged it so." But in his treatise "Of True Religion," written twenty-four years afterwards, he ascribes the downfal of the king and parliament to the intrigues of popery, in working on the fears and prejudices of the Dissenters, and representing the king and the archbishop as Papists in disguise. Cardinal Rosetti, who passed in England as a layman, under the title of Count Rosetti, was the chief agent in this plot. (See Dr. Bargraves's Memoirs.) Soon after this, he published in 1649 his "Observations on the Articles of Peace between the Earl of Ormond and the Irish Rebels," and "Animadversions on the Scotch Presbytery of Belfast." Bishop Newton makes a most liberal and excellent remark: "In these, and all his writings, whatever others of different parties may think, Milton thought himself an advocate for true liberty-for ecclesiastical liberty in his treatises against the bishops—for domestic liberty in his treatises on divorce—and for civil liberty in his writings against the king, in defence of the parliament and people of England."

After this he retired to his studies, and had just finished four books of his intended History of England from the earliest accounts down to his own time, when he was unexpectedly invited, March 15th, 1649, by the Council of State, to be their Latin Secretary for foreign affairs, at a salary of 288/. 18s. Gd.; an office which he held till the restoration. Whatever may have been Cromwell's faults, that of bending the neck of Britain to any foreign power, even in the slightest matter, was not one of them. He disdained to pay that tribute to the French king, which had been long paid him by every court in Europe--of recognising the French as the diplomatic language. He considered it an indignity and a degradation, to which

great and free nation, like Britain, ought not to submit; and he therefore took the noble resolution of neither makine any written communications to foreign states, nor receiving any from them, but in the Latin language, which was common to them all. Soon after Milton's appointment, a book, entitled "Eikon Basilike," or the Royal Image, was published, under the king's name, with a view to excite commiseration for his fate, and hatred against his executioners. Milton was ordered to prepare an answer, which he did, in Latin, under the title of ' Ikono-clastes," or the image breaker, (published by order of the Privy Council,) the famous surname of many Greek emperors of the Christian Church, who, in their zeal against Romish idolatry and superstition, broke all images to pieces. Both books had great circulation, and created a great sensation. Charles II. being protected in Holland, employed, at a high price, (one hundred Jacobuses, 120Z.) Salmasius, a Frenchman, esteemed one of the most consummate scholars of Europe, and the successor of the famous Scaliger as honorary professor of polite literature in the university of Leyden, to write a defence of the late king, his father. This book appeared towards the close of 1649, under the title "Defensio Regia pro Carolo I. ad Carolum II." Milton, when the book first appeared in England, was directed by the Council of State to answer it. This task he cheerfully undertook, though he was then blind of one eye, (the left,) and his physicians told him, that if he were to undertake it he would lose the other, (see Sketches of Autobiography, chap, ii.) and, as he further says in his Introduction, he was so broken down in health, that he was forced to break off from his labour every hour. This necessarily delayed the publication till the beginning of 1651. No sooner did the book, written in Latin, and entitled "Defensio pro Populo Anglicano," or, Defence of the English People, circulate, than its renown blazed over Europe. All the eminent foreigners in London, including the ambassadors, visited him ; complimentary letters, and other tokens of approbation, showered upon him from all parts of the continent; and so sensible was the administration at home of the value of the signal triumph he had achieved, and of his services to the popular cause, that they voted him 10007..—a vast sum in those days. It was quickly translated on the continent, and was in the hands of every scholar. But the case was very different with Salmasius. Christina, Queen of Sweden, a great patroness of learning, had previously invited Salmasius, and several of the most distinguished scholars from all countries, to her court,—among them, the famous Isaac Vossius, who (as he says in a letter to Nicholas Heinsius) first

i There is a curious passage in Milton's History of England, (b. vi.) in which he strongly reprobates the adoption or the French language, and of French manners, by the aristocracy, as impious, and antinational, and a disgraceful affectation of gentility: and as tending to pubiic corruption of morals.

showed her Milton's book. When she read it, Salmasius speedily sunk in her estimation, and that of the eminent literati about her, and quitted the court. The states of Holland publicly condemned Salmasius's book, and ordered it to be suppressed, while Milton's circulated rapidly through the country. On the other hand, Milton's book was publicly burned by the hangman in Paris and Toulouse, on account of its principles: but this only served to procure it more readers. It was everywhere read and admired for the great learning, genius, logical reasoning, and eloquence it showed. It is said that the mortification Salmasius felt at his utter over throw accelerated his death, which occurred at Spa in Germany, in 1653.

Having resided for some time in apartments appointed for him in Scotland-yard, where he lost an infant son, he removed for the benefit of the air to a house in Petty France, Westminster, which was next door to Lord Scudamore's, and looked into St. James's Park. There he remained eight years—from 1652 till he relinquished his office, within a few weeks of the king's restoration. Soon after his removal to this house, his first wife died in child-bed : and his condition requiring some care and attendance, he was induced to marry, after a proper interval, a second, Catherine, daughter of Captain Woodcock, of Hackney: she too died in child-bed within a year after their marriage, and her child, who was a daughter, died in a month after. His twenty-third sonnet, "On my Deceased Wife," is a touching tribute to her memory.

In 1652 he became totally blind. In addition to incessant study, the frequent head-aches to which he was subject from his youth, and his continual tampering with physic, are said to have contributed to this calamity. At the desire of his friend, Leonard Philaras, a celebrated Athenian, the duke of Parma's minister at Paris, he sent him an account of his case, for the purpose of being submitted to the eminent oculist, Dr. Thavenot, of Paris. The letter is dated September 28, 1654. "I think it is about ten years, more or less, since I began to perceive that my eye-sight grew weak and dim, and at the same time my spleen and bowels to be oppressed and troubled with flatus; and in the morning when I began to read, according to custom, my eyes grew painful immediately, and to refuse reading, but were refreshed after a moderate exercise of the body. A certain iris began to surround the candle if I looked at it; soon after which, on the left part of the left eye (for that was some years sooner clouded) a mist arose which hid every thing on that side; and, if I shut my right eye and looked forward, objects appeared smaller. My other eye also, for these last three years, failing by degrees, some months before all sight was abolished, things which I looked on seemed to swim to the right and left; certain inveterate vapours seem to possess my forehead and temples, which, after food especially, quite to evening generally, urge and depress