

MILTON. 



309 



Milton. were dispe*ed to break M well as they could an inati- 

 *," spiciou* connexion On the other hand, Milton de- 

 termined to repudiate a wife who left him nothing of 

 matrimony but the cha'n. To justify the intended 

 meat u re. he published in 1' '44, an essay on the Doc- 

 trine and Di*ciplin> <. This treatise, which 

 was inscribed to the parliament, was Mx>n foLmved by 

 " The judgment of Martin Buccr concerning divorce," 

 and by Tetractierdon and Cotattrrion, The two last of 

 these tracts were written in 1645 the latter ot' them 

 Ma reply to an anonymous antagonist, the former as an 

 exposition of the four passages in scripture, which are 

 supposed to relate more immediately to the perma- 

 nence of the marriage obligation By these writings, 

 the fury of the presbyterisn clergy was in-tantly ex- 

 cited ; they endeavoured to indue their passion into 

 the legislature, and occasioned Milton to be cited be- 

 fore the House of Lords. But he was speedily and 

 honourably dismissed from this tribunal, and the Pres- 

 byterian* lost an able friend, and excited a formidable 

 enemy. Milton was serious in hi< opinions, and pre- 

 pared to act upon them. Conceiving himself relea*ed 

 in conscience tram the marriage bond, he paid his ad- 

 <1re<* to an accomplished and beautiful young lady, 

 the daughter of a Dr. Davis. The lady, it ha* been 

 intimated, was rather averse from the propostl, bat 

 her objections (and her friends seem not to have stated 

 any,) were apparently slight, when the match was 

 prevented by the return of his delinquent spouse. 

 Public affairs were now changed. The tide of fortune 

 was agimst the royalists, and the Powells, foreseeing, 

 what the event proved, that Milton might protect and 

 assist them, hastened to propitiate his resentment. 

 They concerted with Milton's friends to introduce his 

 wife unexpectedly into hii presence at a friend's home, 

 and she supplicated for her pardon upon her knees to 

 effectually aa to obtain it. He admitted, along with 

 her, to his house, the family of the Powells, who were 

 now in danger and distress, and saved the bulk of their 

 property by his interest with the victorious party. 

 Whatever gratitude the Powells felt, they never did 

 him the justice to pay his wife's fortune out of their 

 rescued estate. But, It is possible, that in such times, 

 the recovery of property might be more nominally than 

 really complete. They remained under his roof for 

 many years, which, unless their spirit was extremely 

 abject, would argue that they were late in regaining 

 their estate, and in the interval it roust have suffered 

 much deduction. In the menu time, to accommodate 

 his enlarged family, our author hired a house in Bar- 

 bican. In the year 1 64V, whilst immersed in his con- 

 troversy about divorce, he published his ideas on the 

 subject of education, and not long after sent forth his 

 work Areopagitua, in which he defended the freedom 

 of the press with a degree of intelligence and spirit 

 which has never been surpn- 



The I'resliyterians, on their arriving at power, forgot 



the principles which they had professed in their ri-mp 



to it, ami placed the press under the same contnuil ! 



winch they had of late so indignantly complained. 



Milton came forward as the champion of free i! 



sii'ii, and made his weapons of reason and fancy as ef- 



e by their weight and edge, as they were dazzl- 



'y their brightness. Though the presbyterians 



My resist the adoption of his principles, 



could n.- prevent his arguments being heard and 



I he ffice of licenser of the press was indeed 



continued throughout the whole duration of their 



power, but at a subsequent period, (in 16iy,) we find 



the conscientious Gilbert Mabot resigning this invidi- Milton. 

 ovis office, and in -t.itinw the grounds and motives of '"""Y"' 

 his conduct, repeating the arguments for a free press 

 contained in Milton's Areopagittm. 



m Kil.V Milton once more courted the Muses whom 

 he had so long deserted. From the period of his re- 

 turn to England to this year, his pastoral on l)-o>lati, 

 and .-oine occasional sonnets, were the only poetical 

 fruits of his genius. He now prepared an edition of all 

 his English, Italian, and Latin noemx. The smtll vo- 

 lume which they formed was published with his n^nie, 

 and with a preface, by their publisher, Humphrey 

 Mosely. The sonnets were the most important novel- 

 ties ot the collection. * 



In 16+6, his wife brought him their first child, a 

 daughter, named Anne, who was I jme either from her 

 birth, or in consequence of some accident in her early 

 infancy. In l'>47, his venerable father died under hi* 

 roof, hiving cmiie to live with him since the year 11)4:;, 

 when at the-capture of Reading, he left his residence 

 with his younger son in that city. The Powells left 

 him not long after, and his house, (says Phillips,) 

 looked once more like a house of the muses. In this 

 same habitation, in the Barbican, his second daughter 

 M,ry was born. In the "pring of 16*7, he removed 

 to a smaller one in High Holborn, the back part of 

 which looked into Lincoln's Inn Fields. 



Phillips relates, that in the course of the civil wart 

 there was a proposal for Milton emlmcing the military 

 life ; and says, that if he was not much mistaken, there 

 was a design of making him an adjutant-general in Sir 

 William Waller's army Dr. Johnson n icules this 

 vague allusion to an unfulfilled intention. Yet we may 

 ask, what there is ridiculous either in the rumour, or 

 in Phillips'* taking notice of it. If M ilton was not em- 

 ployed in the field, it was because he could fill the post 

 of intellectual warfare with more advantage. His lau- 

 rels at that po.t were more honourable than the field of 

 battle could afford him ; and in that field there was no 

 combatant but himself who was capable of earning them. 



After the works already mentioned, he is not known 

 to have published any thing earlier than his treatise, 

 which appeared early in 16*9, entitled, Thr Tenurf of 

 A'/nj.i an.i Magmratti, <$c. maintaining the right of the 

 people to depose and put to death a tyrannical king. 

 The unfortunate Charles I. had suffered on the scall'uld. 

 Milton's work, therefore, came forth not to accelerate 

 Charles's fat.-, tnJt, as he expressly declares, to tranquil- 

 lize men's minds in the agitation which his (ate produ- 

 ced. The pity which King Charles's tragic story excites, 

 a pity, however, by no means rrreconcileable in hu- 

 mane minds, with the conviction of his conduct having 

 been deeply culpable, should not lead us hastily to re- 

 gard the attempt at tranquillizing men's minds after 

 his death as unprincipled. On the contrary, Charles 

 had no sooner died, than compassion for him was made 

 the pretext for men avowing slavish principles of the 

 most abandoned nature. It was proclaimed as a fun- 

 damental maxim of government, that kings were from 

 God, and not responsible to man ; and this maxim too 

 was avowed in tome instances by men, who, at an ear- 

 lier stage of the civil wars, had paved the way for the 

 very dethronement and death which they now hypocri- 

 tically lamented. 



Without denying that Mihon. in the sternness of hii 

 republican opinions and, let it be allowed, even in the 

 infectious taint of overheated party zeal may have re- 

 garded Charles with less humane allowance than the 

 candid eye of an impartial posterity regards him ; yet 



Tfewbdtrftisi 



r, were not included in this 



Some of them wen written at a subsequent period, 



