an account of his own purity: “ That if I "be juftly charged," fays he, "with this "crime, it may come upon me with tenfold fhame."

The style of his piece is rough, land fuch perhaps was that of his antagonist. This roughness he justifies, by great examples, in a long digreffion. Sometimes he tries to be humorous: "Left I fhould take him for "fome chaplain in hand, fome fquire of the "body to his prelate, one who ferves not at the altar only but at the Court-cupboard,

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he will bestow on us a pretty model of "himfelf; and fets me out half a dozen "ptifical mottos, wherever he had them, "hopping fhort in the measure of convulfion "fits; in which labour the agony of his wit having fcaped narrowly, instead of well"fized periods, he greets us with a quantity "of thúmbring pofies.-And thus ends this

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fection, or rather diffection of himself." Such is the controversial merriment of Milton his gloomy seriousness is yet more offenfive. Such is his malignity, that hell grows darker at his frown, autos neit si

ung two 351 ko guroson mp His father, after Reading was taken by Effex, came to refide in his houfe; and his fchool increased. At Whitfuntide, in This thirty-fifth year, he married Mary, the daughter of Mr. Powel, a Justice of the Peace' in Oxfordshire. He brought her to town with him, and expected all the advantages of a conjugal life. The lady, however, feems not much to have delighted in the pleasures of fpare diet and hard study; for, as Philips relates, “having for a month led a philofo"phical life, after having been used at home

to a great house, and much company and “joviality, her friends, poffibly by her own "defire, made earnest fuit, to have her com"pany: the remaining part of the fummer; which was granted, upon a promise of her return at Michaelmas, gaivan

Milton was too busy to much miss his wife: he purfued his ftudies; and now and then visited the Lady Margaret Leigh, whom he has mentioned in one of his fonnets. At laft Michaelmas arrived; but the Lady had no inclination to return to the fullen gloom of her husband's habitation, and therefore

very willingly forgot her promife. He fent her a letter, but had no anfwer; he fent more with the fame fuccefs. It could be alleged that letters miscarry; he therefore dispatched a meffenger, being by this time too angry to go himself. His meffenger was fent back

with fome contempt. The family of the Lady were Cavaliers.

In a man whofe opinion of his own merit was like Milton's, lefs provocation than this might have raised violent refentment. Milton foon determined to repudiate her for dif obedience; and, being one of those who could eafily find arguments to justify inclination, published (in 1644) The Doctrine and Difcipline of Divorce; which was followed by The Judgement of Martin Bucer concerning Divorce; and the next year, his Tetrachor

don, Expofitions upon the four chief Places of Scripture which treat of Marriage.

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This innovation was oppofed, as might be expected, by the clergy; who, then holding their famous affembly at Westminster, procured that the author fhould be called before the Lords; " but that Houfe," fays Wood,

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Wood, "whether approving the doctrine, ❝or not favouring his accusers, did foon dif"mifs him."

There seems not to have been much written against him, nor any thing by any writer of eminence. The antagonist that appeared is ftyled by him, a Serving man turned Solicitor. Howel in his letters mentions the new doctrine with contempt; and it was, I fuppofe, thought more worthy of derision than of confutation. He complains of this neglect in two fonnets, of which the first is contemptible, and the fecond not excellent.

From this time it is obferved that he be came an enemy to the Prefbyterians, whom he had favoured before, He that changes his party by his humour, is not more virtuous than he that changes it by his intereft; he loves himself rather than truth.

JHis wife and her relations now found that Milton was not an unrefifting fufferer of injuries and perceiving that he had begun to put his doctrine in practice, by courting a young woman of great accomplishments, the

daughter

daughter of one Doctor Davis, who was however not ready to comply, they refolved to endeavour a re-union. He went fometimes to the house of one Blackborough, his relation, in the lane of St. Martin's-le-Grand, and at one of his ufual vifits was surprised to fee his wife come from another room, and implore forgiveness on her knees. He re

fifted her intreaties for a while; "but partly," fays Philips," his own generous nature, "more inclinable to reconciliation than to "perfeverance in anger or revenge, and partly "the ftrong interceffion of friends on both "fides, foon brought him to an act of obli"vion and a firm league of peace." It were injurious to omit, that Milton afterwards received her father and her brothers in his own house, when they were diftreffed, with other Royalifts.

He published about the fame time his Areopagitica, a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the liberty of unlicensed Printing. The danger of fuch unbounded liberty, and the danger of bounding it, have produced a problem in the science of Government, which human understanding feems hitherto unable

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