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 society 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 father lent Powell 5001., 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 father, 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 know

ledge 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. 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.

It

CHAPTER IV.

JUSTIFIES THE KING'S EXECUTION-APPOINTED FOREIGN SECRETARY OF STATE -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

His fortune, and his life,

who had claims on a son for all these, Milton's father was that man, laying aside the ties of nature. 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, the 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. Bargrave'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 288l. 18s. 6d.; 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 a great and free nation, like Britain, ought not to submit; and he therefore took the noble resolution of neither making 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, 1207.) Salmasius, a Frenchman, esteemed one of the most consummate scholars of Europe, and the successor of the famous Scaliger as honorary professor

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

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 brokendown 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 1000l.—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 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 overthrow