fended, were inferior to Bishop Hall in theological learning, and in controverfial skill; that learned Prelate's victory over SmeƐtymnuus was complete.83

Milton's father came now to refide in his fon's house.84 Philips fays of him; the old gentleman lived wholly retired to his rest and devotion, without the least trouble imaginable.' At Whitsuntide, in 1643, in his thirty-fifth year, Milton married Mary, the daughter of Mr. Richard Powell, of Forest Hill, a justice of the peace in Oxfordshire.85 After an absence of little more than a month, he brought his bride to town with him, and hoped, as Johnfon obferves, to enjoy the advantages of a conjugal life; but spare diet, and hard study, and a house full of pupils, did not fuit the young and gay daughter of a Cavalier.86 She had been brought up in very different fociety; fo having lived for a month a philofophic life, after having been used at home to a great house, and much company

87

83 Our historian had faid just before that there were few among the Puritan Divines of found education. He had better have ftuck to his word. To make amends for want of acquired knowledge, they abounded in infpired." See Warburton's Works, vol. xii. p. 398.

84 Till the taking of Reading, in April 1643, by the Earl of Effex, he had lived there, in the house of his fon Christopher.

85 See Memoranda relating to the family of Powell, of Forest Hill, in Sir Eg. Brydges's Life of Milton, p. 279. appendix, who has corrected some great mistakes made by Mr. Todd, in his account of the Powell family, from the representations of Mr. Wolbrooke.

86 Toland gives four conjectures on this subject. 1. Whether it was that this young woman, accustomed to a large and jovial family, could not live in a philofophical retirement. 2. Or that she was not fatisfied with the person of her husband; 3. or, laftly, that because all her relations were addicted to the Royal intereft, his democratical principles were disagreeable to her humour; 4. nor is it impoffible that the father repented of this match, upon the profpect of fome fuccefs on the King's fide, who then had his head-quarters at Oxford. See Life, p. 52. Newton has followed Toland. v. Life, p. xxvii.

87 T. Warton had a MS. inventory of Mr. Powell's goods; and he fays, by the number, order, and furniture of the rooms, he appears to

and joviality, her friends, poffibly by her own defire, made earneft fuit to have her company the remaining part of the fummer, which was granted upon a promise of her return at Michaelmas. When Michaelmas came, the lady had no inclination to quit the hofpitality and delights of her father's manfion for the aufterer habits and feclufion of the Poet's study. Surrounded with powerful friends, in the company of the gay and fascinating cavaliers, and protected by the paternal roof, fhe showed her diflike of the dulness and restraint of a scholar's wife, by proclaiming her unwillingness to return. Aubrey fays, 'no company came to her, and she often heard her nephew cry and be beaten ;' Milton fent repeated letters to her, which were all unanswered; and a meffenger, who was difpatched to urge her return, was difmiffed with contempt. A re

88

have lived as a country gentleman, in a very extenfive and liberal style of house keeping.' v. Todd's Life, p. 176.

"There

88 In a letter of Marvell to his conftituents at Hull, he fays, is yet brought in an act, in which of all others your Corporation is the leaft concerned-that is, when wives fhall refuse to cohabit with their bufbands, that in such case the husband shall not be obliged to pay any debts she shall run into, for clothing, diet, lodging, or other expenfes." This shows, fays the Editor of it, how much the bonds of domestic duty were relaxed by civil anarchy. It is highly probable that separation of the nature alluded to, frequently arose from religious and political diffenfions between husband and wife. The revolt of Milton's first confort is a well known but not a folitary inftance." v. Coleridge's Biog. Borealis, p. 13. We may give in this place Hacket's remarkable diatribe against Milton:-"What a venomous spirit is in that ferpent Milton; that blackmouthed Zoilus, that blows his viper's breath upon those immortal Devotions from beginning to the end. This is he, that wrote with all irreverence against the Fathers of our Church, and showed as little duty to his father who begat him. The fame that wrote for the Pharifees, that it was lawful for man to put away his wife for every cause, and against Chrift for not allowing divorces. The fame, O horrid! that defended the lawfulness of the greatest crime that ever was committed, to put our thrice-excellent King to death; a petty schoolboy fcribbler that durft grapple in fuch a caufe with the Prince of the learned men of

fiftance fo pertinacious and illegal as this, must have rested on fome grounds that were at least imagined favourable to the conduct of the wife. We muft, therefore, refer to the unfettled fituation of the kingdom, by which the authority of the laws was weakened, and obedience imperfectly inforced; and we must recollect, that at the time when she refused to return to her husband's roof, the King, with all his forces, was quartered in the neighbouring city of Oxford; that her family was of course afsociating with the gay and licentious adherents of the monarch; that 'living in the camp of the enemy,' fhe must have been in the daily habit of hearing hatred, scorn, and contempt, uttered against the party whose sentiments were so strongly adopted by her husband; that a profpect of fuccefs now dawned upon the fortunes of the King; and, looking at the apparent interests of the family, confidering her wavering or alienated affections, and interpreting fairly the language of Philips, we may prefume that had the fide of the royalifts been victorious, the marriage with the Puritan husband would have been cancelled or concealed.

Milton, whose mind was never given to half-measures, refolved immediately to repudiate her on the ground of disobedience; and to fupport the propriety and lawfulnefs of his conduct, he published, at first anonymously, in 1644, The Doctrine and Difcipline of Divorce, the

his age, Salmafius, φιλοσοφιας πασης, ἀφροδίτη και λυρα, as Eurapius fays of Ammonius, Plutarch's fcholar in Egypt, the delight, the mufick of all knowledge, who would have fcorn'd to drop a penful of ink against fo base an adversary, but to maintain the honour of fo good a King. Get thee behind me, Milton! Thou favourest not the things that be of truth and loyalty, but of pride, bitterness, and falfehood. There will be a time, though fuch a Shimei, a dead dog, in Abishai's phrase, escape for a while. It is no marvel that this canker-worm Milton is more lavish in his writings than any man to juftify the beheading of Strafford, &c. v. Life of Archb. Williams, ii. p. 161.

89

Judgment of Mafter Bucer concerning Divorce, the next year he printed his Tetrachordon, or expofitions on the four chief places of fcripture, which treat on marriage. His laft tract Colafterion was an answer to a pamphlet recommended by Mr. Jofeph Caryll,90 the author of a Commentary on Job, and a prefbyterian divine, the author was anonymous, but Milton calls him a ferving-man both by nature and function, an idiot by breeding, and a folicitor by presumption.'

In this treatise, Dr. Symmons thinks that Milton has made out a strong cafe, and fights with arguments not eafily to be repelled; 91 and Mr. Godwin fays, that the books on divorce are written with the most entire knowledge of the subject, and with a clearness and strength of argument, that it would be difficult to excel; and it must be remembered that Selden wrote his Uxor Hebraica on the fame fide of the question. Without entering into the intricacies of fo great an argument, I fhall content myself with faying, that all the ingenuity of Milton, and the learning of Selden are of no avail against the acknowledged experience of society, which seems to have filently confented to the wisdom of the established law. Tempers once deemed incompatible, may gradually affimilate. The interests of children, the advancement of fortune, the

89 See Newton's Life of Milton, p. xxix.

90 Of Mr. Caryll, Toland says, (p. 60), ' in his voluminous and senselefs commentaries, he did more injury to the memory of Job, than the Devil, and the Sabeans could inflict torments on him in his life time.'

91 Dr. John Echard, in the Preface to his work, p. 11. fays, “I am not, I will affure you, any of thofe occafional writers, that miffing preferment in the Univerfity, can prefently write you the new ways of education, or being a little tormented with an ill-chofen wife, put forth the doctrine of Divorce to be truly evangelical, &c.," alluding to two of Milton's writings. See alfo Fell's Life of Hammond, p. 200. Oxf. ed. on the Love of Novelty, in defending Polygamy, Divorce, &c.

respect of society, moral principle, religious feeling, the force of habit, the remembrance of past friendship, and the obligations of a common intereft, are all affifting the reconciliation of wedded discontent. Incompatibility of temper cannot be fubmitted to legal proof, or determined by any unerring ftandard; will it not therefore be often advanced to cover the wishes of inconftancy, or the defires of impurity? does not legal feparation allow all that is neceffary in extreme cafes of infufferable evil? is an incompatible temper to be advanced as the cause of one divorce, or may it release from a succeffion of imprudent engagements? Milton's courtship was apparently fudden and short; and no one can be much surprised at the difagreements that followed: but it appears that he lived in happiness with his wife after their romantic reconciliation; hence the divorce, at one time fo much defired, would probably have destroyed, if granted, the future happiness of both parties; and it is doubtful whether that of the husband, after he had shaken off his conjugal fetters, would have been increased; for he may have escaped a remorse which at some future time, and in fome confiderate moments, he might have felt, when he confidered that in his choleric frenzy he had vifited too heavily the foolish levity of a young, gay, and inexperienced woman, perhaps mifled or overruled; that he had offended the feelings of fociety, and he might not perhaps have felt quite satisfied in his cooler moments of the unanswerable cogency of his arguments.

There is one passage in this treatise, in which Milton clearly points to himself, and to the prefumed causes of his unhappiness. The fobereft, and best governed men, he says, are least practised in these affairs; and who knows not that the bashful muteness of a virgin may oftentimes hide all the unliveliness and natural floth which is really

e