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viz. Gen. i. 27: ii. 18, &c.; Deut. xxiv. 1; Matt. v. 31, &c.; and Matt. xxix. 3, &c. Other passages from the Epistles he also occasionally explains, and then produced the authority of some eminent men who favoured his opinion. The following

lines are upon this subject :

"I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs,
By the known rules of antient liberty;
When strait a barbarous noise environs me,
Of owls, and cuckoos, asses, apes and dogs:

As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs,
Railed at LATONA's twin-born progeny,

Which after held the Sun and Moon in fee;
But this is got by casting pearls to hogs,
That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,
And still revolt when truth would set them free;
License they mean when they cry Liberty:
For who loves that, must first be wise and good;
But from that mark how far they roave we see,
For all this waste of wealth and loss of blood."

He published yet another piece on this subject, entitled, "The Judgments of the famous Reformer, MARTIN BUCER, touching Divorce, extracted out of the second book of the kingdom of Christ, dedicated to king Edward the Sixth." Bucer exactly agreed with MILTON on this subject, though the latter had not seen it till after the publication of his first volume concerning it.

The fourth book on the subject of Divorce was his Colasterion, a reply to one of his anonymous answerers, "who," it is said, "added to all the

dulness and ignorance imaginable, the greatest degree imaginable of bitterness and malice." It is probable MILTON would not have humbled himself to answer this, but for the circumstance of the Rev. J. CARYL, the commentator on the Book of JOB, having put to it his imprimateur, adding to it his own condemnation of MILTON's opinions. How very angry he was with Mr. Caryl will appear from the following taunting reproach: "Mr. Licenser, you are reputed a man discrete enough, that is, to an ordinary competence in all these but now your turn is to hear what your own hand has earned you, that when you suffered this nameless hangman to cast into public such a spiteful contumely upon a name and person deserving of the church and state equally to yourself, and one who has done more to the present advancement of your own tribe, than you or many of them have done for themselves; you forgot to be either honest, religious, or discrete. Whatever the state might do concerning it, supposing it were a matter to expect evil from it, I should not doubt to meet among them with wise, and honourable, and knowing men. But as to this brute libel, so much the more impudent and lawless for the abused authority which it bears, I say again, that I abominate the censures of rascals and their licensers."

To prove himself a firm believer in the maxims

which he had produced on this most provoking occasion, he was seriously negociating another marriage with Miss Davis, a young lady of great wit and beauty. This, however, was prevented by a most unexpected occurrence. Being one day at the house of a relation named Blackborough, in St. Martin's Le Grand, whom he often visited, he was extremely surprised to meet his wife there, whom he had never expected to see again. She threw herself at his feet, confessed her fault, and with tears intreated his forgiveness. At first he appeared to be unmoved and inexorable; but at length the generosity of his temper, and the intercession of some mutual friends, conquered his anger, and a perfect reconciliation took place, with the promise of oblivion of every thing which had happened. As a proof of his having forgiven her and her relations, who it is most probable had been the principal cause of all his domestic troubles, he received his wife's father and mother, and several of her brothers and sisters, into his own house, their political party having declined in influence. This was more than they could have expected from him, as they had doubtless been the occasion of separating "those whom God had joined together," and had thus exposed themselves to a divine malediction: "Cursed is he that parteth man and wife." MILTON kindly entertained them until their own affairs were in a better condition.

The scene which we have been constrained to survey, is most humiliating and confounding. One is ready to say, Oh! that oblivion had in kindness cast its mantle over such disgusting details. The champion of a nation's right, the fearless, undaunted assertor of civil and religious liberty, and the successful advocate of the unshackled press, himself a domestic tyrant! objecting to the restraint with which God and nature had guarded the marriage union, and refusing to the wife of his bosom, the companion of his life, those equal rights to which with himself she was justly entitled. "Yet she is thy coмPANION, and the wife of thy COVENANT and did he not make ONE?" (Malachi ii. 14.) MILTON and his wife did not, it is evident, understand the principles of the marriage covenant: they were not "one! but two!" Nor did he treat her, so far as it appears, as if she was his "companion," but his household slave! Nor did he fulfil the conditions of the "covenant," into which he had voluntarily entered when she consented to become his wife, a covenant of reciprocal duties, and of equal privileges. His biographers say, that Mrs. MILTON "refused to return;' perhaps she was justifiable in that refusal: she might have been treated superciliously and contemptuously by her husband.

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"He wrote several letters to her which she did

not answer."

It would have been better had he

paid her an affectionate visit. He then sent a servant, doubtless demanding her from her father, and then "she positively refused to come, and dismissed the messenger with contempt!" Admitting the supposition to be just, that he had sent his lordly commands, requiring her submission to his authority, she acted rightly and with a becoming spirit. He became incensed at this, and resolved, out of regard to his "honour" and " repose, to repudiate her as no longer worthy his confidence or affection. A husband who could act with this haughty feeling towards his companion, must have strange notions of what, in such a case, was honourable; and as to seeking repose by such means, was the most unlucky plan he could have adopted, as the sequel abundantly shows. An obedient regard to the directions of the Apostle Paul, (Eph. v. 21-25) would have soon settled all this strife, or, more properly speaking, would have prevented it altogether.

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In this matter MILTON appears like Samson when shorn of his Nazarite locks-become "weak, and as other men.' MILTON'S great strength, like that of Samson, lay in his knowledge of, and obedience to, the principles of revealed truth. While he adhered closely to these, he snapped with ease "the green withs," and the "new ropes;" and when even the "seven locks of his

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