he sons of some of his friends. n Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, as well ics and astronomy. His scholars read Sunday a portion of the New Testawhich he explained to them.al 1641, all hopes of an accommodation ng and the parliament being at an end, of Monarchy and Episcopacy became n wrote and published several treatises to the doctrines of what he called piscopacy." married Mary Powell, the daughter of Powell of Forest Hill in Oxfordshire. s of the king's party (or, in the lantimes, a cavalier), and the strict and of Milton may have been distasteful to of a royalist and churchman. A few er marriage, she went to her father's it, and there remained, though repeat- her husband to return. Milton was per to bear such an injury patiently, with regard to the duty of obedience 1 in a wife, as afterwards expressed in of Paradise Lost, did not incline him He considered himself as having a ce a wife so contumacious, and published es on the subject of Divorce, which gave dal to the Presbyterian clergy, then at their influence, as his previous attacks acy had done to the Bishops and High . In the same year, 1644, he published on Education and the Areopagitica, a The liberty of unlicensed Printing, which in eloquence and dignity the first in rank ose works. In 1645, a reconciliation was it between Milton and his wife. His forgiveness of her and her family seems to have been complete, for he soon after received Mr. Powell (who had suffered great losses in the civil war which was now going on), with his wife and children, into his own house, where they remained for some months. After this, nothing further was published by Milton on the subject of Divorce. His wife died, probably in the year 1653, leaving three daughters. The poet was afterwards twice married, and his third wife survived him. It is supposed that no descendants of the poet remain. Charles I. was brought to trial and executed in 1649, and Milton, whose views coincided with those of the party at that time in power (the Independents having succeeded the Presbyterians in influence), wrote a treatise to maintain the lawfulness of the king's execution. Royalty having been thus abolished, the government of the Commonwealth, as it was now called, was vested in a Council of State. The Latin language was used by them in their correspondence with foreign powers, and Milton was made their Secretary. The execution of Charles had excited the greatest indignation throughout Europe, and one of the most famous scholars of the time, best known by his Latinized name, Salmasius, published a famous treatise upholding the doctrine of the divine right of kings to rule without accountability to Milton was ordered by the Council to prepare an answer to Salmasius, and in 1650 appeared his celebrated Defensio pro Populo Anglicano. But this labor caused the loss of his sight,2 which had before been greatly impaired, and soon after he became man. 1 The Independents (also known as Congregationalists) held that every body of Christians forming a church was competent to manage its own affairs, choose its own ministers, and decide disputed questions, without reference to bishops or presbyters. 2 See Sonnet to Cyriac Skinuer, page 15. He continued, however, to hold the ry under Cromwell (who had possessed supreme power, and been made Lord 53), and wrote state papers even up he Restoration. the death of Oliver Cromwell and of his son Richard, a return to mornment seemed unavoidable, Milton ort in behalf of the republicanism to lways ardently attached, but it was of tide had turned, and in 1660 Charles II. > the throne. Milton was for a time eal himself, but influential friends exes for him, and, though some of his rned, he was spared. Of the manner er this time we have some account a young Quaker who had become acthe poet. He writes, "John Milton, of great note for learning throughout orld, having filled a public station in lived now a private and retired life nd, having wholly lost his sight, kept to read to him, which usually was the entleman of his acquaintance, whom in ook to improve in his learning." In plague was raging in London, Milton ouse at Chalfont in Buckinghamshire, ained, with his wife and daughters, till return to London. At Chalfont he wood the manuscript of Paradise Lost, olished in 1667. Thirteen hundred copn were sold in two years, and in 1669 a was printed. When we consider the of the time and the political disfavor ton stood, we must regard this as a fair ccess, and the poet could hardly have anticipated more when he wrote of the audience fit though few that would attend his song. To more than few it must have been a delight, for, to quote the words of one of his biographers, "As to the assertion of the poem being above the age in which it appeared, we cannot regard it as correct; the knowledge of the Scriptures, the classics, and the Italian poets, was probably greater at that time than it is at the present day; and this is the knowledge requisite for understanding the Paradise Lost. Criticism of this great poem would here be out of place; its beauties and its blemishes must carry their own commendation or condemnation. It was said by Dr. Johnson that Milton's "images and descriptions of the scenes or operations of Nature do not seem to be always copied from original form, nor to have the freshness, raciness, and energy, of immediate observation. saw Nature, as Dryden expresses it, through the spectacles of books ;" and, as has been maintained in our own times, described Nature like a blind man. But though blind he was destitute neither of memory nor of imagination, and we wonder as we read that a blind man could still have seen so much that living eyes fail to observe, and should also have the power to make us see, as in (to quote one of many passages) Book IX. lines 424 – 430: 66 when to his wish, Beyond his hope, Eve separate he spies, Veiled in a cloud of fragrance, where she stood, Half spied, so thick the roses bushing round About her glowed, oft stooping to support Each flower of slender stalk, whose head, though gay Hung drooping unsustained." He In 1671 Milton published Paradise Regained, a poem generally regarded as inferior to Paradise Lost. But Milton himself did not so esteem it, and at the expression of such opinion. of it, "In its kind it is the most extant," and Wordsworth, that it is Fect in execution of anything written Together with Paradise Regained was son Agonistes, probably the last poem Hilton. It was after the manner of the drama, and contains many noble pasMilton published an edition of his colDuring the last three years of his life, ed some of his earlier and later prose ling the strict temperance and regwhich the poet seems always to have ad been for many years afflicted with e are told by one of his biographers ient clergyman of Dorsetshire, Dr. 1 John Milton in a small chamber y green, sitting in an elbow-chair, and in black; pale, but not cadaverous, his t gouty, and with chalk-stones...... o sit in a gray coarse cloth coat at the ase near Bunhill Fields, in warm sunny joy the fresh air; and so, as well as in ved the visits of people of distinguished as quality." His wife speaks of his with her in October, 1674, when he iscoursed sensibly and well, and was very med to be in good health of body." On e following month, November, he died ithout pain, having nearly completed his r. He was buried in St. Giles's Church, eral was attended by all the author's great friends in London, not without a ourse of the vulgar." A monument to his memory in Westminster Abbey |