divorce, and of marrying another wife, who might be worthy of the title, he paid his addresses to the daughter of Doctor Davies: the father seems to have been a convert to Milton's arguments; but the lady had scruples. She possessed, according to Philips, both wit and beauty. A novelist could hardly imagine circumstances more singularly distressing to sensibility, than the situation of the poet, if, as we may reasonably conjecture, he was deeply ena, moured of this lady; if her father was inclined to accept him as a son-in-law; and if the object of his love had no inclination to reject his suit, but what arose from a dread of his being indissolubly united to another.

Perhaps Milton alludes to what he felt on this occasion in those affecting lines of Paradise Lost, where Adam, prophetically enumerating the miseries to arise from woman, says, in closing the melancholy list, that man sometimes

"His happiest choice too late

Shall meet, already link'd and wedlock-bound

To a fell adversary, his hate or shame!
Which infinite calamity shall cause

To human life, and houshold peace confound."

However strong the scruples of his new favorite might have been, it seems not improbable that he would have triumphed over them had not an occurrence, which has the air of an incident in romance, given another turn to the emotions of his heart. While he was conversing with a relation, whom he frequently visited in St. Martin's-lane, the door of an adjoining apartment was suddenly opened: he beheld his repentant wife kneeling at his feet, and imploring his forgiveness. After the natural struggles of honest pride and just resentment, he forgave and received her, "partly from the intercession of their common friends, and partly," says his nephew, "from his own generous nature, more inclinable to reconciliation, than to perseverance in anger and revenge."

Fenton justly remarks, that the strong impression which this interview must have made on Milton, "contributed much to the

painting of that pathetic scene in Paradise Lost, in which Eve addresses herself to Adam for pardon and peace; the verses, charming as they are, acquire new charms, when we consider them descriptive of the poet himself and the penitent destroyer of his domestic comfort.

"Her lowly plight

Immovable, till peace obtain'd from fault
Acknowledg'd and deplor'd, in Adam wrought
Commiseration; soon his heart relented
Towards her, his life so late and sole delight,
Now at his feet submissive in distress!
Creature so fair his reconcilement seeking,
His counsel, whom she had displeas'd, his aid;
As one disarm'd, his anger all he lost."

It has been said, that Milton resembled his own Adam in the comeliness of his person; but he seems to have resembled him still more in much nobler endowments, and particularly in uniting great tenderness of heart to equal dignity of mind. Soon after he had pardoned, and lived again with his wife, he afforded an asylum, in his own

The

house, to both her parents, and to their numerous family. They were active royalists and fell into great distress by the ruin of their party these were the persons who had not only treated Milton with contemptuous pride, but had imbittered his existence for four years, by instigating his wife to persist in deserting him. mother, as Wood intimates, was his greatest enemy, and occasioned the perverse conduct of her daughter. The father, though sumptuous in his mode of life when he first received Milton as his son-in-law, had never paid the marriage portion of a thousand pounds, according to his agreement, and was now stript of his property by the prevalence of the party he had opposed. On persons thus contumelious and culpable towards him, Milton bestowed his favor and protection. Can the records of private life exhibit a more magnanimous example of forgiveness and beneficence?

At the time of his wife's unexpected return, he was preparing to remove from Aldersgate to a larger house in Barbican,

with a view of increasing the number of his scholars. It was in this new mansion that he received the forgiven penitent, and provided a refuge for her relations, whom he retained under his roof, according to Fenton, "till their affairs were accommodated by his interest with the victorious party."

They left him soon after the death of his father, who ended a very long life, in the year 1647, and not without the gratification, peculiarly soothing to an affectionate old man, of bestowing his benediction on a grand-child; for, within the year of Milton's re-union with his wife, his family was increased by a daughter, Anne, the eldest of his children, born July 29, 1646.

When his apartments were no longer occupied by the guests, whom he had so generously received, he admitted more. scholars; but their number was small, and Philips imagines, that he was induced to withdraw himself from the business of education by a prospect of being appointed adjutant general in Sir William Waller's army: whatever might have been the motive for