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whether any. V.or all of these were the reasons of this extraordinary behaviour; however it was, it so highly incensed her husband, that he thought it would be dishonourable ever to receive her again after such a repulse, and he determined to repudiate her as she had in effect repudiated him, and to consider her no longer as his wife. And to fortify this his resolution, and at the same time to justify it to the world, he wrote the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, wherein he endeavours to prove, that indisposition, unfitness, or contrariety of mind, proceeding from any unchangeable cause in nature, hindering and ever likely to hinder the main benefits of conjugal society, which are solace and peace, are greater reasons of divorce than adultery or natural frigidity, especially if there be no children, and there be mutual consent for separation". He published it at first without his name, but the style easily betrayed the author; and afterwards a second edition, much augmented, with his name; and he de

n Milton in the account of his Works in his Second Defence does not allude to his domestic injuries, but treats of his writings on Divorce as the natural fruits of his anxious wishes to promote liberty, first ecclesiastical, then domestic liberty. Cum petiti omnium telis Episcopi tandem cecidissent, otiumque ab illis esset, verti alio cogitationes; si qua in re possem libertatis veræ ac solidæ rationem promovere; quæ non foris, sed intus quærenda, non pugnando, sed vitam recte instituendo, recteque administrando adipiscenda potissimum est. Cum itaque tres omnino animadverterem libertatis

esse species, quæ nisi adsint, vita ulla transigi commode vix possit, Ecclesiasticam, Domesticam seu privatam, atque Civilem, deque prima jam scripsissem, deque tertia Magistratum sedulo agere viderem, quæ reliqua secunda erat, domesticam mihi desumpsi. Pr. W. ii. p. 385. ed. 1753. A little further on, however, there appears to be a curious allusion to circumstances very like his own-ea igitur de re aliquot libros edidi; eo præsertim tempore cum vir sæpe et conjux hostes inter se acerrimi, hie domi cum liberis, illa in castris hostium materfamilias versaretur, viro cædem atque perniciem minitans. E.

dicated it to the Parliament of England with the Assembly of Divines, that as they were then consulting about the general reformation of the kingdom, they might also take this particular case of domestic liberty into their consideration. And then, as it was objected, that his doctrine was a novel notion, and a paradox that nobody had ever asserted before, he endeavoured to confirm his own opinion by the authority of others, and published in 1644 the Judgment of Martin Bucer, &c. and as it was still objected, that his doctrine could not be reconciled to Scripture, he published in 1645 his Tetrachordon, or Expositions upon the four chief places in Scripture, which treat of marriage, or nullities in marriage. At the first appearing of the Doctrine and Dicipline of Divorce the clergy raised a heavy outcry against it, and daily solicited the Parliament to pass some censure upon it; and at last one of them, in à sermon preached before the Lords and Commons on a day of humiliation in August 1644, roundly told them, that there was a book abroad which deserved to be burnt, and that among their other sins they ought to repent, that they had not yet branded it with some mark of their displeasure. And Mr. Wood informs us, that upon Milton's publishing his three books of Divorce, the Assembly of Divines, that was then sitting at Westminster, took special notice of them; and

* Gen. i. 27, 28. (with ii. 18, 23, 24.) Deut. xxiv. 1, 2. Matt. V. 31, 32. (with xix. 3-11.) 1 Cor. vii. 10-16. E.

The title of this Sermon is, "The Glasse of God's Provi"dence towards his faithful ones, "held forth in a Sermon, &c. by

“Herbert Palmer, B. D. &c." There was a copy of it in the curious library of James Bindley, Esq. The author was a member of the Assembly of Divines, and parliamentary Master of Queen's College, Cambridge. Todd.

notwithstanding his former services in writing against the Bishops, caused him to be summoned before the House of Lords: but that House, whether approving his doctrine, or not favouring his accusers, soon dismissed him. He was attacked too from the press as well as from the pulpit, in a pamphlet entitled Divorce at pleasure, and in another entitled an Answer to the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, which was licensed and recommended by Mr. Joseph Caryl, a famous Presbyterian Divine, and author of a voluminous Commentary on the book of Job: and Milton in his Colasterion or Reply published in 1645 expostulates smartly with the licenser, as well as handles very roughly the nameless author. And these provocations, I suppose, contributed not a little to make him such an enemy to the Presbyterians, to whom he had before distinguished himself a friend. He composed likewise two of his sonnets on the reception his book of Divorce met with, but the latter is much the better of the two. To this account it may be added from Anthony Wood, that after the King's restoration, when the subject of divorce was under consideration with the Lords upon the account of John Lord Ros or Roos's separation from his wife Anne Pierpoint, eldest daughter to Henry Marquis of Dorchester, he was consulted by an eminent member of that House, and about the same time by a chief officer

• Milton's doctrine was also animadverted upon, but without any mention of the author's name, by Bishop Hall, in his Cases of conscience decaie, iv. case 2. Note signed J. B. Lives of the Poets, ed. 1794. Mr. Todd enu

merates several other pieces, one so late as 1670, in which Milton's doctrine is noticed; and shews that there was even a sect called from his writings Divorcers, and Miltonists. E.

of state, as being the prime person who was knowing in that affair.

But while he was engaged in this controversy of divorce, he was not so totally engaged in it, but he attended to other things; and about this time published his letter of Education to Mr. Samuel Hartlib, who wrote some things about husbandry, and was a man of considerable learning, as appears from the letters which passed between him and the famous Mr. Mede, and from Sir William Petty's and Pell the mathematician's writing to him, the former his treatise for the Advancement of some particular parts of learning, and the latter his Idea of the Mathematics, as well as from this letter of our author'. This letter of our author has usually been printed at the end of his poems, and is as I may say the theory of his own practice; and by the rules which he has laid down for education we see in some measure the method that he pursued in educating his own pupils'. And in 1644 he published his Areopagitica or Speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing to the Parliament of England. It was written at the

'Hartlib was a native of Holland. He was concerned in publishing some of the pieces written by his friend John Dury; among which are two new projects for the education of youth. In 1654, he published three treatises by different authors on The true and ready way to learn the Latin tongue. Hartlib took great pains to frame a new system of education answerable to the perfection and purity of the new common-wealth. But his chief purto have been in

suits seem

natural and mechanical science. There are some religious pieces under his name. Several books are addressed to him. He carried on a learned correspondence abroad, and his opinions on various topics appear to have obtained universal respect and authority. T. Warton.

This letter has been translated into French with a warm eulogium on its author by the translator. See Lettres sur l'Education des Princes. Avec une Lettre de Milton, &c. 1746. Todd.

desire of several learned men, and is perhaps the best vindication, that has been published at any time or in any language, of that liberty which is the basis and support of all other liberties, the liberty of the press: but alas it had not the desired effect; for the Presbyterians were as fond of exercising the licensing power, when they got it into their own hands, as they had been clamorous before in inveighing against it, while it was in the hands of the Prelates. And Mr. Toland is mistaken in saying," that such was the effect of this "piece, that the following year Mabol a licenser "offered reasons against licensing; and at his own "request was discharged that office." For neither was the licenser's name Mabol, but Gilbert Mabbot; neither was he discharged from his office till May 1649, about five years afterwards, though probably he might be swayed by Milton's arguments, as every ingenuous person must, who peruses and considers them'. And in 1645 was published a collection of his poems, Latin and English, the principal of which are, On the morning of Christ's nativity, L'Allegro, II Penseroso, Lycidas, the Mask, &c. &c.: and if he had left no other monuments of his poetical genius behind him, these would have been sufficient to have rendered his name immortal.

But without doubt his Doctrine of Divorce, and the maintenance of it, principally engaged his thoughts at this period; and whether others were convinced or not by his arguments, he was certainly convinced himself that he was in the right; and as a proof of it he

See a full account of G. Mabbot's resignation, and his reasons

for it, in Birch's Life of Milton, p. xxx. ed. 1753. E.

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