roystering cavaliers of the period, Powell's pecuniary difficulties seem to have increased, and it has been suggested, with much plausibility, that Mary Powell married Milton at the instance of her friends, in order to escape the payment of the mortgage. It was an uncongenial and ill-assorted union, which could only be productive of mutual misery. The wife appears to have been a beautiful but frivolous girl, unable to appreciate the antique grandeur of Milton's character, or the splendour of his genius. Milton, on his part, could not make allowances for the foibles of the thoughtless bride, whom he had transported from the gay society of her father's house to the monastic seclusion of his own. The summer passed, and Michaelmas arrived, but the young wife did not return. Milton wrote to her, but received no reply. Letter after letter was despatched, which likewise remained unanswered. A messenger was then sent for her, but he was contemptuously dismissed from the house, with a positive refusal. "This proceeding," says Philips, "in all probability was grounded upon no other cause but this, namely, that the family being generally addicted to the Cavalier party, as they called it, and some of them possibly engaged in the king's service, who by this time had his head-quarters at Oxford, and was in some prospect of success, they began to repent them of having matched the eldest daughter of their family so contrary to them in opinion, and thought it would be a blot in their escutcheon when that court should come to flourish again." The treatment he received from his wife and her friends turned his thoughts to the question of divorce. A statement of his opinions on the subject, and selections from the treatises which he wrote advo cating them, appear in their chronological order in the present volume.* Milton finding himself left with 'nothing of matrimony but the chain," contemplated re-marriage, in accordance with the views which he had promulgated. But the chances of the war, which at first seemed to incline in the king's favour, had now turned against him, and the fortunes of the parliament were in the ascendant. The Powell family became alarmed, and with that utter selfishness and heartlessness which characterised their conduct throughout the whole affair, they sought a reconciliation with the justly-offended husband. This Milton for some time refused; "he thought it would be dishonourable for him to receive her again, after such a repulse." At length it was brought about by the following stratagem. He frequently visited at the house of a relative, named Blackborough, living in St. Martin'sle-Grand. Either by Blackborough's connivance or by the Powells carefully watching their opportunity, it was arranged that when he was making his usual visit his wife suddenly entered the room, flung herself on her knees before him, and with tears besought forgiveness and restoration to his home and heart. This, after some show of resistance, was granted, and she went to reside with Mrs. Webber, whose daughter was married to Christopher Milton, till a new house at the Barbican was prepared for her reception. It is more than probable that the pathetic scene in Paradise Lost, where Adam, after upbraiding Eve as the cause of their misery and ruin, at length yields to her tears and entreaties, was suggested by this incident. * Page 88. Philips tells that it was with the daughter of Dr. Davis, witty and handsome gentlewoman, but averse to this motion." d a "He added not, and from her turned. But Eve, Fell humbled, and, embracing them, besought I beg and clasp thy knees. Bereave me not.' She ended weeping, and her lowly plight, Creature so fair his reconcilement seeking." He was not only reconciled to her, but, as the civil wars were now turning more decisively than ever in favour of the parliament, and against the cavaliers, he received her ruined father, brothers, and sisters, into his house, together with his own father, brother; and family. There is no evidence to show, or reason to believe, that his married life subsequently was unhappy. His wife, having given birth to a son who died in infancy and three daughters who survived her, died in May, 1652. The history of his literary activity and public services, under the Commonwealth, will be found narrated in the introductions to the various treatises which he published during this period. It will therefore be only necessary here to record a few particulars of his private life. In the year 1645 his juvenile poems were published,* the songs being set to music * To the first edition is prefixed a portrait of Milton, and under it a Greek epigram, written by himself, ridiculing the engraver for his clumsy workmanship, and the utter unlikeness of the portrait to the original. by the celebrated musician, Henry Lawes. The publisher, in his preface, says of them : "It is not any private respect of gain, gentle reader, for the slightest pamphlet is now-a-dayes more vendible than the works of learnedest men, but it is the love I have to our own language that hath made me diligent to collect and set forth such pieces, both in prose and verse, as may renew the wonted honour and esteem of our English tongue; and it's the worth of these, both English and Latin poems, not the flourish of any prefixed encomiums, that can invite thee to buy them, though these are not without the highest commendations and applause of the learnedest academics, both domestick and foreign; and amongst those of our own countrey, the unparalleled Provost of Eaton, Sir Henry Wootton. I know not thy palate, how it relishes such dainties, nor how harmonious thy soul is; perhaps more trivial airs may please thee better. Let the event guide itself which way it will, I shall deserve of the age, by bringing into the light as true a birth as the Muses have brought forth since our famous Spenser wrote, whose poems in these English ones are as rarely imitated as sweetly excelled. Reader, if thou art eagle-eied to censure their worth, I am not fearfull to expose them to thy exactest perusal." This eulogium may serve to show the estimation in which Milton was held by his contemporaries. To this we may add a remark of Johnson, in further confutation of the strange opinion, lately advocated, that he was comparatively unknown in his own day, and only became famous after Addison's eulogium. I cannot but remark," says Johnson, “a kind of respect, perhaps unconsciously, paid to this great man by his biographers: every house in which he resided is historically mentioned, as if it were an injury to neglect naming places that he honoured with his presence." This is the more striking from the fact that he seldom remained in one house more than two or three years. Yet each change of residence is carefully noted by his biographers. Since his return from abroad he had already lived in St. Bride's Churchyard, Fleet Street, Aldersgate Street, and the Barbican. We afterwards find him living in Spring Gardens near Charing Cross, Bartholomew Close, Petty France (now Charles Street, Westminster), Jewin Street, Chalfont St. Giles, and Artillery Walk, Bunhill Fields, where he died. It will thus be seen that not only was he born within the sound of Bow bells, but he lived and died there, his absences from London being rare and brief. We may think this strange for a poet whose means would have allowed him to choose his residence where he pleased. London would seem to be the last place in England which a poet would select. It should, however, be remembered that most of our great poets have been city men. Shakspeare, born amidst the rich, but tame and flat, scenery of Warwickshire, spent most of his life in London. Chaucer, Spenser, Cowley, Dryden, Pope, and a host of others, were, like Milton, veritable cockneys. On the other hand, Switzerland has produced no great poet, nor has Wales, nor have the Highlands of Scotland. In explanation of this fact, we may quote the words of one of the sweetest of our modern minstrels :- * : "Where should the poet live? In solitude or society? In the green stillness of the country, where he can hear the heart of nature beat; or in the dark grey city, where he can hear and feel the throbbing heart of man? I will make answer for him, and say, In the dark grey city. Oh, they * Longfellow's Hyperion. |