of marrying another wife, who might be worthy of the title, he paid his addreffes to the daughter of Doctor Davies: the father feems to have been a convert to Milton's arguments; but the lady had fcruples. She poffeffed, according to Philips, both wit and beauty. A novelift could hardly imagine circumstances more fingularly diftreffing to fenfibility, than the fituation of the poet, if, as we may reasonably conjecture, he was deeply enamoured of this lady; if her father was inclined to accept him as a fon-in-law; and if the object of his love had no inclination to reject his fuit, but what arose from a dread of his being indiffolubly united to another. Perhaps Milton alludes to what he felt on this occafion in thofe affecting lines of Paradife Loft, where Adam, prophetically enumerating the miferies to arife from woman, fays, in clofing the melancholy lift, that man fometimes "His happiest choice too late "Shall meet, already link'd and wedlock-bound "To human life, and houshold peace confound." However ftrong the fcruples of his new favourite 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 converfing with a relation, whom he frequently vifited in St. Martin's-lane, the the door of an adjoining apartment was fuddenly opened he beheld his repentant wife kneeling at his feet, and imploring his forgiveness. After the natural struggles of honeft pride and juft refentment, he forgave and received her, " partly from the in"terceffion of their common friends, and partly,' fays his nephew," from his own generous nature, "more inclinable to reconciliation, than to per"feverance in anger and revenge." Fenton justly remarks, that the strong impreffion which this interview must have made on Milton "contributed much to the painting of that pa"thetic fcene in Paradife Loft in which Eve ad"dreffes herself to Adam for pardon and peace;" the verses, charming as they are, acquire new charms, when we confider them as defcriptive of the poet himself and the penitent deftroyer of his domeftic comfort. "Her lowly plight "Immovable, till peace obtain'd from fault It has been faid, that Milton refembled his own Adam in the comelinefs of his perfon; but he seems to have refembled him ftill more in much nobler endowments, and particularly in uniting great tendernefs derness 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 house, to both her parents, and to their numerous family. They were active royalifts, and fell into great diftrefs 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 inftigating his wife to perfift in deferting him. The mother, as Wood intimates, was his greatest enemy, and occafioned the perverse conduct of her daughter. The father, though sumptuous in his mode of life when he first received Milton as his fon-in-law, had never paid the marriage portion of a thousand pounds, according to his agreement, and was now ftript of his property by the prevalence of the party he had oppofed. On persons thus contumelious and culpable towards him, Milton bestowed his favour 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 Alderfgate to a larger house in Barbican, with a view of increafing the number of his fcholars. 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 intereft with the vic"torious party." They left him foon after the death of his father, who ended a very long life, in the year 1647, and not not without the gratification, peculiarly foothing 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 increafed by a daughter, Anne, the eldest of his children, born July 29th, 1646. When his apartments were no longer occupied by the guests, whom he had fo generously received, he admitted more fcholars; but their number was fmall, and Philips imagines, that he was induced to withdraw himself from the business of education by a profpect of being appointed adjutant general in Sir William Waller's army: whatever might have been the motive for his change of life, he quitted his large house in Barbican for a smaller in Holborn, among those (says his nephew) that open back"wards into Lincoln's Inn Fields," where he lived, according to the fame author, in great privacy, and perpetually engaged in a variety of ftudies. Three years elapfed without any new publication from his pen; a filence which the various affecting occurrences in his family would naturally produce. In 1649 he published The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates; and in his fummary account of his own writings, he relates the time and occafion of this performance. He declares, that without any perfonal malevolence against the deceafed monarch, who had been tried and executed before this publi'cation appeared, it was written to compofe the minds of the people, difturbed by the duplicity and turbulence of certain presbyterian ministers, who affected to confider the fentence against the king as contrary to the the principles of every proteftant church, " a falfe"hood (fays Milton) which, without inveighing against Charles, I refuted by the testimony of their "most eminent theologians *." His obfervations on the articles of peace between the Earl of Ormond and the Irish papists appeared in the fame year; a performance that he probably thought too inconfiderable to enumerate in his own account of what he had published; it includes, however, fome remarkably keen strictures on a letter written by Ormond, to tempt Colonel Jones, the governor of Dublin, to defert the Parliament, who had intrufted him with his command. Ormond, having imputed to the prevailing party in England a defign to establish a perfect Turkish.tyranny, Milton, with great dexterity, turns the expreffion against Ormond, obferving, that the design of bringing in * Tum verò tandem, cùm prefbyteriani quidam miniftri, Carolo priùs infeftiffimi, nunc independentium partes fuis anteferri, et in fenatu plus poffe indignantes, parliamenti fententiæ de rege late (non facto irati, fed quod ipforum factio non feciffet) reclamitarent, et quantum in ipfis erat tumultuarentur, aufi affirmare proteftantium doctrinam, omnefque ecclefias reformatas ab ejufmodi in reges atroci fententiâ abhorrere, ratus falfitati tam apertæ palam eundem obviàm effe, ne tum quidem de Carolo. quicquam fcripfi aut fuafi, fed quid in genere contra tyrannos liceret, adductis haud paucis fummorum theologorum teftimoniis oftendi ; et infignem hominum meliora profitentium, five ignorantiam five impudentiam propè concionabundus inceffi. Liber ifte non nifi poft mortem regis prodiit, ad componendos potius hominum animos factus, quam ad ftatuendum de Carolo quicquam, quod non mea, fed magiftratuum intererat, et peractum jam tum erat.-Profe works, vol. ii. p. 385. that |