half a dozen than two or three: and he, who could not eafily deny any thing to his friends, and who knew that the greatest men in all ages had delighted in teaching others the principles of knowledge and virtue, undertook the office, not out of any fordid and mercenary views, but merely from a benevolent difpofition, and a defire to do good. And his method of education was as much above the pedantry and jargon of the common schools, as his genius was fuperior to that of a common school-mafter. One of his nephews has given us an account of the many authors both Latin and Greek, which (befides those ufually read in the schools) thro' his excellent judgment and way of teaching were run over within no greater compass of time, than from ten to fifteen or fixteen years of age. Of the Latin the four authors concerning husbandry, Cato, Varro, Columella, and palladius, Cornelius Celfus the physician, a great part of Pliny's Natural History, the Architecture of Vitruvius, the Stratagems of Frontinus, and the philofophical poets Lucretius and Manilius. Of the Greek Hefiod, Aratus's Phænomena and Diofemeia, Dionyfius Afer de fitu orbis, Oppian's Cynegetics and Halieutics, Quintus Calaber's poem of the Trojan war continued from Homer, Apollonius Rhodius's Argonautics, and in prose Plutarch's Placita philofophorum, and of the education of children, Zenophon's Cyropædia and Anabafis, AElian's Tactics, and the ftratagems of Polyænus. Nor did this application to the Greek and Latin tongues hinder the attaining to the chief oriental languages, the Hebrew, Chaldee and Syriac, fo far as to go thro' the Pentateuch or five books of Mofes in Hebrew, to make a good entrance into the Targum or Chaldee paraphrase, and to understand several chapters of St. Matthew in the Syriac Teftament; befides the modern languages, Italian and French, and a competent knowledge of the mathematics and aftronomy. The Sunday's exercife for his pupils was for the most part to read a chapter

of

It was

of the Greek Teftament, and to hear his learned expofition of it. The next work after this was to write from his dictation fome part of a fyftem of divinity, which he had collected from the ableft divines, who had written upon that subject. Such were his academic inftitutions; and thus by teaching others he in fome measure inlarged his own knowledge; and having the reading of fo many authors as it were by proxy, he might poffibly have preferved his fight, if he had not moreover been perpetually bufied in reading or writing something himself. certainly a very reclufe and ftudious life, that both he and his pupils led; but the young men of that age were of a different turn from those of the prefent; and he himself gave an example to thofe under him of hard ftudy and fpare diet; only now and then, once in three weeks or a month, he made a gaudy day with fome young gentlemen of his acquaintance, the chief of whom, fays Mr. Phillips, were Mr. Alphry and Mr. Miller, both of Gray's-Inn, and two of the greatest beaus of thofe times.

But he was not fo fond of this academical life, as to be an indifferent fpectator of what was acted upon the public ftage of the world. The nation was now in a great ferment in 1641, and the clamor run high against the bishops, when he joined loudly in the cry, to help the puritan minifters, (as he fays himself in his fecond Defense) they being inferior to the bishops in learning and eloquence; and published his two books, Of Reformation in England, written to a friend. About the same time certain minifters having published a treatise against epifcopacy, in answer to the Humble Remonftrance of Dr. Jofeph Hall Bishop of Norwich, under the title of Smedtymnuus, a word confifting of the initial letters of their names, Stephen Marshal, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurftow; and Archbishop Ufher having published at Oxford a refutation of Smectymnuus, in a tract concerning the Ori

ginal of Bishops and Metropolitans; Milton wrote his little piece Of Prelatical Episcopacy, in oppofition chiefly to Ufher, for he was for contending with the most powerful adversary; there would be either lefs difgrace in the defeat, or more glory in the victory. He handled the subject more at large in his next performance, which was the Reason of Church Government urged against Prelacy, in two books. And Bishop Hall having publifhed a Defense of the Humble Remonftrance, he wrote Animadverfions upon it. All these treatises he published within the course of one year, 1641, which show how very diligent he was in the cause that he had undertaken. And the next year he set forth his Apology for Smectymnuus, in answer to the Confutation of his Animadverfions, written as he thought himself by Bishop Hall or his fon. And here very luckily ended a controversy, which detained him from greater and better writings which he was meditating, more useful to the public, as well as more fuitable to his own genius and inclination: but he thought all this while that he was vindicating ecclefiaftical liberty.

In the year 1643, and the 35th of his age, he married; and indeed his family was now growing so numerous, that it wanted a mistress at the head of it. His father, who had lived with his younger fon at Reading, was, upon the taking of that place by the forces under the Earl of Effex, neceffitated to come and live in London with this his elder fon, with whom he continued in tranquility and devotion to his dying day. Some addition too was to be made to the number of his pupils. But before his father or his new pupils were come, he took a journey in the Whitfuntide vacation, and after a month's absence returned with a wife, Mary the eldest daughter of Mr. Richard Powell, of Forefthill near Shotover in Oxfordshire, a justice of the peace, and a gentleman of good repute and figure in that county. But fhe had not cohabited with her husband above a month, before she was

earnestly folicited by her relations to come and spend the remaining part of the fummer with them in the country. If it was not at her inftigation that her friends made this request, yet at leaft it was agreeable to her inclination; and fhe obtained her husband's confent upon a promise of returning at Michaelmas. And in the mean while his studies went on very vigorously; and his chief diversion, after the bufinefs of the day, was now and then in an evening to vifit the Lady Margaret Lee, daughter of the Earl of Malborough, Lord High Treasurer of England, and Prefident of the Privy Council to King James I. This Lady, being a woman of excellent wit and understanding, had a particular honor for our author, and took great delight in his converfation; as likewife did her hufbandCaptain Hobfon, a very accomplished gentleman.And what a regard Milton again had for her, he has left upon record in a fonnet to her praise, extent among his other poems.

Michaelmas was now come, but he heard nothing of his wife's return. He wrote to her, but received no answer. He wrote again letter after letter, but received no answer to any of them. He then dispatched a messenger with a letter, defiring her to return; but she pofitively refused, and dismissed the messenger with contempt. Whether it was, that fhe had conceived any diflike to her husband's perfon or humor; or whether the could not conform to his retired and philofophical manner of life, having been accustomed to a house of much gaiety and company; or whether being of a family strongly attached to the royal caufe, fhe could not bear her hufband's republican principles; or whether she was overperfuaded by her relations, who poffibly might repent of having matched the eldest daughter of the family to a man so distinguished for taking the contrary party, the King's head-quarters being in their neighbourhood at Oxford, and his Majefty having now some fairer prospect of

fuc

fuccefs; whether any or all of these were the reasons of this extraordinary behavior; however it was, it so highly incensed her husband, that he thought it would be difhonorable ever to receive her again after such a repulfe, and he determined to repudiate her as she had in effect repudiated him, and to confider her no longer as his wife. And to fortify this his refolution, and at the same time to justify it to the world, he wrote the Doctrin and Difciplin of Divorce, wherein he endevors to prove, that indifpofition, unfitness, or contrariety of mind, proceeding from any unchangeable cause in nature, hindering and ever likely to hinder the main benefits of conjugal fociety, 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 confent for feperation. He published it at first without his name, but the ftile eafily betrayed the author; and afterwards a second edition, much augmented, with his name; and he dedicated it to the Parlament of England with the Affembly of Divines, that as they were then confulting about the general reformation of the kingdom, they might alfo take this particular case of domeftic liberty into their confideration. And then, as it was objected, that his doctrin was a novel notion, and a paradox that no body had ever afferted before, he endevored to confirm his own opinion by the authority of others, and published in 1644 the Judgment of Martin Bucer &c: And as it was ftill objected, that his doctrin could not be reconciled to Scripture, he published in 1645 his Tetrachordon or Expofitions upon the four chief places in Scripture, which treat of marriage, or nullities in marriage. At the first appearing of the Doctrin and Disciplin of Divorce the clergy raised a heavy outcry against it, and daily folicited the Parlament to pafs fome cenfure upon it; and at last one of them, in a fermon preached before the Lords and Commons on a day of humiliation in August 1644, roundly told them, that there