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parents with insult. How unwise the father was his money dealings show. In June 1644 John Hampden had received his death wound in Chalgrove Field, and at the end of the month Fairfax had been defeated by the Earl of Newcastle at Atherton Moor. The prospects of the Parliament were clouded, and Richard Powell might have been ready to throw off a son-in-law upon the losing side. But next year, when the King's cause was lost at Naseby, Milton's wife was bidden to seek reconciliation with him. They who had withheld her now returned her. It is no discredit to a girl of eighteen that her father and mother have great influence over her mind. Milton received her back at once. She became the mother of his children, and remained with him until her death. When Milton married, it hardly needs to be said that his mind was drawn to the subject of marriage. In July 1643—within the first month of his marriage-a National Synod first met at Westminster, known as the Westminster Assembly, for the purpose of settling the government and form of worship of the Church. There were in the Assembly 121 divines, with ten members of the House of Lords, and twenty of the House of Commons, as lay assessors. The time was then for the suggestion of reform, and Milton was prompted by his own experience to write that treatise of the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce which follows next in this volume, and was, in fact, written to win acceptance of a more spiritual view of marriage than the Church law recognised.

This treatise was published in 1644, and other pieces followed in reply to its opponents. Meanwhile Milton was busy in his school; and in the same year he wrote, at the request of Samuel Hartlib, the letter which next follows in this volume, sketching his ideal of a reformed system of education. Samuel Hartlib was of a good Polish family, and had come to England in 1640 with money that he spent for the public good. His interest was great in questions of religious liberty, of national education for the rich and for the poor, of the improvement of agriculture; and he soon had Milton among his friends. He had translated in 1642, from the Latin of a Moravian pastor, John Amos Komensky, two treatises on "A Reformation of Schooles." Milton thought

that there was much room for improvement in the higher education of an Englishman, and Hartlib asked him to sketch an ideal of his own.

XBut the chief care of Milton as a writer in 1644 was bestowed upon his "Areopagitica." On the 11th of July 1637 a decree of the Star Chamber had increased strictness of licensing. It had contained formally the limitation of the whole numbers of Master Printers to twenty and of type founders to four, with strict provisions for watching, searching, seizing, and suppressing. The Star Chamber was abolished, but on the 9th of March 1643 an Order of the House of Commons gave to a Committee for Examinations, or to any four of them, like power. Taking as his model a Greek oration, the Areopagitic discourse in which Isocrates sought to press on the Athenian Areopagus reform in its body-Milton, whose aim was to persuade the English Areopagus to cancel one of its own Orders, gave the name of Areopagitica to his defence of the liberty of unlicensed printing. It was published in November 1644.

Milton took no part in the contest with the King. When it was over, there was question of a people's right to bring a king to trial. He then published what is the next piece in this volume, "The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates" upon the main issue in the constitutional question of a king's responsibility. A subject can be tried for treason to a king; can also a king be tried for treason to his people, and condemned if he be guilty. From 1649 to 1689 the problem of the limit of authority was at the heart of much of our best literature, and this is Milton's way of answering it.

Here we might end, but the last section of this volume serves to show that, ten years later, Milton's argument for Civil and Religious Liberty stood firm among the ruins of the Commonwealth. H. M.

CARISBROOKE, September, 1889.

GOD AND MAN.

D

Henceforth I learn that to obey is best,
And love with fear the only God; to walk
As in His Presence; ever to observe
His Providence, and on Him sole depend,
Merciful over all His Works, with Good
Still overcoming Evil, and by small

Accomplishing great things, by things deemed weak
Subverting worldly strong, and worldly wise

By simply meek; that Suffering for Truth's sake

Is Fortitude to highest Victory,

And to the faithful Death the gate of Life.

Only add

Deeds to thy Knowledge answerable: add Faith,
Add Virtue, Patience, Temperance; add Love,
By name to come called Charity, the Soul

Of all the rest.

-Paradise Lost, Book xii.

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SIR,

THE FIRST BOOK.

IR,-Amidst those deep and retired thoughts which with every man Christianly instructed ought to be most frequent, of God and of his miraculous ways and works amongst men, and of our Religion and works to be performed to him; after the story of our Saviour Christ, suffering to the lowest bent of weakness in the flesh, and presently triumphing to the highest pitch of glory in the spirit, which drew up his body also, till we in both be united to him in the revelation of his kingdom, I do not know of anything more worthy to take up the whole passion of pity on the one side, and joy on the other, than to consider first the foul and sudden corruption, and then, after many a tedious age, the long deferred but much more wonderful and happy Reformation of the Church in these latter days. Sad it is to think how that doctrine of the Gospel, planted by teachers divinely inspired, and by them winnowed and sifted from the chaff of overdated ceremonies, and refined to such a spiritual height and temper of purity and

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