thority, that he concludes with the following expressions of confidence and triumph:

"Henceforth let them, who condemn the assertion of this book for new and licentious, be sorry, lest, while they think to be of the graver sort, and take on them to be teachers, they expose themselves rather to be pledged up and down by men who intimately know them, to the discovery and contempt of their ignorance and presumption."

I have dwelt the longer on this subject, because it occupied so deeply the mind and heart of Milton. In these treatises the energy of his language, is very striking; it forcibly proves how keenly he felt the anguish of connubial infelicity, and how ardently he labored to remove from himself and others that "secret affliction" (to use one of his own expressive phrases) " of an unconscionable size to human strength."

He argues, indeed, for what the majority of modern legislators and divines have thought inconsistent with sound morality and true religion; but they, who deem his

arguments inconclusive, may yet admire the powers and the probity of the advocate. His view of the question is as extensive and liberal as his intention was pure and benevolent: if a few words of our Saviour, in their literal sense, are against him, the spirit of the gospel may be thought, by sincere Christians, to allow him all the latitude for which he contends; the most rigid opponent of his doctrine may be frequently charmed with his rich vein of fervid eloquence and christian philanthropy.

His three publications on divorce were followed by Colasterion, a reply to a nameless answer against his doctrine. This work is an angry invective, in which he endeavours, but not happily, to overwhelm his antagonist with ridicule.

In the account which he gives of his own compositions, in his Second Defence, he speaks of his treatise on divorce, as forming a part of his progressive labour to vindicate liberty in various points of view; he considered it in three different shapes, ecclesiastical, domestic, and civil; he thought

it of high moment to establish a more enlarged system of domestic liberty, at a time when connubial discord was so common, in consequence of civil dissension; when to use his own forcible expression, alluding probably to his particular situation, "the wife might be found in the camp of the enemy, threatening ruin and slaughter to her husband." He seems to exult in saying, that his doctrine of divorce was most abundantly demonstrated, about two years after his publication, by the illustrious Selden, in his Uxor Hebræa.*

* Cum itaque tres omnino animadverterem libertatis esse species, quæ nisi adsint, vita ulla transigi commodè vix possit, ecclesiasticam, domesticam, seu privatam, atque civilem, 'deque primâ jam scripsissem, deque tertia magistratum sedulò agere viderem, quæ reliqua secunda erat, domesticam mihi desumpsi; ea quoque tripartita, cum videretur esse, si res conjugalis, si liberorum institutio recte se haberet, si denique libere philosophandi potestas esset, de conjugio non solum rite contrahendo, verum etiam, si necesse esset, dissolvendo, quid sentirem explicui; idque ex divinâ lege, quam Christus non sustulit, nedum aliam, tota lege Mosaicâ graviorem civiliter sanxit: quid item de exceptâ solum

Those who love not Milton, affect to speak scornfully of his writings on this subject, and intimate, that they were received at first with universal contempt; but this was far from being the case; they were applauded by many, on whose judgment the author set the highest value, though they were made a source of indecent mirth by the vulgar; and we may reasonably conclude it was this circumstance that induced him to wish he had written them in Latin. To the low ribaldry, with which they were attacked, he alludes in the sonnet, celebrated for the following admirable lines on the hypocritical or intemperate assertors of liberty, fornicatione sentiendum sit, et meam aliorumque sententiam expromsi, et clarissimus vir Seldenus noster, in Uxore Hebræâ plús minús biennio póst editâ, uberius demonstravit. Frustrà enim libertatem in comitiis et foro crepat, qui domi servitutem viro indignissimam, inferiori etiam servit; eâ igitur de re aliquot libros edidi; eo præsertim tempore cúm vir sæpe et conjux, hostes inter se acerrimi, hic domi cum liberis, illa in castris hostium materfamilias versaretur, viro cædem atque perniciem minitans.-Prose Works, vol. 2. p. 385. quarto.

That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood, And still revolt, when truth would set them free; Licence they mean, when they cry liberty,

For who loves that, must first be wise and good.

This noble sentiment he has inculcated more than once in prose; and as his life was in harmony with his precept, it might have taught his enemies to avoid the gross absurdity of representing him as the lover of anarchy and confusion. Never was a mind better constituted, than Milton's, to set a just value on the prime blessings of peace and order; if he ran into political errors, they arose not from any fondness for scenes of turbu lence, but rather from his generous credulity respecting the virtue of mankind; from believing that many hypocrites, who affected a wish to establish peace and order in his country, on what he esteemed the surest foundation, were as sincere and disinterested as himself.

"From this time (says Johnson) it is observed, that he became an enemy to the Presbyterians, whom he had favored before.