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But while he was engaged in this controversy of divorce, he was not fo totally engaged in it, but he attended to other things; and about this time published his letter of Education to Mr. Samuel Hartlib, who wrote some things about husbandry, and was a man of confiderable learning, as appears from the letters which paffed between him and the famous Mr. Mede, and from Sir William Petty's and Pell the mathematician's writing to him, the former his treatife for the Advancement of fome particular parts of learning, and the latter his Idea of the Mathematics, as well as from this letter of our author. This letter of our author has usually been printed at the end of his poems, and is as I may fay the theory of his own practice; and by the rules which he has laid down for education we fee in fome measure the method that he pursued in educating his own pupils. And in 1644 he published his Areopagitica or Speech for the liberty of unlicenced printing to the Parlament of England. It was written at the defire of feveral learned men, and is perhaps the best vindication, that has been published at any time or in any language, of that liberty which is the bafis and fupport of all other liberties, the liberty of the prefs: but alas it had not the defired effect; for the Prefbyterians were as fond of exercifing the licensing power, when they got it into their own hands, as they had been clamorous before in inveighing against it, while it was in the hands of the Prelates. And Mr. Toland is mistaken in saying, "that fuch was "the effect of this piece, that the following year "Mabol a licencer offered reafons against licencing; " and at his own request was discharged that office." VOL. I.

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For neither was the licencer's name Mabol, but Gilbert Mabbot; neither was he discharged from his office till May 1649, about five years afterwards, tho' probably he might be fwayed by Milton's arguments, as every ingenuous perfon muft, who perufes and confiders them. And in 1645 was published a collection of his poems, Latin and English, the principal of which are On the morning of Chrift's nativity, L'Allegro, Il Penferofo, Lycidas, the Mask &c &c: and if he had left no other monuments of his poetical genius behind him, these would have been fufficient to have rendered his name immortal.

But without doubt his Doctrin of Divorce and the maintenance of it principally engaged his thoughts at this period; and whether others were convinced or not by his arguments, he was certainly convinced himself that he was in the right; and as a proof of it he determined to marry again, and made his addreffes to a young lady of great wit and beauty, one of the daughters of Dr. Davis. But intelligence of this coming to his wife, and the then declining state of the King's caufe, and confequently of the circumftances of Juftice Powell's family, caufed them to fet all engins on work to reftore the wife again to her husband. And his friends too for different reafons feem to have been as defirous of bringing about a reconciliation as her's, and this method of effecting it was concerted between them. He had a relation, one Blackborough, living in the lane of St. Martin's Le Grand, whom he often vifited; and one day when he was vifiting there, it was contrived that the wife fhould be ready in another room; and as he was thinking of nothing lefs, he was furprised to

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fee her, whom he had expected never to have feen any more, falling down upon her knees at his feet, and imploring his forgiveness with tears.

At first he fhowed fome figns of averfion, but he continued not long inexorable; his wife's intreaties, and the interceffion of friends on both fides foon wrought upon his generous nature, and procured a happy reconciliation with an act of oblivion of all that was paft. But he did not take his wife home immediately; it was agreed that she should remain at a friend's till the house, that he had newly taken, was fitted for their reception; for fome other gentlemen of his acquaintance, having obferved the great fuccefs of his method of education, had recommended their fons to his care; and his houfe in Alderfgate-ftreet not being large enough, he had taken a larger in Barbican: and till this could be got ready, the place pitched upon for his wife's abode was the widow Webber's house in St. Clement's Churchyard, whofe second daughter had been married to the other brother many years before. The part, that Milton acted in this whole affair, showed plainly that he had a spirit capable of the strongest refentment, but yet more inclinable to pity and forgiveness: and neither in this was any injury done to the other lady, whom he was courting, for fhe is faid to have been always averfe from the motion, not daring I fuppofe to venture in marriage with a man who was known to have a wife ftill living. He might not think himself too at liberty as before, while his wife continued obftinate; for his most plaufible argument for divorce proceeds upon a fuppofition, that the thing be done with mutual confent.

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After his wife's return his family was increafed not only with children, but also with his wife's relations, her father and mother, her brothers and fifters, coming to live with him in the general distress and ruin of the royal party: and he was fo far from refenting their former ill treatment of him, that he generously protected them, and entertained them very hofpitably, till their affairs were accommodated thro' his intereft with the prevailing faction. And then upon their removal, and the death of his own father, his houfe looked again like the houfe of the Mufes: but his ftudies had like to have been interrupted by a call to public bufinefs; for about this time there was a defign of conftituting him Adjutant General in the army under Sir William Waller; but the new modeling of the army foon following, that defign was laid afide. And not long after, his great house in Barbican being now too large for his family, he quitted it for a fmaller in High Holborn, which opened backward into Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he profecuted his ftudies till the King's trial and death, when the Prefbyterians declaming tragically against the King's execution, and afferting that his perfon was facred and inviolable, provoked him to write the Tenure of Kings and Magiftrates, proving that it is lawful to call a tyrant to account and to depofe and put him to death, and that they who of late fo much blame depofing are the men who did it themselves: and he published it at the beginning of the year 1649, to fatisfy and compofe the minds of the people. Not long after this he wrote his Obfervations on the articles of peace between the Earl of Ormond and the Irish rebels. And in these and

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all his writings, whatever others of different parties may think, he thought himself an advocate for true liberty, for ecclefiaftical liberty in his treatises against the bishops, for domeftic liberty in his books of divorce, and for civil liberty in his writings against the king in defense of the parlament and people of England.

After this he retired again to his private ftudies; and thinking that he had leisure enough for fuch a work, he applied himself to the writing of a History of England, which he intended to deduce from the earliest accounts down to his own times: and he had finished four books of it, when neither courting nor expecting any fuch preferment, he was invited by the Council of State to be their Latin Secretary for foreign affairs, And he ferved in the fame capacity under Oliver, and Richard, and the Rump, till the Restoration; and without doubt a better Latin pen could not have been found in the kingdom. For the Republic and Cromwell fcorned to pay that tribute to any foreign prince, which is ufually paid to the French king, of managing their affairs in his language; they thought it an indignity and meannefs, to which this or any free nation ought not to fubmit; and took a noble refolution neither to write any letters to any foreign ftates, nor to receive any answers from them, but in the Latin tongue, which was common to them all. And it would have been well, if fucceeding princes had followed their example; for in the opinion of very wife men, the univerfality of the French language will make way for the univerfality of the French monarchy.

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