termined to turn my attention to the second, or the domestic species. As this seemed to involve three material questions, the condition of the conjugal tie, the education of children, and the free publication of thought, I made them objects of distinct consideration.”

We now come to his Four Treatises on the subject of Marriage and Divorce. The circumstances of his marriage are well known. Its imprudence is astonishing, but it is less so to find that his wife's wanton outrage should have been the occasion of these extraordinary productions. It is true they originated in his own misfortune, yet in such times there must have been numbers in the same predicament with himself; and his honest pleadings on behalf of domestic liberty, were perhaps as seasonable, as they are, whatever we may think of his principles, undoubtedly eloquent; and their effect was far from inconsiderable. He evidently regarded them as not the least of his labours on behalf of liberty.

"I explained my sentiments, not only on the solemnization of the marriage, but the dissolution, if circumstances rendered it necessary; and I drew my arguments from the divine law, which Christ did not abolish, or publish another more grievous than that of Moses. I stated my own opinions, and those of others, concerning the exclusive exception of fornication, which our illustrious Selden has since, in his Hebrew Wife, more copiously discussed: for he in vain makes a vaunt of liberty in the senate or in the forum who languishes under the vilest servitude to an inferior at home. On this subject therefore I published some books, which were more particularly necessary at that time, when man and wife were often the most inveterate foes, when the man often staid to take care of his children at home, while the mother of the family was seen in the camp of the enemy, threatening death and destruction to her husband."

This was his case, his wife's friends were royalists, and she deserted him only one month after marriage, on the plea of revisiting them. He determined to repudiate her, and to justify his resolution, published in the year 1644 his "Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, restored to the good of both sexes," and dedicated it to the parliament and the Assembly of Divines, in order that, as they were busy about the general reformation of the kingdom, they might also take this matter into consideration. "If the wisdom, the justice, the purity of God, be to be cleansed from the foulest imputations, which are not to be avoided, if charity be not to be degraded, and trodden down under a civil ordinance, if matrimony be not to be advanced like that exalted perdition, above all that is called God, or goodness, nay, against them both, then I dare affirm, there will be found in the contents of this book that which may concern us all." He declares his object to be to prove, first, That other reasons of divorce besides adultery were, by the law of Moses, and are yet to be, allowed by the christian magistrate, as a piece of justice, and that the words of Christ are not hereby contraried: next, That to prohibit absolutely any divorce whatever, except those which Moses excepted, is against the reason of law. The grand position is this: That indisposition, unfitness, or contrariety of mind, arising from a cause in nature, unchangeable, hindering, and ever likely to hinder, the main benefits of conjugal society, which are solace and peace; is a greater reason of divorce than adultery, or natural frigidity, provided there be a mutual consent for separation. He makes out a strong primá facie case; but in so nice and difficult an argument, conducted so learnedly, by so splendid a casuist, and in the due and orderly method of division and subdivision so punctiliously observed in his time, analysis would be both ridiculous and useless. It will be read, were it merely for the sake of quickening and sharpening the mind by its prodigious subtlety and acuteness, as an intellectual exercise; but it will be found much easier to deny his conclusions than to refute his arguments. Never was a greater mass of learning brought to bear upon a point, a mere point, of dispute. The context of the Scriptures, the letter and the spirit, and the scope of every passage touching the topic in hand, the laws of the first Christian emperors, the opinions of reformers, are adduced, for the purpose of

demonstrating that by the laws of God, and by the inferences drawn from them by the most enlightened men, the power of divorce ought not to be rigidly restricted to those causes which render the nuptial state unfruitful, or taint it with a spurious offspring. Regarding mutual support and comfort as the principal objects of this union, he contends that whatever defrauds it of these ends, vitiates the contract, and must necessarily justify the dissolution. "What therefore God hath joined, let no man put asunder." "But here the Christian prudence lies, to consider what God hath joined. Shall we say that God hath joined error, fraud, unfitness, wrath, contention, perpetual loneliness, perpetual discord? Whatever lust, or wine, or witchery, threat or enticement, avarice or ambition, have joined together, faithful with unfaithful, Christian with anti-christian, hate with hate, or hate with love, shall we say this is God's joining?"

This book kindled the fury of the presbyterians; and the bigots, unmindful of his services in the common cause, attempted to fix the most serious charges on his character, and bring him under the censure of parliament. He was actually summoned before the house of lords, but was honourably dismissed. This was not the way to put John Milton down. The parliament preachers rated at him, and his opponents grew more clamorous. He therefore published the "Tetrachordon, or Exposition of the four chief places in Scripture which treat of Nullities in Marriage," and dedicated it to parliament; confirming by explanation of Scripture, by testimony of ancient fathers, of civil law in the primitive church, of famousest protestant divines, and lastly, by an intended act of the parliament and church of England in the last year of Edward IV. the doctrines of his former book.

The clamour with which this and the preceding work were received by his quondam associates, led to the following sonnets.

A book was writ of late call'd Tetrachordon,

And woven close, both matter, form, and style;
The subject new: it walked the town awhile,
Numb'ring good intellects; now seldom por'd on.
Cries the stall reader, Bless us! what a word on
A title page is this! and some in file
Stand spelling false, while one might walk to Mile-
End Green. Why is it harder, sirs, than Gordon,
Colkitto, or Macdonnel, or Galasp?

Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek,
That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp;

Thy age, like our's, O soul of Sir John Cheek,

Hated not learning worse than toad or asp,

When thou taught'st Cambridge, and King Edward, Greek.

I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs,
By the known rules of ancient liberty;
When straight a barbarous noise environs me,
Of owls, and cuckoos, asses, apes, and dogs :

As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs
Rail'd at Latona's twin-born progeny,
Which after held the sun and moon in fee.
But this is got by casting pearls to hogs,
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 :
But from that mark how far they rove we see,
For all this waste of wealth, and loss of blood.

The next piece he published on this subject was " The Judgment of the famous Martin Bucer touching Divorce." Bucer exactly agrees with Milton, though the latter had not seen his book till after the publication of his own. Paulus Fagius, Peter Martyr, Erasmus, and

Grotius, are shown to have adopted the same opinion. Perhaps Bucer's doctrines respecting this question, may have been not a little influenced in writing to Edward VI. by the conduct of that monarch's father. In the postscript to this pamphlet, the author quits for ever the camp of the presbyterian party,

"whom mutual league,

United thoughts and councils, equal hope

And hazard in the glorious enterprise,
Joined with him once!"

His fourth and last work relating to divorce, was his "Colasterion," a reply to a nameless answer to his first work on this doctrine," wherein the trivial author of that answer is discovered, the licenser conferred with, and the opinion, which they traduce, defended." The dull but malicious adversary was taken under the special patronage of Caryl, the licenser, author of the Commentary on Job, for which he is sharply rebuked here, and perhaps more than once referred to in the Areopagitica. In a letter to Leo of Aizema, dated Westminster, Feb. 5, 1654, Milton alludes to this controversy, and, as elsewhere, regrets that he did not publish in Latin.

These treatises are equal to any which he ever wrote. Every page is strewed with felicities, and the mens divinior shines out with a lustre unsurpassed by himself on happier, though not more interesting, themes. "There are many things," saith Sir Thomas Brown," wherein the liberty of an honest reason may play and expatiate with security, and far without the circle of an heresie."

"I then discussed the principles of education in a summary manner, but sufficiently copious for those who attend seriously to the subject; than which nothing can be more necessary to principle the minds of men in virtue, the only genuine source of political and individual liberty, the only true safeguard of states, the bulwark of their prosperity and

renown."

His tractate 99 on Education was published in 1644, the year when he entered into the heart-rending controversy concerning divorce, and it was dedicated to the remarkable individual at whose request it was written. Notwithstanding the sneers of Johnson, and other ushers and schoolmasters, at this noble scheme, we do hope that the country will, at no distant period, realize it. The plan is not for private individuals to attempt to carry into effect; but an enlightened government, with the vast collegiate resources of England at its disposal, might, without injuring existing establishments, place an academical institute on this ideal platform in every county. We may derive pleasure and instruction, from looking at this beautiful and benevolent production, as the history of the great author's own mind, as well as a chart for the guidance of others, and in this point of view it throws light on his character, and enlarges our estimate of his attainments.

In November, 1644, he published the most beautiful of his treatises, the " Areopagitica; a Speech for the Liberty of unlicensed Printing-to the Parliament of England." It is well known that the art of printing, soon after its introduction into England, was regulated by the king's proclamations, prohibitions, charters of privilege, and of licence, and finally by the decrees of the star chamber; which limited the number of printers, and of presses, and prohibited new publications unless previously approved by proper licensers. On the demolition of this odious jurisdiction by the ever-to-be-remembered long parliament, this system had been suspended. The presbyterian party, however, determined to revive the "imprimatur" of the star chamber, and it was against one of the orders made for this purpose, that Milton directed this famous argument, modelled after the classical examples of the Greek rhetors. It is thoroughly Grecian-the motto is taken from his favourite Euripides, and happily translated by himself. Having been frequently reprinted separately

.

in England, and through the French of Mirabeau's tract, “Sur la liberté de la Presse imité de l'Anglais, de Milton," obtained a modern continental celebrity, it is comparatively a popular pamphlet. James Thomson, author of "The Seasons," published an 8vo edition of it in 1738, when the freedom of the press was considered in danger; and in this poet's "Liberty," "the art of printing" is celebrated with elaborate praise. The separate edition of this transcendent pamphlet under the auspicious editorship of Holt White, Esq., is the most correct and valuable which has yet appeared. John Milton was the first man who asserted the liberty of unlicensed printing. The subject called forth all his powers, and he appears to have written every word under the impression, that every word would be weighed and read, not only by the statesmen whom he addressed, but hy those of succeeding ages. Its importance, and the most illustrious tribunal before which he pleaded, never daunted him, but while he approached the august assemblage with the mien and countenance of a freeman, his discourse is at once rhetorical and deliberative, blending the fire of the orator with the wisdom of the sage. The "quid decet" is most admirably observed. He was pleading before no rabble-the greatest geniuses for government which the world ever saw, were the arbiters of his eloquence :-men who had been triumphant in battle, and were mighty in council. The vehemence, the disdain, the terrible wrath of controversy, disappear, and in their stead we have such an exquisite union and interpenetration of the sublime and the pathetic, of the passionate and the rationative, of persuasion and argument, of subdued ecstasy and sober energy, of religion, and philosophy, and policy, all involved in a copious stream of such a wonderful language, as never before, and certainly never since, poured from the lips of ancient or of modern oratory. With the exception of the historical digressions, it is perhaps faultless, and they will be excused, when it is remembered that he stood alone,—and, as Bacon said of Luther, he was obliged in his solitude to make a party of antiquity against his own time.

In the outset of the Areopagitica, he expresses the "joy and gratulation which it brings to all who wish to promote their country's liberty," to approach them-he tells them that "when complaints are fully heard, deeply considered, and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained,"-that in permitting him to address them, it was evident that they are "in good part arrived to this complete point," and attributes praise to God, and next to " their faithful guidance and undaunted wisdom," he craves leave to refer to his eulogium on their first acts as a proof that he estimates their merits, and that the present occasion demonstrates his fidelity, as the former did "his loyalest affection and his hope." He appears before them to tell them "that it would fare better with truth, with learning, and the commonwealth, if one of their published orders were called in,"—that it would prove that they are more pleased with "public advice" than other statists with "public flattery,"—" that men will then see the difference between the magnanimity of a triennial parliament, and that jealous haughtiness of prelates and cabin councillors, that usurped of late, whereas they shall observe them in the midst of their victories and successes, more quietly brooking written exceptions against a voted order, than other courts," ""the least signified dislike of any sudden proclamation." He is thus imboldened" to presume upon the meek demeanour of their civil and gentle greatness,"—and by the consideration that in ancient days men who professed the study of wisdom and eloquence, though private, were heard gladly," if they had ought in public to admonish the state," he would be "thought not so inferior to any of those who had this privilege, as the parliament was superior to the most of them who received their counsel;"" and how far you excel them, be assured, lords and commons, there can no greater testimony appear than when your prudent spirit acknowledges and obeys the voice of reason from what quarter soever it be heard speaking; and renders ye as willing to repeal any act of your own setting forth, as any set forth by your predecessors." But analysis is impossible. The topics which he urges embrace the

whole controversy, and are exhausted. The collateral excursions from the main positions of his argument are, as usual, profoundly instructive, and incomparably beautiful. Toleration of all opinions is the grand centre to which all the lines of illustration and of exposition point, and in which they all harmoniously meet. The bare question of licensing is apparently a dry one-but his digressions embrace a most comprehensive circuit. The Areopagitica is a fine illustration of that wonderful aggressive vigour, by which the author's possession of the most inconsiderable position becomes a key to the most splendid conquest-the pass of triumph-the punctum saliens, whence,

It is John Milton's masterpiece.

in mighty quadrate join'd Of union irresistible, move on In silence his bright legions.

This was his last work under the division of civil liberty, and he thus writes of it: Lastly, I wrote my Areopagitica, on the model of a set speech, in order to relieve the press from the restraints with which it was encumbered; that the power of determining what was true, and what was false, what ought to be published, and what to be suppressed, might no longer be intrusted to a few illiterate and illiberal individuals, who refused their sanction to any work which contained views or sentiments at all above the level of the vulgar superstition."

It was not till the year 1694, that the press was properly free. The office of licenser was abolished during the usurpation of Cromwell.

'On the last species, or civil liberty I said nothing; because I saw that sufficient attention was paid to it by the magistrates; nor did I write any thing on the prerogative of the crown, till the king, voted an enemy by the parliament, and vanquished in the field, was summoned before the tribunal which condemned him to lose his head. But when at length some presbyterian ministers, who had formerly been the most bitter enemies of Charles, became jealous of the growth of the independents, and of their ascendency in the parliament, most tumultuously clamoured against the sentence, and did all in their power to prevent the execution, though they were not angry, so much on account of the act itself, as because it was not the act of their party; and when they dared to affirm, that the doctrine of the protestants, and of all the reformed churches, was abhorrent to such an atrocious proceeding against kings, I thought that it became me to oppose such a glaring falsehood, and accordingly, without any immediate or personal application to Charles, I shewed, in an abstract consideration of the question, what might lawfully be done against tyrants; and support of what I advanced, produced the opinions of the most celebrated divines; while I vehemently inveighed against the egregious ignorance or effrontery of men, who professed better things, and from whom better things might have been expected."

66 rather to reconcile

This first purely political work of Milton's made its appearance some few weeks after the execution of Charles; and was written, as he further informs us, the minds of men to the event, than to discuss the legitimacy of that particular sentence, which concerned the magistracy, and which was already executed."

Charles's criminality is admitted on all hands, and the only questions relate either to the expediency of the sentence, or the competency of the tribunal which pronounced it. Whatever may be thought of the former question, (and we are of opinion, that the step they took in carrying, against public opinion, even that just sentence, which described the king as a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy," into execution, was eventually as fatal to themselves as the royal rebel,) we must remember that the deed was done, and could not be undone, and that therefore the real question was the last one, and this work of Milton's is confined to it. Guilt being proved against the first person in the state, who is