Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 38.djvu/36

Milton of the ‘Areopagitica’ to rank as the best, as it is clearly the most popular, of Milton's prose works, has been disputed by the jealous admirers of others. The popularity, no doubt due in part to the subject, is also to be ascribed to the greater equability and clearness of the style. If he does not soar to quite such heights, there are fewer descents and contortions, and it remains at a high level of lofty eloquence. In the following December the House of Lords, in the course of some proceedings about an alleged libel, were invited by the wardens of the Stationers' Company to examine Milton. An examination was ordered accordingly, but nothing more is said of it. Milton ended his writings upon divorce by two more pamphlets, both published 4 March 1644-5 the ‘Tetrachordon,’ a ‘proof’ that the four chief passages in the Bible which relate to divorce confirm his views; and the ‘Colasterion,’ intended as a castigation of Joseph Caryl [q. v.], who had licensed an anonymous answer, with an expression of approval of the anonymous answerer himself, and (briefly) of Prynne, who had attacked him in ‘twelve considerable serious queries.’

A third edition of the treatise on divorce appeared in 1645. Milton, according to Phillips, was proposing to apply his principles by marrying the daughter of a Dr. Davis, who was handsome and witty, but ‘averse to this motion.’ After the separation Milton, as Phillips says, had frequented the house of Lady Margaret Ley, now married to a Colonel Hobson. His fine sonnet to Lady Margaret commemorates this friendship, and that addressed to a ‘virtuous’ (and unmarried) ‘young lady’ shows that he saw some female society.

Meanwhile the ruin of the royal cause had brought the Powells into distress, and they desired to restore his real wife to Milton. They introduced her to the house of a Mr. Blackborough, a relative and neighbour of Milton, and when he paid his usual visit his wife was suddenly brought to him. She begged pardon on her knees, and, after some struggle, he consented to receive her again. Passages in ‘Samson Agonistes’ (725-47) and ‘Paradise Lost’ (bk. x. 937-46) may be accepted as autobiographical reminiscences of his resentment and relenting. She came to him in a new house in the Barbican (now destroyed by a railway), which was larger than that in Aldersgate Street, and therefore more convenient for an increased number of pupils, who were now being pressed upon him. His first child, Anne, was born on 29 July 1646; his second, Mary, on 25 Oct. 1648; his third, John (died in infancy), on 16 March 1650-1; and his last daughter Deborah, on 2 May 1652. His wife died in the same year, probably from the effects of her last confinement.

The surrender of Oxford on 24 June 1646 completed the ruin of the Powells. Powell, already deeply in debt, had surrendered his estate to Sir Robert Pye, to whom it had been mortgaged. The moveable property had been sold under a sequestration, and the timber granted to the parishioners by the House of Commons (, iii. 473 seq., 487). It seems probable that the transaction with Pye involved some friendly understanding, as the Powells subsequently regained the estate. Powell, with his wife and some of his children, came to live with Milton and arrange for a composition. He had hardly completed the arrangement when he died, 1 Jan. 1646-7, leaving a will which proves that his affairs were hopelessly confused, though there were hopes of saving something. Mrs. Powell, who administered to the will, her eldest son declining, left Milton's house soon afterwards (ib. pp. 632-40). She continued to prosecute her claims, which were finally settled in February 1650-1. In the result Milton, in consideration of the old debt from Powell, and 1,000l. which had been promised with his wife, had an ‘extent’ upon the Wheatley estate, valued after the war at 80l. a year, but had to pay Powell's composition, fixed at 130l., and also paid Mrs. Powell's jointure of 26l. 13s. 4d. a year (ib. iv. 81, 236-46). Disputes arose upon this, in the course of which Mrs. Powell said that Milton was a ‘harsh, choleric man,’ and referred to his turning her daughter out of doors. She found the allowance insufficient for eight children. Milton was apparently willing to pay, but differed as to the way in which it was to be charged to the estate (see ib. iii. 632-40, iv. 145-6, 236-46, 336-41, and Original Papers). Milton's father died on 15 March 1646-7, and was buried in the chancel of St. Giles's, Cripplegate. His brother Christopher, who had also taken the royalist side, had to compound, and was in difficulties for some years (, iii. 633). A sonnet addressed to Lawes, dated 9 Feb. 1645-6, and a later correspondence with one of his Italian friends, Carlo Dati, suggest some literary occupation at this time (for the Dati correspondence see the Milton Papers printed for the Chetham Society in 1851 by Mr. J. F. Marsh of Warrington, from manuscripts in his possession). The first edition of his collected poems was published in 1645, the English and Latin being separately paged. An ugly portrait by William Marshall is prefixed, under which Milton, with ingenious malice,