Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/580

 562 MILTON and while pursuing his private studies he devo- ted a part of his time to their education after a peculiar system of his own. He was thus occupied with studying and teaching when he published his first pamphlet. The long parlia- ment met in 1640; Laud and Straff ord were overthrown ; the danger from free speech was removed; and the circumstances of the time offered an invitation to thinkers. Prominent among topics of public interest was that of church reform, and Milton published a vehement attack on the episcopal form of government en- titled " Of Reformation, touching Church Dis- cipline in England, and the Causes that hith- erto have hindered it" (1641). In the same year Bishop Hall of Norwich, at the request of Laud, undertook a defence of episcopacy, and was answered by a combination of five Puritan ministers under the title of Smectym- nuus, a word composed of the initials of their names. Archbishop Usher replied to the Smec- tymnuans, and Bishop Hall published a defence of himself. Milton published two pamphlets in answer to the former, entitled " Of Prelati- cal Episcopacy " and " The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelaty," and a tract in the form of a dialogue entitled "Animad- versions" upon Bishop Hall's defence. The last drew forth an anonymous and slanderous response, attributed to a son of the bishop ; and the controversy was concluded by Milton's "Apology for Smectymnuus" (1642), in which in an eloquent self vindication he gives an in- teresting account of his education, studies, and pursuits, and a eulogy of the long parliament. In 1643 he was resting from controversy, oc- cupied with his pupils, and meditating the great poetic work to which he wished to transfer all his mental power and industry. But in the midst of civil war and of epical contem- plations he contracted a singular marriage. "About Whitsuntide," says Phillips, "he took a journey into the country, nobody about him certainly knowing the reason, or that it was more than a journey of recreation. After a month's stay, home he returns a married man, who set out a bachelor ; his wife being Mary, the eldest daughter of Mr. Richard Powell, then a justice of the peace at Forest Hill, near Shotover, in Oxfordshire." It appears that his father had made a memorandum to him of a debt due from Powell, the larger part of which was never paid ; that his numerous rides to Forest Hill in quest of money resulted only in a matrimonial engagement; that he never received a shilling of the 1,000 promised with his wife ; and that he encountered " a mute and spiritless mate " where he had expected " an intimate and speaking help." Moreover, it was a marriage amid civil conflict between a renowned parliamentarian and a lady of a royalist family. She remained only one month with her husband, and then accepted an invi- tation from her family, probably suggested by herself, to go back and spend some time in the country ; and at a secure distance she treated both the letters and messengers of the poet with contempt, and refused to return. The pleas suggested on her side are that she was used to company and merriment, and dis- liked Milton's "spare diet and hard study;" the poet's chief and singular ground of com- plaint was that his wife would not talk ; it is probable that they simply disliked each other, and that nothing but an imprudent marriage suggested to him "the pious necessity of di- vorcing," even in cases that depend upon " ut- terless facts." Milton came to the conclusion that other reasons, besides those legally ad- mitted, might be sufficient for the dissolution of the nuptial tie, and determined publicly to argue his case. "With the intellectual clearness and boldness which are his special characteris- tics, he pushed his ideas of civil and ecclesias- tical liberty into the realm of the domestic circle ; and he resolutely advanced the doctrine that moral incompatibility as well as conjugal infidelity justifies divorce. It should be noticed that he does not disguise his opinion of the natural inferiority of woman. His publica- tions on this subject are : " The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce restored to the Good of Both Sexes from the Bondage of Common Law " (two editions in 1644) ; " The Judgment of Martin Bucer touching Divorce" (1644), in which he shows that a celebrated contem- porary of King Edward VI. had been of the same opinion as himself ; " Tetrachordon, or Expositions upon the four chief Places in Scripture which treat of Marriage or Nullities in Marriage " (1645) ; and " Colasterion : a Re- ply to a Nameless Answer against the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce " (1645). His efforts for a change of law were a failure, but he re- tained his opinions till the close of his life. The discussion of the subject which he raised was no less intolerant and impatient than that on episcopacy had been, and during its pro- gress he was summoned to the bar of the house of lords, but was honorably dismissed. Meantime he had published his tractate " On Education " (1644), only the theoretical views of which are important, and had addressed to the parliament the noblest and most useful of his compositions in prose, the " Areopagitica, a Speech for the Liberty of Unlicensed Print- ing" (1644). It is a plea for freedom in lit- erature; but though it contains some of his finest passages of prose eloquence, it was not successful in its aim of abolishing the newly established censorship. In 1645 appeared in a small volume the first edition of his poems. In the same year a reconciliation was ef- fected between him and his wife. She re- turned to his house, and her whole family were generously entertained by him for sev- eral months. After their departure, his abode, says Phillips, " looked again like a house of the muses." He lived successively in the Barbican and in Holborn, and was occupied with writing his history of England when the execution of King Charles (Jan. 30, 1649)