and courage of faithful men, change this her distracted state into better days, without the least furtherance or contribution of those few talents God at that present had lent me; I foresee what stories I should hear within myself, all my life after, of discourage and reproach.'*

This is not the reluctance of a man, who is dragged into controversy against his will; but rather seems the defiance of a forward disputant, eager to come at the man, who dares to oppose his opinions. Yet, in another place, he would fain persuade us, that it was 'with small willingness that he endured to interrupt his other pursuits, and leave a calm and pleasing solitariness, fed with cheerful and confident thoughts, to embark in a troubled sea of noises and hoarse disputes.'† And, again, in a letter to Henry Oldenburgh, written in 1654, 'Hoc cum libertatis adversariis inopinatum certamen, (he says,) deversis longè et amænioribus omninò me studiis intentum, ad se rapet invitum.' He had, by this time, discovered, that a religious brawl is not a holiday pastime; and, being at length somewhat tired of the controversy, he easily believed, that he entered into it with reluctance.

He began to show his good will for churchmen and church government, by writing two books on Reformation, in 1641. In the same year, Bishop Hall published a Humble Remonstrance in favour of episcopacy; and was answered by five ministers, under the title of Smectymnuus; a word composed of the initials of their several names,-Stephen Marshal, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Milton's old master, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstow. To this Answer, Archbishop Usher attempted a Confutation; and Milton first replied to the Confutation with a treatise on Prelatical Episcopacy; but, not thinking the replication complete, he brought up two more books on the Reason of Church Government. Bishop Hall had, in the mean time, published a Defence of his Remonstrance. Milton wrote Animadversions on his Defence; and, when the bishop or his son returned a Confutation of the Animadversions, Milton had the last word in an Apology for Smectymnuus, written in 1642.

The objects of his attack, in all these publications, are the liturgy, the ecclesiastical revenues, the bishops, and the fathers. The liturgy is a mere device, he says, 'to debar the ministers of God the use of their noblest talent, prayer in the congregation;' and why not 'forbid all sermons and lectures too, but such as were ready made to their hands, like our homilies?" He then proceeds to satirize the contemptible necessity of being obliged to eke out a prayer by the adscititious aid of a written form; and cries aloud 'that such wisdom and diligence be used in the education of those that should be ministers, and such a serious and strict examination to be undergone before admission, as St. Paul to Timothy sets down at large; and then they need not carry such an unworthy suspicion over the preachers of God's word, as to tutor their unsoundness with the A, B, C of a liturgy, or to diet their ignorance and want of care with the limitted draught of a mattin and even song drench.'* He afterwards attacks, in detail, some of the 'errors, tautologies, and impertinencies' of the liturgy; and particularly lampoons the 'thanks in the woman's churching for her delivery from sunburning and moonblasting, as if she was travelling, not in her bed, but in the desarts of Arabia.'*

What provoked our reformer the more, was, that beings, thus 'tutored' and 'dieted,' should get paid for doing nothing; and he inveighs, with his last effort of violence, against the system of ecclesiastical finance. It was not, he says, 'the effect of just policy or wholesome laws, but of the superstitious devotion of princes and great men that knew no better, or of the base importunity of begging friars, haunting and harrassing the death-beds of men departing this life in a blind and wretched condition of hope to merit heaven for the building of churches, cloysters, and convents; the black revenues of purgatory, the price of abused and murdered souls, the damned simony of tentals, and the hire of indulgences to commit mortal sin.'† These bolts are aimed more particularly at the origin of the system. A part of its abominations were crushed under the hand of Henry VIII.; but the change, for the most part, was only that of a pope for a king.

The bishops are taken to task, by the schoolmaster of Aldersgate-street, after the following manner: 'There be such in the world, (says he,) and I among those, who nothing admire the idol of a bishopric; and hold, that it wants so much to be a blessing, as that I deem it the merest, the falsest, the most infortunate gift of fortune: and were the punishment and misery of being a bishop terminated only in the person, and did not extend to the affliction of the whole diocess, if I would wish any thing in the bitterness of my sould to an enemy, I should wish him the biggist and fatest bishoprick.'† 'If Milton had been such a saint (adds one of his biographers) as never mist of a favourable answer to his prayers, I question not but at this rate more would covet to be his enemies than his friends.'s The following simile is another mark of his kind. ness towards the prelates. 'A bishop's foot,' says he, 'that has all its toes (maugre the gout) and a linen sock over it, is the aptest emblem of the prelate himself; who, being a pluralist, may under one surplice hide four benefices, besides the great metropolitan.'*

Usher opposed his own learning to Milton's logic; and had, in his Remonstrance and Defence, referred particularly to the Fathers as conclusive authorities. Whatsoever (says Milton) either time, or the heedless hand of blind chance, has drawn down to this present in her huge drag net, whether fish or seaweed, shells or shrubs, unpicked, unchosen, these are the FATHERS.'* In another place, he calls them 'those more ancient and trusty fathers, whom custom and fond opinion, weak principles, and the neglect of sounder knowledge, have exalted so high, as to have gained them a blind reverence; whose books in bigness and number endless and immeasurable, I cannot think, that either God or nature, either divine or human wisdom, did ever mean should be a rule or reliance to us in the decision of any weighty and positive doctrines: for certainly every rule and instrument of necessary knowledge that God has given us, ought to be so in proportion as may be wielded and managed in the life of man.' And what man could ever think of wielding and managing the endless number of ponderous tomes, which go under the name of The Fathers?‡

Milton now engaged in an adventure, which turned his speculations into a different channel. 'About Whitsuntide it was, or a little after, (says his nephew,) that he took a journey into the country; nobody about him certainly knowing the reason, that it was any more than a journey of recreation : after a month's stay, home he returns a married

or

man, that went out a bachelor.'* His wife was Mary, daughter of Mr. Richard Powell, a justice of Sandford, about three miles from Forresthill,† near Shotover in Oxfordshire. How or when Milton first became acquainted with his bride, or what had induced him to marry her thus slyly, his biographers seem not to have the curiosity to inquire. Sandford was in the vicinity of Oxford. Milton must have frequently passed through the place, if we can suppose him to have visited his grandfather, at Shotover. It is not an unheard of thing, that a scholar should make vows of marriage, while at college; and, when we add to the charms of the lady, the attractions of a round thousand pounds, which were promised as her dowry, perhaps there will be little mystery in this stolen expedition. Whether Milton wanted a wife or not, there can be little doubt, that he stood in need of a thousand pounds.

It was an ill-omened match. The lady was a Catholic and a cavalier; Milton, a Presbyterian and a republican; and two opinions in religion and politics, says Aubrey, 'do not well on the same boulster.' She had been accustomed to a great house, a great deal of company, and a great deal of noise. Milton carried her to a confined tenement, which

* Ph ap. Godw. p. 366.

† Todd, vol. i. p. 25. All the other biographers have followed Phillips in making his residence at Foresthill. Mr. Todd derived his information from an officer, who, as he was attached to the record commission, was more likely to be correct. He says, that Milton himself lived at Foresthill; and his account is corroborated by the testimony of Sir William Jones. Ld. Teignm. Life, 8vo. p. 83. Foresthill was three miles from Oxford. Id. ibid.

‡ Todd, ut sup. p. 25.

Nuncupative will of Milton, appended to the 2d Edition of his smaller Poems, by Wharton; and to his Life, by Todd. We shall afterwards endeavour to ascertain, how far this instrument is to be

credited.