Side 16 af 239

xxiv

author of Comus, and of L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, youth, we should suppose, would be trained in the reading of the most finished and fascinating authors the classical library could furnish. But this is far from being the case. Books which we should have expected to see in the foremost place in the course, such as Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, are passed over in favour of Lucretius. Manlius, and of some of the dullest and least intelligible prose authors in the language. No mention is made of Tacitus, Livy, or Cicero. In the Greek course, we do not find a single tragedian, orator, or even a historian, with the exception of some fragments from Xenophon. Milton's idea seems to have been, that if a knowledge of the language was acquired, a perception of its beauties would come of itself. We should add that the pupils in this unique establishment were required to learn Hebrew, and to read it in connection with the Chaldee and Syriac. Modern languages, too, were not forgotten; and on Sundays Milton accompanied the reading of the New Testament in Greek with exposition, and with something in the way of lectures, or a scheme of divinity.

Johnson inquires satirically for the great men produced by this "wonder-working academy." An educator of youth should have known that the function of a preceptor is to train capacity, and that where the capacity for great things does not chance to exist, it is in vain to expect them. There was, we doubt not, much more in Milton's teaching than could be made to appear in any printed outline. An authority likely to be well informed says, that he made his nephews capable of interpreting a Latin author at sight in a twelvemonth, and that as he was severe on one hand, so he was most familiar and free in his conversation to those whom he must serve in the way of education."1 His nephew Philips remarks, that had his pupils received his instructions "with the same acuteness and wit of comprehension, the same industry, alacrity, and thirst after knowledge as the instructor was indued with, what prodigies of wit and learning might they have proved!" We learn, also, from this last authority, that Milton had personal friends at this time who were reckoned among "the beaux of those days," and that with them he now and then had his seasons of relaxation and holiday—days as welcome to his pupils, we may be sure, as to himself.

In some of those "gaudy" days, as they are called, and in some days of a more sober complexion, Milton, we can imagine, was enough like ourselves to have felt occasionally that it is not good for man to be alone. But a protracted and romantic courtship, at this juncture would not have comported well with his deep interest in public affairs, or with his feeling as to the service which it became him to render to his country.

At that time a family of the name of Powell was residing at Forest Hill, about four miles from Oxford. Richard Powell was at the head of a large family, was a magistrate, and kept up the establishment of a country gentleman. Before the father of the poet left Bread Street, there had been intercourse, and money transactions of some importance, between him and Powell, and in these pecuniary matters Milton was himself formally and legally interested. On the removal of the Miltons to Horton, we can suppose that the two families, from the lessened distance between them, would meet more frequently. However this may have been, we are told by the poet's nephew, who was then under his roof, that about Whitsuntide in 1643, " 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 Richard Powell, then a justice of the peace

'Aubrey.

Masson's Life of Milton.

of Forest Hill, near Shotover, in Oxfordshire." Milton had a money claim on his father-in-law at the time of his marriage, but he was to receive, and we presume along with the payment of his debt, £1,000 with his bride. No portion, however, of debt or dowry, for reasons which will be mentioned, ever came to him. Milton removed about this time to his new home in Barbican, and to that house he brought his

wife, with whom came some of her relations, and feasting took place there for some days, in celebration of the nuptials, and for the entertainment of the bride's friends. Mary Powell, we imagine, must have been a pleasant person to look upon. But what other agreeable qualities she possessed, remained, it would seem, in great part to be discovered. Only a few weeks after her coming to London, a letter came, inviting Mrs. Milton to return for a short time into the country. The lady was disposed to comply with this request, and had probably caused it to be sent. Her husband complied with her wishes, but urged that her return should not be later than Michaelmas. Michaelmas came, but the truant wife did not make her appearance. Milton wrote once and again, but his letters were not even answered, and a special messenger sent, is said to have been dismissed with some sort of contempt. Milton was eminently a chaste man. He must have flattered himself with the hope of happiness in married life. But that hope had now vanished.

Who was to blame for this state of things? Men given to public life may make affectionate husbands, but there will of necessity be limits to their uxoriousness. Women who marry such men should not only be women who wish their husbands to be somebody, but women willing to bear the cost; and the women of that type are few. Looking to the high regions of thought in which the mind of Milton was so often found, to his warm temperament, and the haughty resoluteness of will which characterised him, it must be confessed that the chances of a happy marriage in his case, did not seem to be great. It is pleaded in favour of Mary Powell, that her family were Royalists, that their house, generally cheerful, had probably been made more gay than usual of late by the presence of cavaliers, who had their quarters at that time with the king at Oxford, and that the transition from domestic life in the residence of her father, to what she found with Milton in Barbican, was more than she could bear. In reply, it is sufficient to say, that the principles of Milton, and the earnestness with which he avowed them, were known to the nation, so that they could not have been a secret at Forest Hill, and it was to have been expected that the dwelling which he owned would be no scene of frivolity, but the home of graceful and thoughtful occupation. About the time of the marriage the prospects of the Parliamentary cause were somewhat gloomy. To many, and especially to the king's party about Oxford, it seemed highly probable that the scale would turn in favour of the Royalists, and it is supposed by Milton's nephew, Phillips, that this consideration weighed with the family, leading them to attempt to shake off a connection which, in the probable course of affairs, might be to their disadvantage. If such was really their motive, we need not say anything to expose its selfishness, injustice, and cruelty.

But it is not, we think, to be denied, that both John Milton and Mary Powell had made a mistake. Mary Powell's unfitness for her new relation, seems to have consisted, not so much in her love of gaiety, for her temperament was more phlegmatic than vivacious, but rather in her want of capacity to make herself agreeable to an intelligent husband. It may be said that Milton himself ought to have seen this defect beforehand, and should have abstained from such a connection, and it is a fact that he was not without misgiving on this point. The family however persuaded him that such appearances were natural in such a female at such a time, and would soon wear away. But whatever Milton may have found in his wife that he could have wished to be otherwise, to his honour, he was prepared to abide by the consequences of the step he had taken. Milton did not