unfit for converfation, nor is there that freedom of accefs granted or prefumed, as may fuffice to a perfect difcerning till too late; and when any indifpofition is fufpected, what more usual than the perfuafion of friends, that acquaintance as it increases, will amend all;' and laftly, is it not strange that many who have spent their youth chastely, are in fome things not fo quick fighted, while they hafte too eagerly to light the nuptial torch? Nor is it therefore for a modest error, that a man fhould forfeit so great a happinefs, and no charitable means to relieve him. Since they who have lived most loosely, by reafon of their bold accuftoming, prove moft fuccefsful in their matches, because their wild affections unfettling at will, have been as fo many divorces to teach them experience. Whereas the fober man honouring the appearance of modefty, and hoping well of every focial virtue under that veil, may eafily chance to meet if not with a body impenetrable, yet often with a mind to all other due converfation inacceffible, and to all the more eftimable and fuperior purposes of matrimony useless, and almost lifeless, and what a folace, what a fit help fuch a confort would be through the whole life of a man, is less pain to conjecture, than to have experience.' We may, I think, without the imputation of an unjust severity, confider that to her husband at least, she was a dull uninviting companion, without mental powers or attractive affection, without converfation and without love. For he speaks again of a mute, and fpiritless mate ;' and again, if he shall find himself bound faft to an image of earth and phlegm, with whom he looked to be the copartner of a sweet and gladsome society:' these observations will, I think, put us in poffeffion of his wife's fair defects,' and the caufes of the feparation; and we may reasonably conclude that Milton was fuffering, to use an expreffion of Sterne's, from the poetic indifcretion of his own paffions.9

Whoever differs from Milton in the inferences which he draws, and the doctrine which he advocates, must yet allow that these Treatifes on Divorce are written with the command of fcriptural learning, with many ingenious explanations of the intent of the divine laws, and human institutions; and with a force of argument fometimes difficult to refift. The whole is compofed with uncommon zeal and earnestness, and conveys the fentiments of one who feels his own important interests are at iffue; the causes of diflike in this little month of wedlock, must have ftruck deep root, for he alludes much to rash, sudden, and mistaken choices, he urges the justice of divorce in cafes where a violent hatred in matrimony has arisen, yet not finful, irksome, grievous, obftinately hateful, and injurious even to hoftility; he speaks of invincible antipathies, when the work of forrow lafts, till death unharness them ; and upon the ground, that fuch matches in this mifery are infufferable, unalterable, and without hope, or profpect of termination, he claims the power of release from his unequal yoke. That his whole argument hinges on his own cafe, no one who reads these tracts can reasonably doubt and that his forrows were feen through an exaggerating medium, feems hardly lefs clear. His own experience is the best refutation of his work; his mar

92 No doubt fome cause of disagreement between the Poet and his Bride may have existed in the incompatibility of their political creed. Such fubjects were better avoided in the domestic tete-a-tete at that momentous time, and could hardly be canvaffed without offence to either party. Such is, I prefume, the allufion in his Poem,

Or his happier choice too late

Shall meet, already linked, and wedlock-bound
To a fell adverfary, his hate or shame.

Par. L. x. 905.

Yet Mr. Coleridge truly observes that "Milton's foul was fufceptible of domestic enjoyments, notwithstanding the difcomforts that actually refulted from an apparently unhappy marriage."

riage, though clouded over in its rise, and portending ftorms and forrows, and strife, ended, as we believe, in the smiles of renewed affection, in conjugal endearments, and continued love: and we must also recollect that Milton had lived but one short month with his wife, when this eternal averfion, this perpetuity of hatred, this radical difcord of nature were declared.93 94

That this doctrine was received with neglect or ridicule is evident from a paffage in Howell's Letters. Herbert Palmer denounced it in a Sermon preached before the Lords and Commons on a day of Humiliation. "When the Romans, fays Gibbon, appointed a peculiar goddess to hear the complaints of married life, her name Viriplaca, clearly indicates on which fide interference was required."95 In Walpole's Noble Authors I find this

Let me not be fuppofed

93 See P. Knight's Civil Society, P. 55. to mean a condemnation of marriage, from which I have derived all the bleffings and benefits of civil fociety, but merely of its indiffolubility. There are many causes which ought to justify divorce, as well as that of adultery on the part of the woman, and I think it probable, that if other causes were admitted, this would be less frequent. Divorce is, I believe, as often the object, as the confequence of adultery.'

94 The reader by reference on this fubject to Sir J. Mackintosh's Hiftory of England, vol. ii. p. 275, Hallam's Conftitutional History, vol. i. p. 140; to Warburton's Works, vol. x. p. 88, on Divorce for Temper. Difcarding for temper need never try to refufe its own perceptions, while to parties a relief was still at hand; to Gibbon's Roman History, vol. iv. p. 378, 4to.; to Harington's Oceana, p. 337, 4to.; to a Note on Divorce in Erasmus's Note on the N. T. v. Jortin's Life of Erafmus, T. ii. p. 214, and C. Middleton's Life of Cicero, T. ii. p. 171. See alfo Analyf. de Bayle, vol. v. p. 217, on Boffuet's Opinion of Divorce and Want of Temper. See the Opinions of Erasmus on Divorce, and in controversy with the Dominican Hoveftrate, in Burigny's Vie d'Erafme, vol. ii. p. 521. He confiders that the Fathers of the Church, Ambrose, Tertullian, and Origen are with him, and his opinions are expressed with his usual moderation and good sense.

95 See Gibbon's Roman Hiftory, vol. iv. p. 378, 4to.

Con

notice, "George Booth Earl of Wartington. fiderations on Marriage and Divorce, 1739.' It is an argument for Divorce on Difagreement of Temper." There are, however, in all focieties fome to whom every paradox is acceptable, and who rejoice in believing themselves fuperior to the fettled opinions of mankind. By them it was greedily adopted, and they were named divorcers or Miltonists. 96 The Prefbyterian clergy, then holding their assembly in Westminster, were much offended, and procured the author to be summoned before the Houfe of Lords; but the house', fays Wood, 'whether approving the doctrine, or not favoring his accufers, did foon dismiss him.' The Lords probably confidered the doctrines advanced as too wild and speculative to produce any practical mischief. Milton wished he had not written the work in English. • Vellem hoc tantem fermone vernaculo me non fcripfiffe, non enim in vernas lectores incidiffem, quibus folemne est sua bona ignorare, aliorum mala irridere:' on this confeffion it is plain that the work was viewed as an apology and defence of himself. In Bishop Hall's Cafes of Confcience I have met with an allusion to this Work of Milton's, not noticed by his Biographers." "I have heard too much of and once faw a licentious pamphlet thrown abroad in

96 A paffage in the Electra of Sophocles, by C. W. at the Hague, 1649, 8vo. proves that Milton's doctrine on divorce was not unnoticed.

See also a paffage in Echard, quoted by Todd, p. 56, and in Britain's Triumph, p. 15, by G. S. fight? v. Todd's Life, p. 54.

What, Milton, are you come to fee the

And see also his eleventh and twelfth Sonnets, in themselves a fufficient proof of the detraction and ridicule attending his doctrine.

97 See alfo Fell's Life of Hammond, p. 200.

these lawless times in the defence and encouragement of Divorces (not to be sued out, that folemnity needed not, but) to be arbitrarily given by the difliking husband to his displeasing and unquiet wife; upon this ground principally that marriage was inftituted for the help and comfort of man: where therefore the match proves fuch as that the wife doth but pull down by her afide, and innate peevishness, and either fullen, or pettish and proud difpofition, brings rather difcomfort to her husband, the end of marriage being hereby fruftrate, why should it not, faith he, be in the husband's power (after fome unprevailing means of reclamation attempted) to procure his own peace by cafting off this clog: and to provide for his own peace and contentment in a fitter match? I muft seriously profess that when I first did caft my eyes upon the front of the book, I fuppofed some great wit meant to try his skill in the maintenance of this fo wild and improbable a paradox, but ere I could have run over fome of those too well pennd pages, I found the author was in earnest, and meant seriously to contribute this piece of good counsel in way of reformation to the wife and seasonable care of fuperiors. I cannot but blush for our age, wherein fo bold a motion hath been amongst others admitted to the light. What will all the Christian Churches through the world, to whofe notice thofe lines fhall come, think of our woful degeneration in these deplored times, that fo uncouth a defign fhould be fet on foot amongst us?" &c.98

The golden reins of difcipline and government in the church being now let loofe, Milton proceeded to put in practice the doctrine which he had advocated, and seriously paid his addresses to a very accomplished and beautiful

98 Confult Bishop Burnet's Obfervations in his Life of Earl of Rochefter, in Dr. Wordsworth's Chrift. Institutes, vol. iv. p. 624, or the Index to that work under the head Divorce.