In The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce Restored, to the Good of Both Milton took the advanced stand that °obstinate incom patibility of mind or temper between husband and wife is as lawful a ground for divorce as infidelity.* (Masson). He argued with his usual idealistic fervor and showed plainly that no man could have a higher conception of true marriage than he; but he was singularly blind to the weight of the sociological objections to his theory. His views naturally met with ad verse criticism and he expanded them in a sec ond edition under his own name (February 1643 44). In July 1644 he published a less interest ing, but far from feeble tract entitled, The Judgment of Martin Bucer on Divorce.' Then he was denounced before Parliament, which de creed that a licensing ordinance be prepared and that Milton and his printers be sought for. Nothing further happened, so far as the bold pamphleteer was concerned, save that later he came near being examined by the House of Lords, and that he was giver the occasion to write the best-known and must uniformly ex cellent of his prose works, his eloquent 'Areo pagitica, or Speech for the Liberty of Unli censed Printing' (November 1644). It is need less to say that the Parliament he addressed so boldly with arguments, not absolutely liberal butfar in advance of his times, had no oppor tunity to listen to Milton's own voice, which, however, in a metaphorical sense has since echoed in every legislative hall of every free people. It is probable that he had friends in Parliament who blocked the measures taken to call him to account and that in a less turbu lent period he might have paid dearly for his rashness. As it was, he had the dubious honor of having a group of adherents named after him and he published without molestation two more tracts on divorce — or Expositions upon the four chief places in Scrip ture which treat of marriage' (March 1644 45), and 'Colasterion; a Reply to a Nameless Answer Against the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce' (March 1644-45). The temper dis played in the latter pamphlet was not calculated to allay the hostile criticism that assailed him, nor was the rumor that he was courting the attractive daughter of a Dr. Davi, particularly to his credit. This rumor and the financial distress of her royalist family seem to have brought Mrs. Milton to terms. She suddenly appeared before her husband while he was visiting at a neighbor's, begged his pardon, and was taken back.
The united couple took a larger house in the Barbican, and the school was somewhat en larged. Between July 1646 and May 1652 three daughters and a son were born to them, the boy dying in infancy. The mother died not long after the birth of her last child. Mean while her father and mother, with some of their children, had been obliged to live with Milton, and money troubles had arisen, scarcely to be wondered at. Another house had also been taken — in High Holborn — and the school had been given up.
During these years Milton seems to have grown as radical in his ecclesiastical and polit ical views as he apparently was in his educa tional theories and in his domestic economy. He sympathized with the army against the Parliament, with the Independents against the Presbyterians and was one of the first to ap prove the execution of Charles I. His loosely reasoned 'Tenure of Kings and Magistrates' appeared within two weeks of that event, and was probably the cause of his speedy appoint ment as Latin Secretary to the Council of State at a salary of about £290 (March 1649-50). His main task was the translation of dispatches intended for foreign governments, but he had also to answer attacks made on the home gov ernment, and, ironically enough, to act as a sort of censurer of the press. He was given official apartments in Scotland Yard, was ex pected to be present at audiences of foreign envoys, in short, held a post of considerable dignity and importance.
The first of his official publications was his 'Observations on the Articles of Peace between Ormonde and the Irish rebels' (May 1649). The second was 'Eikonoklastes,) a point for point answer to the popular 'Eikon Basilike,' supposed to be the last meditations of Charles I, but really, it would seem, the work of John Gauden (q.v.). Milton's answer, which ap
peared in October 1649, is perhaps the strongest of his controversial pamphlets, but it is now mainly known for its exposure of a plagiarism by Gauden from Sidney's 'Arcadia' and for the over-emphasized evidence it affords of Milton's increasing Puritanism in matters of taste. An other answer to a more important book was the 'Defensio Pro Populo Anglicano,' pub lished in or about March 1650 to counteract the effect produced by the 'Defensio Regia pro Carolo I,' which the learned Salmasius (Claude de Saumaise, professor at Leyden) had written at the instigation of Charles II. Milton's book gave him a Continental reputation, for it was generally felt that he had shown himself to be a match for Salmasius (q.v.) as a writer of Latin, and more than a match as a scurrilous controversialist. Such a reputation was, how ever, but a slight recompense for the loss of his sight, which was partly due to his persisting to labor on this book as a patriotic task de spite the warnings of his physicians. The glau coma, from which he seems to have suffered, would probably have ended in blindness in any event, but the sublimity of the poet's patriotic self-sacrifice is scarcely lessened by this fact.
Milton's next hook was his 'Defensio Secunda) (May 1654), a reply to an invective by Peter Du Moulin which had been edited by a professor in Holland, one Alexander Morns or More, Frenchman of Scottish descent.* Mil ton mistook the editor for the writer and over whelmed him with abuse, not disdaining to rake• up charges of sexual misconduct. Morns naturally but unluckily attempted a reply and was again violently assailed by Milton in his 'Pro Se Defensio' (August 1655). Even the most devoted Miltonian must regret the writing of these gross tracts, although the former does contain interesting passages illustrative of its author's life• and political ideals.
Meanwhile Milton at the close of 1651 had removed to a home in Petty France, West minster. By the middle of 1652 he was wholly blind, but he continued with the help of as sistants to do the work of his office at a re duced salary. The most important dispatches, such as those of Cromwell protesting against
the persecution the Vaudois, were still en trusted to him. On 12 Nov. 1656 he married his second wif , atherine Woodcock, who died 15 months later in childbirth. Milton wrote in her memory a fine sonnet, imitated from an Italian one, but beyond this testimony to her worth little is known of her. We are equally ignorant of the way his house — with a blind father and three small daughters — was con ducted during his two periods of widowerhood. He had a small circle of friends, including two of his old pupils, Cyriac Skinner and Henry Lawrence, Lady Ranelagh and Andrew Marvell (q.v.), the last named of whom from 1657 to 1660 assisted him in his duties as secretary. Toward the close of the Protectorate Ins literary work declined to the writing of a few sonnets and the publication of two or three ecclesiastical and political pamphlets, which are important chiefly as showing that he resisted steadfastly the drift toward monarchy and an established church. It is pathetic to find him at the end of Richard Cromwell's short regime willing to preserve republicanism in name only provided liberty of conscience could be secured. His projects were chimerical and were much ridiculed the nobility of his idealism making but a slight ght appeal in such tumultuous times. The dashing of his hopes as a reformer prob ably led his thoughts back, however, to the channel from which they had been diverted throughout the period of strife. From about 1658 he seems to have meditated an epic poem on the theme of