The and out of the bustle of the city. Here he received some additional pupils, the sons of wealthy friends, and occupied his time partly in educating them after a peculiar system of his own, and partly in private studies. It was in these circumstances that he wrote his first pamphlet. Amid the numerous matters occupying the attention of Parliament -the trial of Strafford, &c.-that of church reform was paramount. root of the evil, it was felt by the Puritans, was in the prelatical constitution of the church; and already there were petitions and bills having for their object nothing less than an abolition of bishops, deans, and chapters, and all Episcopal forms, and a reconstruction of the Church of England after the Presbyterian model. Into this controversy Milton threw himself; and, the Press being then free for such opinions, he published in 1641 a treatise or bulky pamphlet in two books, in the form of a letter to a friend, entitled Of Reformation, touching Church Discipline in England, and the Causes that hitherto have hindered it. The treatise answers to its name, and is throughout a vehement attack on Prelacy in its forms and essence. It helped to infuriate the controversy which was already waging. A defender of Episcopacy appeared in Hall, Bishop of Norwich. Hall was answered by a counterblast from five Puritan ministers-Stephen Marshall, Edward Calamy, Thomas Young (Milton's old tutor), Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstowwho clubbed the initials of their names together so as to form the word "Smectymnuus;" and Archbishop Usher came to the rescue of Hall, and wrote a confutation of Smectymnuus. Milton feeling that the prelates were likely to have the best of the debate, both in learning and in literary talent, unless he interfered, grappled with Usher and his associates in two additional pamphlets; the one, entitled Of Prelatical Episcopacy, addressed mainly to the question of the apostolical origin of Episcopacy; the other, which is much the longer, entitled The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelacy. Nor was this all. Bishop Hall having himself written a reply to Smectymnuus, entitled The Remonstrant's Defence, Milton produced a fourth tract, written in the form of a dialogue, and entitled Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence, &c.; and, finally, these "Animadversions" having drawn forth an anonymous reply, supposed to be by a son of Bishop Hall, in which Milton's character was scurrilously attacked, the controversy was wound up (1642) by Milton's Apology against a Pamphlet called "A Modest Confutation of the Animadversions upon the Remonstrant against Smectymnuus." 1643-45 (Milton ætat. 34-36).-The civil war had now fairly begun. The king had his head-quarters at Oxford, and his troops and those of the Parliament were fighting for the possession of the country. The Westminster Assembly had met to help the Parliament in discussing the religious question. In the midst of this confusion Milton took a step usually taken in quieter times. "About Whitsuntide" (1643), says his nephew 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 from 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 of Forest Hill, near Shotover in Oxfordshire." Remon 16).-The ossession nster As says his journey out him or that recrea m home, ary, the Forest 1-hire." There had been a previous acquaintance and some money transactions between the two families. What occurred after the marriage is known to every one. Being no Minerva, but a simple and apparently rather stupid country girl, "accustomed to dance with king's officers at home," the young wife found the life she was leading intolerable, and could see nothing in her husband but a man of harsh and morose ways, whom she could not understand, and who was always at his books. She asked leave to return home on a short visit, and, having gone, she flatly refused to come back. Her parents abetted her in the refusal, and seem, among other things, to have alleged their son-in-law's politics as a reason, they being royalists. Milton's conduct on the occasion was most characteristic. Where other men would have remained quiet, or, if so inclined, have consoled themselves in 5* |