his troubles, in 1654, his wife died, leaving him with three daughters; and though he married again in 1656, this second wife died in little more than a year. So that in 1658 we find him at the age of fifty a widower with three uncared-for daughters, the eldest not twelve years old. The sequel was tragic, both for him and for them.

In 1653, the Commonwealth as originally constituted was superseded, and Cromwell became, first Dictator and then Protector-a position which he held till his death in 1658. The cause for this change was as follows. The Rump had been a mere make-shift for a Parliament, and Cromwell and the all-powerful army at his back made up their minds that the time was ripe for a more regular government. But there were misunderstandings, and nothing could be done till Cromwell entered the House with a body of musketeers and forcibly dislodged the fifty-two obstreperous members-all that were left of the original Long Parliament. He also dissolved the Council of State. Then, after ruling by the aid of a council of his officers for some nine months as a kind of Dictator, he assumed a Protectorate, and became "Lord Protector" (p. 67).

Now, however, although all England, Scotland, and Ireland were obliged to acquiesce in his supremacy, yet the Oliverians, as his more thorough-going adherents were called, were but a section of the original Army-men and Republicans. To many, "the Protector" was but a king with a new name, and they condemned the change as opposed to true Republicanism. Milton, however, was on the whole an Oliverian, and regarded the Protectorate as the most effective embodiment for the time of Republican principles. He was consequently continued in his Latin Secretaryship, and lost no opportunity of striking a blow by pamphlets or otherwise, in behalf of his favourite opinions. But in 1658, Cromwell died, and under Richard, his son and successor, Republicanism was at a discount. Notwithstanding

Milton's best efforts to uphold "the good old cause," monarchical principles triumphed, so that after the period of anarchy described by Macaulay at page 70, there came, in 1660, the Restoration.

The tables were turned. Milton had fought for a dying cause, and the wonder is, that when all the leading Regicides suffered death, he, too, was not hanged. For some time he was in real danger, but the new Government contented themselves with burning his books, and left him free to resume his poetical labours-interrupted for twenty years by the stress of politics.

His remaining days were spent for the most part on Paradise Lost-begun in 1658. Visited by a few Nonconformist friends, and assisted by his nephews, or the Quaker Ellwood, he gradually elaborated his work notwithstanding his adverse circum

stances

"On evil days now fallen and evil tongues,

In darkness and with dangers compassed round,
And solitude."

His three girls had grown up

His home was not a happy one. ill-looked after, and but slenderly educated. The eldest, who was lame and deformed, could not write; and the other two could write but indifferently, so that Milton can hardly have employed them as amanuenses. He, however, exacted from them service which they found irksome. He made them read to him in six or seven languages, though they themselves did not understand a word. This drove them into rebellion: they deserted him, cheated him, and despised him, till Milton once more took refuge in marriage. His third wife proved a very excellent and careful one.

Paradise Lost was finished in 1665, and published in 1667. Then, in 1671, appeared both Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes. Milton died of 'gout struck in,' on November 8, 1674.

TH

LIFE OF MACAULAY.

HOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, whose father was Zachary Macaulay-famous for his advocacy of the abolition of slavery, was born at Rothley Temple, in Leicestershire, towards the end of 1800. From his infancy he showed a precocity that was simply extraordinary. He not only acquired knowledge rapidly, but he possessed a marvellous power of working it up into literary form, and his facile pen produced compositions in prose and in verse, histories, odes, and hymns. From the time that he was three years old he read incessantly, for the most part lying on the rug before the fire with his book on the ground, and a piece of bread and butter in his hand. It is told of him that when a boy of four, and on a visit with his father he was unfortunate enough to have a cup of hot coffee overturned on his legs, and when his hostess in her sympathetic kindness, asked shortly after how he was feeling, he looked up in her face and said, 'Thank you, madam, the agony is abated'. At seven he wrote a compendium of Universal History. At eight, he was so fired with the Lay and with Marmion, that he wrote three cantos of a poem in imitation of Scott's manner, and called it the 'Battle of Cheviot'. And he had many other literary projects, in all of which he showed perfect correctness both in grammar and in spelling, made his meaning uniformly clear, and was scrupulously accurate in his punctuation.

With all this cleverness he was not conceited. His parents, and particularly his mother, were most judicious in their treatment. They never encouraged him to display his powers of conversation, and they abstained from every kind of remark that might

help him to think himself different from other boys. One result was that throughout his life he was free from literary vanity; another was that he habitually over-estimated the knowledge of others. When he said in his essays that every schoolboy knew this and that fact in history, he was judging their information by his own vast intellectual stores.

At the age of twelve, Macaulay was sent to a private school in the neighbourhood of Cambridge. There he laid the foundation of his future scholarship, and though fully occupied with his school work-chiefly Latin, Greek, and Mathematics-he found time to gratify his insatiable thirst for general literature. He read at random and without restraint, but with an apparent partiality for the lighter and more attractive books. Poetry and prose fiction remained throughout his life his favourite reading. On subjects of this nature, he displayed a most unerring memory, as well as the capacity for taking in at a glance the contents of a printed page. Whatever caught his fancy he remembered, as well as though he had consciously got it by heart. He once said, that if all the copies of Paradise Lost and the Pilgrim's Progress were to be destroyed, he would from memory alone undertake to reproduce both.

In 1818, Macaulay went from school to the University-to Trinity College, Cambridge. But here the studies were not to his mind. He had no liking for Mathematics, and was nowhere as a mathematical student. His inclination was wholly for literature, and he gained various high distinctions in that department. It was unfortunate for him that he had no severe discipline in scientific method; to his disproportionate partiality for the lighter sides of literature must be attributed his want of philosophic grasp, his dislike to arduous speculations, and his want of courage in facing intellectual problems. (J. Cotter Morison, p. 9.)

The private life of Cambridge had a much greater influence on him, than the recognised studies of the place. He made

many friends. His social qualities, and his conversational powers were widely exercised and largely developed. He became too a brilliant member of the Union Debating Society, and here Politics claimed his attention. Altogether he gave himself more to the enjoyment of all that was stirring around him, than to the taking of University Honours. In 1824, however, he was elected a Fellow, and began to take pupils. Further, he sought a wider field for his literary labours, and contributed papers to some of the magazines-mostly to Knight's Quarterly Magazine. Chief among these contributions are "Ivry," and 'Naseby" in spirited verse, and the conversation between Cowley and Milton, in as splendid prose.

When Macaulay went to Cambridge, his father seemed in affluent circumstances, but the slave trade agitation engrossed his time and his energy, and by and by there came on the family commercial ruin. This was a blow to the eldest son, but he bore up bravely, brought sunshine and happiness into the depressed household, and proceeded to retrieve their position with stern fortitude. He ultimately paid off his father's debts.

Though called to the bar in 1826, he did not take kindly to the Law, and soon renounced it for an employment more congenial-Literature. Already in 1824, he had been invited to write for the Edinburgh Review, and in August, 1825, appeared in that magazine his article on Milton, which created a sensation, and made the critics aware of the advent of a new literary power. This first success he followed up rapidly, and besides giving new life to the periodical, he soon gained for himself a name of note. In 1828, he was made a Commissioner of Bankruptcy, and in 1830 was elected M. P. for Calne. In the Reformed Parliament he sat for Leeds.

He entered Parliament at an opportune period, and was in the thick of the great Reform conflict. His speeches on the Reform Bill raised him to the first rank as an orator, and gained