dom." Among his other works written during his residence in Carmarthenshire, are The Life of Christ, Holy Living, Holy Dying, and a manual of Devotion called The Golden Grove; this last was named after the mansion of the Earl of Carberry, his friend and patron. In the preface to this work he reflected upon the ruling powers in Church and State, and the result was he was imprisoned for a short time in Chepstow Castle. He went to London in 1657 and officiated privately amongst the Episcopalians as opportunity offered. At this time he seems to have suffered from poverty, and therefore accepted an offer made him by the Earl of Conway to accompany him to Ireland and act as lecturer in a church at Lisburn. He fixed his residence at Portmore, on the banks of Lough Neagh, about eight miles from Lisburn, and spent two years in quiet retirement. The stipend he received, however, was so inadequate to his wants, that he was obliged to remain under obligation to his friend, John Evelyn, who had assisted him before, and now generously allowed him a yearly pension. Nor did the obscurity of Portmore entirely shield him from persecution. He was charged by an informer with having used the sign of the cross in baptism, and dragged to Dublin, in the middle of a severe winter, to be examined by the Privy Council. His arrest produced a fever which probably induced the council to deal leniently with him. In 1660, he made a journey to London in order to arrange for the publication of his most elaborate work, Ductor Dubitantium or Cases of Conscience. At this time the Commonwealth was on the eve of dissolution, and Taylor was one of those who signed the declaration of confidence in General Monk. The Restoration took place a month later, and Taylor dedicated his new work to the king. Charles appointed him bishop of Down and Connor, to which he was consecrated in Jan. 1661. He was shortly afterwards appointed a member of the Irish Privy Council, and, in addition to the diocese of Down, was intrusted with the administration of the small adjacent see of Dromore, on account-in the words of the writ--"of his virtue, his wisdom, and industry." He was also appointed vice-chancellor of the university of Dublin. Bishop Taylor discharged his various duties with zeal and charity, but he only enjoyed his well-merited honours for six years. He was attacked by fever in August 1667, and died at Lisburn after ten days' illness. Taylor has been called the Spenser of our theological literature; he displays the same exuberance of fancy, combined with a sweet and musical diction. His sermons abound with illustrations, and contain passages full of the finest poetry. They are equally remarkable for erudition, the preacher pouring forth one quotation after another "till his sermons become in some places almost a garland of flowers from all other writers, and especially from those of classical antiquity." It has been said that a finer pattern of a Christian divine than Bishop Taylor perhaps never existed: "His learning dignified the high station he had at last attained; his gentleness and courtesy shed a grace over his whole conduct and demeanour; while his commanding genius and energy in the cause of truth and virtue, render him worthy of everlasting affection and veneration." JOHN MILTON.-1608-1674. JOHN MILTON, who, next to Shakespeare, is the greatest of English poets, was born in Bread Street, Cheapside, in 1608. It was in Bread Street, it will be recollected, that the Mermaid Tavern, frequented by Ben Jonson and Shakespeare, was situated. Milton's father was of an ancient Catholic family, but having embraced the Protestant faith, he was disinherited. Upon this he proceeded to London, and with the help of a friend commenced business as a scrivener, or law stationer. He was something of a poet, and as a musical composer ranked among the most eminent men of his day. Milton was educated with great care; at first he was taught by private tutors at home, but about the age of twelve he was sent to St. Paul's School. Five years later he entered Christ's College, Cambridge, where he remained seven years. He left the university in 1632, having taken his degree of M.A. It was the wish of his parents that he should enter the Church, but Milton had certain scruples of conscience which prevented him doing SO. His father had by this time retired from business, and the family were residing in a house they had taken in the quiet village of Horton, in Buckinghamshire. Here Milton passed the next five years, studying classical literature, and here he wrote his Arcades, Comus, Lycidas, L'Allegro, and Il Penseroso. Milton had early distinguished himself as a poet. He has preserved the metrical versions of two Psalms (the 114th and 136th), which were done in his fifteenth year. His fine poem On the Death of a Fair Infant is assigned by himself to his seventeenth year; and his grand Hymn on the Nativity was composed in 1629. The masque of Comus was performed at Ludlow Castle in 1634. The piece was founded on a circumstance which actually occurred. The two sons of the Earl of Bridgewater, and his daughter, Lady Alice Egerton, in passing through a forest in Herefordshire, on their way to Ludlow, were benighted, and the lady was for a short time lost. This accident being related on their arrival at the castle, Milton, at the request of his friend, Henry Lawes, who taught music in the family, wrote the masque. Lawes set it to music, and it was acted on Michaelmas night, the two brothers, the young lady, Lawes, and the poet himself, each taking a part. The poem of Lycidas was composed on the death of his friend, Edward King, son of the Secretary for Ireland, who was drowned off the coast of Wales in his passage to Ireland from Chester. Being desirous of seeing foreign lands, and especially Italy, he obtained his father's permission to go abroad. He left England in the early part of 1638, and proceeded through Paris, Nice, Genoa, Leghorn, and Pisa to Florence, Here he stayed two months, during which he paid a visit here that he heard of the disputes between the king and Parliament, and of the insurrection in Scotland. It had been his intention to visit Greece, but he now determined to return to England, for he did not think it right to pass his time in foreign amusements while his countrymen were contending for their liberties. On his return journey he visited Bologna and Venice, and he reached England in the summer of 1639. On his return home, Milton hired apartments in St. Bride's churchyard, Fleet Street, and there undertook the education of his sister's sons, two little boys aged nine and ten respectively. In a year's time, we are told, he enabled them to interpret a Latin author at sight. Soon after he removed to a larger house in Aldersgate Street, where he received more boys to be boarded and instructed. But he did not forget the stirring events around him, and he published several works in opposition to the Episcopal constitution of the established Church. In 1643, he married Mary, daughter of Richard Powell, a landed gentleman of Oxfordshire, and a royalist. The lady, having been used to a large house and much company, soon tired of the studious habits and quiet household of her husband; and having obtained permission to pay a visit to her father, she refused to return. After trying in vain to induce her to alter her decision, Milton published a treatise on divorce, in which he argued that a husband had power to put away his wife for disobedience. This was succeeded in the course of a year by three other works on the same subject, and he proceeded to carry out his principles by paying his addresses to another lady. His wife now became alarmed, and a meeting having been brought about between them, she fell upon her knees and begged his forgiveness. Milton was easily appeased, and a reconciliation was effected. He also subsequently received her father and brothers into his house when the further progress of the Civil War had ruined the royalist party. About this time Milton published his Tractate on Education, and his Areopagitica. The latter is a treatise in favour of the liberty of the press, and Milton's views were far in advance of the time. In Jan. 1649, King Charles was beheaded, and immediately Milton published a treatise in defence of the proceeding, the result was, that without solicitation on his part, he was appointed Latin secretary to the Commonwealth. He now wrote several works on behalf of the party to which he belonged. Shortly after King Charles' execution, a work appeared in England called Ikon Basilike, which professed to emanate from the pen of Charles himself, and to contain the devout meditations of his latter days. The sensation which it produced was extraordinary, and it passed through fifty editions in a single year. Milton wrote an answer to it, which he entitled Iconoclastes -the Image-breaker. Charles II., who was now a fugitive in Holland, employed Salmasius, a professor in Leyden University, to write a defence of his father and of monarchy; to this Milton replied by publishing a Defence of the English People, and the controversy was carried on with much bitterness. There is still some doubt respecting the authorship of Ikon Basilike, but the general opinion is, that it was written by Dr. Gauden, afterwards successively bishop of Exeter and Worcester. So early as 1644, Milton had been threatened with loss of sight; his right eye continued to serve him for some time after the loss of the other, but by the close of 1652, he had become totally blind. About this time also his wife died, but he married again in 1656. His second wife died within a year, and he consecrated to her one of his beautiful sonnets. Finally, about the year 1664, he married a third wife who survived him. The Restoration deprived Milton of his public employment, and he was for a time apprehensive of his personal safety. But about three months after the king's return, the act of indemnity was passed, and though some exceptions were named, Milton was not mentioned. It is sometimes said that he was indebted for this leniency to |